Day 14: The Pieces Are Coming Together

It's amazing how it's only towards the end of a project that you see how much progress you have made.

Today we continued our teaching of time-telling with an exercise where we had the students talk about their days. They paired up and they each found out the other person's schedule. One person was to find out what the other person's usual schedule was (present tense), and the other person was to find out what the first person did last Saturday (past tense). As with the map, this went well for some students and poorly for others. Cherry and I have decided that it would be best to place a few of the kids who are struggling more in the class that Tao Yuan and Eric are teaching, so that we might progress a bit faster and make the class more worthwhile for the other kids.

Towards the end of class, a girl I had never seen before came up to me and asked me if she could have a word with me. I went outside and she and her friend explained that they were local high school students who had heard that we were here and were curious as to what we were doing. They were especially excited when they found out that I was American. So I spoke to them, sometimes in English and sometimes, when they couldn't understand, in Chinese, and told them about the park and our teaching English. They were also interested in what my life was like in America, so I talked about that a little bit, too. We exchanged e-mail addresses and they went home. I share this anecdote for two reasons: first, because this sort of practice would be considered unusual in America and thus illustrates another cultural difference, and second, to again highlight how much of an outsider I am here. I have been here two weeks now and still people stare whenever they see me. I don't mind much, but I'm surprised at how little they try to conceal their interest.

After lunch, we waited out the rain and headed out to work. However, a couple days ago (when we were lifting those marble slabs), Eric's grandmother saw us coming home and thought we looked tired, and so she yelled at Eric's uncle and told him that he made us work too much. He is now a bit more hesitant to give us what we consider to be our fair share of work. Additionally, the project is nearing completion, and this stage requires at the very least a semi-skilled laborer, which we are not. So our tasks are now restricted to hauling materials, shoveling dirt or stone, and moving rocks. Today we did all three. The pebble bed has been laid down in the paths we dug, and cement poured on top of that. Now we have to pick out attractive stones to place in the cement to make a pattern. We have to finish tiling the designated areas of the park, and move in the tables. This should take no more than three or four more days, if the weather cooperates.

Because we are not able to do as much labor, we have started to work on some of the other projects that Eric's father has already completed, including the building of a bridge and the opening of a waste management facility. Our tasks include financing (this evening we sat and copied the invoices from this project onto the computer) and marketing. As these efforts are entirely donor-funded, the accounting must be particularly meticulous. As far as marketing goes, we must make the project look attractive, not only to the businessmen who are potential investors, but also to the locals themselves, so that they see the projects as a positive contribution.

That's about it for today, but I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on our efforts with these other projects as well as the final stages of the park.