Day 16: Sandboxes and Cicadas

Today was another beautiful day, which meant no rain from the sky, but plenty of sweat on our brows.

I had to teach for a short time this morning by myself, as Cherry had business to attend to regarding the park (Cherry is interested in architecture, and as such, she is in charge of the park's design). This was a test of my Chinese skills, but I came away feeling pretty good about it. We taught our students emotion words today; this is related to yesterday's teaching of description as you can sometimes describe people by what emotions they are feeling (e.g. "You look _____."). A distraction to today's class were cicadas, which several students (boys) had brought in to school. So I taught them the word "cicada," and they taught me how to say "cicada" in Chinese (zhī liăo).

At a break in class, some of the boys asked me to come out back with them to play basketball. As some of you may know, my basketball skills leave something to be desired, by which I mean that I am awful. This was not as big an issue as I had anticipated, as I am a lot larger than my students, which made up for it somewhat. When I returned to class however, I was drenched in sweat. I also played more basketball after class, so I was a little bit tired, even before lunch.

After lunch, we headed out to the lower worksite to dig a sandbox for the kids. This was probably the largest sandbox I have ever seen: it was 3 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 30 centimeters deep. Our students came by to visit, and some of them even helped us dig. It was a nice scene, and we appreciated their gesture.

At dinner, Eric's uncle joked with me that if he had a daughter, he would have liked to marry her to me. This may seem a bit creepy, but in China this is a very nice thing to say, and I was quite flattered, although Eric and the others teased me about it to no end.

Tomorrow we will be taking some of the stones we picked yesterday and placing them in the path we dug. The tiling continues, and is nearing completion, and after that, there are only a few finishing touches to add before we can deem the project a success.

I am tired after what has been a long day physically, so I'm heading to bed. See you tomorrow.