Day 16: Bittersweet Ending

Today is our last day in China. Hard to believe 15 days flew by so fast. For me personally, this trip was once in a lifetime. I would describe it with one word: FASCINATING.

We got up a little later than usual due to our late night last night. Jenette and I went to a delicious bakery for breakfast – a great change to the normal routine. Everyone else in the group went to the same restaurant that has had all of our “breakfast business” so far in Beijing (the boys love these fried rolls filled with eggs and tomato, others loved the Chinese pancakes).

After breakfast, we got tickets to go inside the Bird’s Nest and the Ice Cube from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They are truly beautiful structures. However, there are not that many seats in the audience (no wonder Olympics tickets are so expensive). We spent some time just sitting in the seats – imagining we were actually there for the games. An interesting fact – part of the Aquatic center was converted into a huge waterpark and we saw lots of people there today!

We ate lunch at the “McPatio” we like to call it, which is the patio at the McDonald’s at Olympic Park that plays the same song on repeat. Needless to say, we have the lyrics memorized. After that, we made our way to a pearl market. It turned out to have a lot more than pearls: watches, scarves, coats, bags, and high-quality jewelry. However, it is very intimidating. The retail workers are experts at convincing you to buy more than you need at a much too expensive price.

We finally got a taste of an actual Chinese Hot Pot at dinner. I thought it was a wonderful blend of flavor with a mixture of meat, vegetables, and noodles. The best part is the broth at the end with the yummy taste of all the food.

So with this last entry, I’d like to say goodbye to China and also reflect and vow to never forget this miraculous trip. May the Black Rose, LAC bros, and Team Half & Half members have an everlasting bond.

Cheers to great memories, strong friendships, and an experience of a lifetime.

-Christine

Day 15: The Great Wall!

Some adventures involve heroism. Some adventures involve feats of strength. All adventures involve fear. For me, our trip to the Great Wall definitely involved fear.

I still remember (as I recalled for the LAC bros) my unforgettable first experience with the wall 16 years ago. A strange mix of fear and beauty and awe and tension characterize those memories, and my return delivered the same. The LAC bros visited a less-maintained portion of the Wall to avoid the crowds, but that also meant a lot more un-railed staircases and crumbling wall sections. As an acrophobe, I was anxious about our plans, but I figured I would suck it up and go with the plan. I am very glad I did, as the wall was positively breathtaking. Our section was about three hours outside the city, but the views were well worth the drive. Mountains and trees could be seen for miles, and visions of ancient infantry traversing the walls danced through my head.

Fear was a bit less immediate than beauty. The initial part of our trip was still on a well-maintained wall section, and I was very comfortable (and somewhat tired) there. At one point, however, the stairs started to become rubble at points, and the sides of the wall started to come apart as well. That was when my heart started to race a bit from something other than exercise. I started to whine for the rest and complain about the stairs, but I’m happy to say that everyone else seemed quite unfazed by my remarks. As the wall became more crumbled and steeper, my heart raced progressively more, and I started moving way ahead of everyone else to compensate for my desire to “go somewhere safe.” When I reached the highest guard tower, though, I got a chance to look out again and capture the truly epic beauty of the landscape once again. The fear didn’t evaporate until we were getting off the wall, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss its beauty. I hope I didn’t force anyone else to miss it.

Afterwards, we returned to the hostel for fresh clothes and showers. Everyone else got quite dressed up; it was pretty snazzy. We went to a truly fabulous restaurant for dinner to have Peking duck, and I think everyone enjoyed it. We also got to watch the chef prepare the meat, which was new for me too. Normally, I have the duck with scallions, but this chef gave us pineapples, lettuce, cucumbers, radish, pickled vegetables, and cantaloupe. All were brilliant pairings with the tender and succulent duck meat wrapped in thin rice wrappings. It was also Gina’s birthday, so we celebrated her birthday (and Jenette’s, which was two days prior) with a cake.

After dinner, the night was yet young, and we wandered the streets in search of a night market. We crossed many interesting sites and sights like local stores and foreigner bars. The vibrancy of the city is completely different at night from during the day. Eventually, we stumbled upon a night market to get some rudimentary shopping done.

The night market was a great illustration of the difference between Beijing and the rest of the country. As a frequent tourist destination for internationals, Beijing shopkeepers don’t just rely on Chinese and gesturing – they aggressively hound you in English. I got away mostly unscathed, but Nikki got harassed until she left one particular shop. The negotiations for price also show just how inflated prices can be for some products. I think everyone who bought something got at least some discount, with a few getting offers for 50, 60, 70% off. I bought some NBA playing cards that I was very pleased with, but my hunt for the ultimate t-shirt yet lives.

With the end of our trip rapidly approaching, I feel like we’ve all learned a lot about China, each other, and ourselves. OK, that was too cliché, but this trip has been outstanding, and I look forward to one final hurrah tomorrow.

-Jesse

Day 14: The Forbidden City, Beijing

Since we had such a long day yesterday, we decided to sleep in a bit today. We were up and out of the hostel by 9:30. We had one of our first real sit down breakfasts. Yummy Chinese pancakes (I actually got a black sesame porridge which was also very good).

We successfully navigated the subway to the South side of the Forbidden City: Tiananmen Square. The buildings in the Forbidden City were nicely kept up. Their roof tiles were a glimmering gold with the roof beams painted in red and blue color schemes. It was pretty crowded, but quite enjoyable to wander through. The descriptive signs had some of the best English translations that I had seen all trip, which was really nice. However, it did take three tries to successfully find one of the gardens. That was very interesting to me, there were a lot more trees and rocks and less bushes and flowers than I would have expected. There were a few little museums in the complex, but apparently all the good artifacts are in Taiwan – VA 2013?

We next decided to go to the South Cathedral, which we decided was walkable; however, we went the wrong way to start with and the walk was a bit longer than expected: oops. They were doing some major reconstruction of the courtyard in front and we weren’t sure at first if we could enter (which would’ve been a major bummer). But the workers said it was fine, and they weren’t that upset when Eric walked through their wet concrete. It was a nice cathedral, decently maintained, but nothing particularly striking about it. From some of the pictures on display and the fact that there were some people praying inside when we went it, they seemed to have a vibrant community, which was nice to see. This was quite the contrast to when we were teaching the kids about holidays last week. To explain Christianity and Christians, I came up with an analogy: Christianity is to Religion as basketball is to sports. And Christians are to Christianity as players are to basketball.

The shopping area we headed to next was actually a mall and not really a place to barter (which is what we really wanted). We wandered a bit and grabbed dinner there (typical Chinese fast food chains: i.e. Kung Fu). I did buy a cheap dragon ring at the mall! I had been looking for one all trip.

Our next destination was the Olympic Park, which we took the subway to get to. Surprise! It’s the Chinese Valentine’s Day, so everyone and their cousins were taking the subway. I think that was one of the most crowded masses of humanity I have ever been in (at least in such a small place), but it was relatively orderly and always kept moving. I’m not just talking about the subway cars. The stations and tunnels between train lines were packed. At one point we grabbed each other’s shoulders in conga line formation to efficiently weave through the crowd without losing anyone. That kind of turned into a temporary massage train and I’m sure we got a few weird looks. Though not as many looks as when we were singing love songs (in spirit of the holiday) in the subway. Anyways, after three changes and four trains we successfully made it to Olympic Park with only one little incident of everyone tripping over a suitcase in the doorway on the way out of the subway. The Chinese, who normally aren’t very good at forming lines (cutting in line is very common), were very good at lining up at the sides of the train doors to get on and letting people off in the middle.

The Park was a bit more crowded than I expected, but it was very cool to see the Bird’s Nest and the Ice Cube lit up at night. There were also some pretty sweet glowing kites, though we never figured out where they originated. We ended our evening on the quite lovely McPatio eating our McFlurries and listening to the same (English) song on repeat (“I Will Wait for You”).

-Gina

Day 13: From Caves to Beijing

After extensive deliberation the previous night, we perfectly executed an ambitious day of adventures. We began bright and early at 6:15 to get breakfast and grab a bus to Yellow Dragon Caves (about 30 minutes away from our hostel in Wulingyuou). We were the second group into the caves because we arrived so fantastically early and we stepped our pace up so we ended up having these amazing caves to ourselves. After many stairs (a new extremely regular occurrence in china) we were actually ferried on a small boat tour inside the caves. The caves and the surrounding park entrance were some of the nicest and best maintained areas we’ve seen. We were all impressed by the natural beauty all around.

The next step in our plan had us return to our hostel, collect our bags and check out. Then we caught a series of buses that took us from our hostel to Zhang Jia Jie to the city of Zhang Jia Jie then on to Changsha. With all of our scheduling coming together ideally, we grabbed dinner in the Changsha airport and caught our mildly delayed flight to Beijing.

Upon arrival in Beijing, we took cabs to our hostel, a few kilometers from the Forbidden City. Once there, we checked into our rooms, took a few showers and planned our next few days in Beijing. Finally, some much needed sleep around 1:30 AM at the end of the longest day of our trip.

-Keith

Day 12: Zhang Jia Jie and The Avatar Mountains

We woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to find that China had decided to rain on our parade. We were planning to leave the hostel around 6:45 for a long day of about 25 miles of hiking. However, the thunderstorm in Zhang Jia Jie slowed our plans down slightly. We decided to wake up an hour later, and we conquered our fear of the rain and went to hike in the mountains anyway!

We took an amazing cable car ride up the first part of the mountain. We were riding through the clouds, where you could see the mountains through the fog. The clouds blended in with the mountains – it was absolutely surreal. The view was breathtaking – I think it was even better because of the rain! There was one spot at the top where we worked as a group to blow away the clouds so we could see the Avatar-inspired mountains. It really worked!

We walked around a few different areas in the mountain and took a few bus rides before reaching our final hiking destination. We walked down countless stairs spiraling down the mountain, through lots of greenery, and alongside the rivers. We walked in a pretty desolate area in the mountain – the only people we saw were some Russians from our hostel (small world!). After a few hours we reached the touristy part of the hiking area with lots of little shops and food.

We took a group picture in one of the gardens at the end and then took turns taking pictures in the “lock of love” – half of Team Half & Half (EGL) has significant others – they plan on photoshopping their boyfriends or girlfriends into the pictures. Jenette and I bargained for ice cream and then we all took the bus back to our hostel.

After a short siesta, we walked along the riverside in the city (with all the lights and dancing) looking for somewhere to eat. We found a really awesome restaurant along the river where we ate some well-deserved food. I really enjoyed the Chinese version of doughnuts – they were delicious. After we finished, we returned to the hostel, discussed our plans for tomorrow, and went to bed after an exhausting day.

-Nikki

Day 11: Phoenix City, China

A 6 AM breeze introduced this awakening ancient city to me in a gentle touch. We walked along the street, moving towards the river. While passing by an old stone made structure, I saw some movements. The glint of Chinese swords dancing on the stone structure implied a morning practice of martial arts. We climbed onto the structure, finding different groups of people engaged in a variety of activities. Except for Tai Ji sword, we have seen traditional drum practice and Tai Ji Kong Fu lessons. People’s concentration remained unaffected upon invasions by tourists.

Beneath the stone structure, we found winding allies, when we escape from tourism. The empty allies are filled with tranquility. The doors on both sides of the stone-paved path adopt the original style from probably hundreds or thousands of years ago. On the doors, two red posters with pictures of gods can be found. They are the guardians of the family. Legend says that one of the guardians can see things that are thousands of miles away. Together, they are powerful enough to keep danger away from houses.

Crossing the bridge, we saw a different appearance of the riverbank. Shops had already set up, ready to welcome a new day of tourists. A local “wax dye” shop caught my eyes with its contained beauty. Wax dye is one of the fabric dyeing techniques of the Miao minority. The shop keeper is an old lady. She showed us several pieces of her works as well as her studio. It may be the duty of a shopkeeper to introduce the products. I had felt the passion she has for the “wax dye” and the eagerness she bears to share her favorite art to foreigners. As the principal of the school in Jishou had said, the Miao minority group is friendly and enthusiastic.

Determined to use our time wisely, we quickly regroup with all the EGL members and lead them to a restaurant we found for breakfast. In front of the old east gate, we had local buns and noodles. Swiftly, we finished breakfast and started searching for the old phoenix town. Surprisingly, we went into the town before we realized it. We then toured the home of Mr. Shen, a famous Chinese writer, and the phoenix structures, which marked the ending of our Phoenix City visit.

On the bus ride, we watched a German movie called “Gloomy Sunday.” It is a movie that depicts an intricate love story and the influence of Nazis from Hungarians’ view. The whole movie is decorated by the song “Gloomy Sunday” and the meaning behind it. The movie carved layers of thoughts in my mind over the bus trip.

Fighting goats bounce into my mind that is filled with “Gloomy Sunday.” A herd of goats passed by the street, leaving two goats horn to horn in the middle of the street. They seem to be too obsessed with each other and completely ignored the gigantic bus and its strident sound. Another animal incident is a rooster wandering around the middle of the road. It seems to know when to stop and move, but still jammed the traffic for a few seconds.

Greatly disturbed by the five hour bus ride, which is supposed to be three hours, we flocked off the bus where it finally stopped. As expected, the bus station is in the middle of nowhere, so we didn’t suspect much until we found some people still in the station. To further confirm, I ran to the bus and stopped the bus at the last second. Fortunately, we managed to get back on the bus and continued the last one hour trip to our final bus stop. After a friendly chat with the bus driver, he agreed to take us straight to the hostel at a reasonably low price. Great deal! It saved us the trouble of finding a few taxis and bargaining for a better price.

Hospitality welcomed us into the neat hostel, ending our long day with a joyful delight.

-Eric

Day 10: Phoenix City, China

Today is the first day of our tour around the city of Fenghuang, which means Phoenix in Chinese. It is the
hometown to a lot of historical figures and many famous fictions. Everyone got up pretty late due to the
travel and hostel logistic issues the previous day. Then after some brief discussions, we headed over to
the “Miao Canyou” and “Miao Museum” (Fenghuang is the hometown to the Miao Minority group in
China). We joined a tourist group for easier transportation.

It took about an hour and a half to get to the “Miao Canyon.” It was not a boring bus ride at all. The
guide was talking about different and interesting stories/history about the Miao minority group. He
taught us how to say “good,” “is that good,” “bathroom,” and “goodbye” in Miao’s own language. Miao
minority group only has its own speaking language but no written language. He also taught us to sing
a song called “Blossom” in Miao’s language. We got stuck in a traffic jam right before we got to our
destination so we all got off the bus and walked the rest of the way. We walked through some farm
lands and met some interesting old ladies who were somehow trying to force us to buy their stuff, but
unfortunately failed.

Then we took a boat to a cave. The boat was made out of bamboo. It had about ten bamboo shoots
tied together on the bottom and had branches to sit on. We arrived at the first cave which had a
wooden bull head hanging at the gate. The guide told us that it was for casting the ghosts away in the
Miao minority group’s belief. There was a river running through the cave and we walked on the bridge
alongside it. There was a beautiful waterfall outside the cave. It was pretty cool.

We then took another boat trip to the second cave. Unfortunately, on this boat trip there were other
people from other passing boats splashing us using buckets. To make it worse, we were splashed from
both sides of the boat. Many of us got soaked, but some lucky ones who sat in the front missed the fun.
Then we got to the cave. It started with stairs leading upwards into the cave. After we finished the first
fifty steps, we were led into a left turn where we found endless amounts of stairs in front of us, leading
upwards (very high) and into the dark. It was an exciting stair climbing experience, especially because it
was in a huge but dark cave.

Then we had lunch at the Miao’s Village, and they served us local homemade rice wine which usually
expresses the host’s hospitality. The food was simple and traditional. After lunch we went to the Miao’s
Museum, which is a showcase for Miao’s culture and traditions. Then we watched a performance from
Miao’s young adults. There was also an auction for some original Chinese paintings.
Then we had an interesting ride back. The odometer, RPM, and gas indicator were somehow all broken,
so we travelled for two hours at 0 km/hr, 0 RPM, and no gas at all, yet we were able to make it all the
way back to our hotel without a problem. The turns on the way were extremely sharp too. We had many
160 degree turns on the edge of the mountains.

It was a fun day. Then we walked to the riverside for dinner and did some more walking following
dinner. The view by the river was absolutely amazing both before dark and when the night arrived. We
walked on the stones in the river connecting the two banks. Some kids were also swimming in the river.
The water was very clear and you could see the seaweed clearly deep at the bottom of the river.
After we got back to our hotel, something interesting happened. Nikki told me my phone was beeping,
and as soon as I stood up from my bed, it crashed on the floor. Then when I tried to call the front desk
to come fix it, we discovered that our phone was broken. I eventually got my bed fixed, but it was
definitely an interesting and entertaining experience to end a fun day.

-Yijia

Day 9: Volunteering and Travel to Fenghuang

Today was our last day in Jishou, which meant at some point we were all going to have to say goodbye to our kids… something absolutely none of us wanted to do!

We woke up at the usual time and went to have the usual breakfast of buns filled with pork or red bean paste for the final time. Then we headed to class to teach the kids about the topic of travel. You could definitely tell it was the last day of class because you could periodically hear 90’s pop or Chinese music over the speakers in the rooms featuring the karaoke talents of the EGL and LAC crew. Of the performances that I saw, my favorites had to be the “I want it That Way” duets between Keith and Chen and Keith and Eric! After class we took a few class photos and thanked the kids for giving us the opportunity to teach them. Then we headed to lunch/basketball.

As we walked up to lunch we were amazed to see how elaborate of a setup they had for the game! They brought in a scoreboard, a referee, extra seating for the already impressively sixed crowd, and matching uniforms for the faculty. The stage was set; LAC bros vs. Faculty was about to get under way. Keith won the tip and we took a commanding lead out of the gate. The faculty then rallied and overtook the LAC bros by halftime. Thanks to stellar play from Keith, Luke and Christine and solid contributions from Jesse, Eric, Gina, Chen, Nikki, Alex, and Kiwi, the LAC team came out on top by about four points. After many pictures to capture the moment, the team hit the cafeteria for some well desired lunch.

After lunch we all went back to our rooms for the last time to grab our luggage and bring it to the auditorium for the final presentations of the mini projects we had been working on all week. Luke and Jenette lead it off with their presentation on Industrial Packaging. Their kids had some really great ideas and actually implemented those ideas into prototypes that they proudly showed the audience. Then Keith and I went up with our class and sang perhaps the saddest Chinese song through sign language, but it was an absolute blast.

After the song, Keith and Chen went up on stage to thank everyone who had a part in allowing us to help out in Jishou, and we all went up to say a final goodbye. Once we got down from the stage, the kids came and gave us big bear hugs with tears in their eyes. It was incredibly hard to leave them because they were so amazing. They were appreciative of everything, extremely polite, eager to help us with anything and show us their city, and excited to learn. We could not have asked for any better kids to teach. Many of them bought us gifts to show their appreciation. Keith seemed to steal his students’ hearts because he received armfuls of gifts from his students. It was really hard to say goodbye to all of the LAC people too. They, like the kids, were also crazy helpful and fun to hang around with and get to know.

After the tear-jerking goodbye, we boarded the bus to take us to Jishou where we boarded another bus to Fenghuang. After the 21 hour bus ride we started to call and look for our hostel. When we contacted them they told us that they lost power, but we’re pretty sure they actually double-booked our room. We went into another hotel that ended up being completely booked, but we found a travel agent there who helped us find a very nice hotel to stay at. It actually had toilets (not squatter style) along with AC and other very nice amenities. It was amazing to lie down after a long day of goodbyes and travel!

-Joe

Day 8: Volunteering in China

Today’s lesson on holidays was a great example of a few different things:

1.  How much the world really shares, but

2. How completely different our experiences can be (within a country)

3. And how much education really is a two way street

Since talking about the vocabulary and lesson plan last night, Nikki and I were… a little bit anxious about some of the content. I come from a secular background with a heavy Jewish influence, and Nikki is Jewish; our experiences and holidays, therefore, don’t exactly typify those of most American people. We were also a little anxious about introducing the concept of religion in class, but we figured that it would be too difficult to discuss Easter and Christmas without at least mentioning Christianity. Essentially, we decided to go all-in and hope for the best, which is always my favorite kind of plan.

To open class, we had kids come to the board and write names of holidays they knew. We’ve been finding that to be a very effective way of garnering participation from the class, and everyone excitedly jumped at the opportunity to show off (again). Nikki and I were both surprised that the entire board was covered top to bottom with different holidays, and there were no repeats. Fortunately, many of them were Chinese holidays, giving Nikki and I the chance to be the students rather than the teachers. I know that I learned quite a few different holidays (Teachers’ Day on September 10^th, for example), and I definitely got a strong dose of Chinese culture from the kids. Listening to them talk highlighted a lot of differences between the US and China (and our perceptions of both), but it also showed the kinds of things we all value: family, love, and cultural pride (and food).

After discussing some of the other US holidays to many “oohs” and “aahs,” Nikki introduced the class to Hangman while I helped the class write a story, one student at a time. Writing got a little but lost in the shuffle for our past classes, as Nikki and I had put a heavy emphasis on speaking, listening, and reading over writing. I was very happy to see, though, that the kids had fantastic writing skills. I suppose that shouldn’t really be that surprising to me, as I had always found writing in other languages easier than speaking, but I was very pleased nonetheless. Some of the kids who were less confident about speaking in class showed they had great command of the language, and everyone impressed me with the vocabulary that they knew and wanted to use. In the end, the story the class wrote made no sense because each student wrote one line of it, but it was a lot of fun for all of us.

The afternoon was like any other: projects were driven by the students and activities were held inside (to beat the heat). My group for the sociology survey project had to make a PowerPoint for our work, which had me running around a bit to get electronics to work. When the kids finally got to start, it was evident that they had never made a PowerPoint before… and I was certainly not going to be able to explain how to do so in Chinese. I got some pictures from Charlene, though, which at least got them started. While I’m still not sure exactly what we needed to have, we put together about four slides of material for Saturday’s presentation.

The VA volunteers (from here on out known as the LAC bros) spent various parts of the day trying to plan the last day’s lesson plan (travel). At breakfast, the LAC bros assembled a vocabulary list; at lunch, we made some Jeopardy questions; after projects, we tried to finish the lesson plan but got cut short by a surprise sendoff dinner.

It should be pointed out that the headmaster of the school adores us (as do some of the teachers), so she made a point of taking us to a ridiculously beautiful (and expensive) final meal with the LAC volunteers. We rode over in a bus, which the LAC bros filled with the sounds of the Backstreet Boys, R-Kelly, and other pop anthems. This kind of distracted us from the fact that the road on which we were driving was comically small until we noticed two or three cars almost coming head-on at our bus. Thanks to some classic Chinese driving techniques, we were able to arrive safely at our hilltop destination.

The restaurant had its own fishing pond and was made out of the most beautiful soft, amber-toned wood. The entire building almost looked carved out of a single block of wood, and it was in a classic Chinese style that took my breath away. The back balcony, where diners sat, was also suspended over the downward slope of the hill and looked out onto the river, which took my breath away in multiple ways. Red lanterns hung gracefully at the corners of the roof, blowing in the wind. I would’ve been happy just seeing that.

Before diving into dinner, the volunteers from EGL and LAC took at least 100 pictures with the school personnel and each other. For the first time, it really felt like things were coming to a close. And the food… THE FOOD. That was easily the best meal we’ve had all trip. Every meat was cooked, every vegetable was prepped, and every drink (Pepsi, orange juice, rice wine) made an appearance. The headmaster of the school also brought her daughter to the dinner to help translate between English and Chinese. As everyone finished eating (except Gina, who was her usual slow self), we all drifted about the balcony conversing. The LAC volunteers ran down to the riverside for another walk, and they came back drenched after it started raining. We even got a little wet on the balcony, but the storm also brought a great breeze with it. We all cheered when the drops started to fall.

All in all, the dinner was great and it really put our impact in perspective for me. While the first dinner was a welcome for unproven volunteers, this one felt like a celebration of accomplishment (even if our work wasn’t quite done yet). One the way home, the LAC volunteers serenaded us with Chinese songs, which felt like the perfect way to cap the week. While we’re not done yet, I feel like we could leave now and be very pleased with what we’ve given this community.

Also, they REALLY want to play us in basketball.

-Jesse

Day 7: Volunteering in China

By today (our third day of working with LAC), it started to feel pretty normal waking up and then teaching. We had been able to get to know our students a little more over the last couple of days so we were able to teach them and they were able to understand more of what we tried to help them understand. Today’s lesson covered sports which ranged from ones common in China (table tennis) to American sports like football and hockey. We were able to find a couple of videos for football, hockey, and snowboarding which the students really enjoyed, especially the fast paced goals and hits in hockey. We also taught them about baseball but since we didn’t have a video, we had a harder time explaining how it is played. But we made a “baseball” out of paper and used an empty water bottle as a bat and successfully played a 1-inning game. When we finished the English lesson, the students all said their favorite new sport was baseball.

Lunch was delicious as always and afterwards, Yijia, Luke and I went to the convenience store below the cafeteria and bought popsicles. A couple of the other EGLers also got popsicles and Keith’s lemon popsicle sounded really interesting since it contained raisins and vaguely tasted like bananas.

During Industrial Packaging class, each team finished their prototypes. It was great to see how much progress they had made and it felt particularly rewarding because by today Luke and I had made good progress overcoming the language barrier so students were able to ask us questions and we were able to give them answers.

After that class was over, the students wanted to play an American game so we taught them musical chairs. The computers in the classroom already had an eclectic collection of music, so we played the game with music from the Black Eyed Peas, Cascada, Cody Simpson, and even the Carpenters. The kids thought the game was great and we played at least four times.

At dinner we had a potato and beef dish which everyone really liked and afterwards headed to the office to plan tomorrow’s lesson. While we were planning, we started hearing a jack hammer noise. It got louder and louder until suddenly some small chunks of plaster came crashing down from the ceiling and a drill was poking through the hole. The workers told us they were going to continue drilling for a couple hours so Chen found a different room in the library for us to work in.

Gina and I volunteered to find pictures for the lesson plan so we went to the other office to do so. We were really excited after entering the room and felt a cool blast of air from the air conditioning. While we would have loved to stay longer in this room, once we found the necessary pictures, our day ended and we headed back to the dorm for some much needed sleep.

-Jenette

Day 6: Volunteering in China

Today was our second day working at No. 1 Middle/High school in Luxi. It was another busy day working with the children and LAC. When all the guys were up, we went to the cafeteria to have breakfast as usual. For two days I saw Eric running to the supermarket to buy something, which just triggered my curiosity. Eric went to buy milk tea every day, which he loved when he lived back in Asia before he went to UMich, and now he could enjoy this Asian heritage. Breakfast was the same as usual, so we have different kinds of buns (meat, sugar, pickeledvegetables, and red beans) to choose from. However, today the soy machine at the breakfast place went down, so we ate/drank some porridge with the buns. After breakfast, we took a picture with an M-flag as we all work Michigan t-shirts.

We started our English lessons at 8:30 AM. Today’s topics were Occupations and Education. As I was coordinating all of the courses before the trip, I felt that this section was the most unprepared of all the sections. However, after yesterday night’s discussion and everyone’s hard work, it turned out to be a great class. We introduced different occupations by describing what each one does, and the students proved their intelligence – they understood most everything. Then we asked them to describe each occupation in their own words so they could practice speaking. Next, we played charades – we had 5 groups of students and we asked one student from the class to act out an occupation and one person from each group to guess what occupation what the occupation was. The kids loved this fame and it became really competitive.

After a short break, we started to talk about education. After teaching them necessary vocabulary, we started to tell them about the differences between the education systems in the United States and in China. Students were very active in this part and to my surprise, they knew a lot about the education system. We specifically talked about the college application process in the US and some of the students were even going to apply to US schools, which really impressed us. So we decided to give them a brief intro to UMich. We showed them many pictures of our beautiful UMich including the Law Library, Law Quad, Ross, the Diag, Fletcher Library, Angell Hall and our excellent School of Engineering. Students were amazed byUMich and hopefully some of them could become future wolverines!

Lunch was the same as usual. After lunch we all went to our different mini project teams. Today I took a leave from my drama team and went with Nikki’s sociology survey group to see how things were going. I was really glad to see Nikki played a great leadership role in the group and successfully broke the cultural/language gap with the students. We went to all five different bookstores in the town. Before every time a students started to ask a question, they would show the question to Nikki to make sure the questions were OK and Nikki gave them good advice on how to make a good survey and interviews. On the way they chatted about different topics including “Gossip Girls” and other general stuff. I was glad to see Nikki really became part of the group and experienced a lot about locals in China. Also, she used her talent to help the students.

This was pretty much the fifth day for the VA China team, we worked hard again in the evening on our next day’s lesson plan and we look forward to working with the children again tomorrow.

Go EGL and go blue!

-Chen

Day 5: Volunteering in China

6:30 AM: Joe’s cell phone alarm startles all of the guys awake. Today was our first day teaching and we had to report for breakfast at 8 AM. LuXi has proved to be as hot as ever so a cold shower was a welcome relief. We were warned about the mosquitoes before arrival, but so far a closed window and an anti-mosquito candle have proved to be more than enough to keep them away.

Our breakfast consisted of the same pork/vegetable buns as yesterday however today they were brought to the cafeteria for us. After a quick meal, we headed over into the middle school to meet up with our students to begin the food lesson. Jenette and I were partnered together as instructors and it was really interesting to learn how much English our students already knew. We also found that almost all of the students take class seriously, and wanted to learn more. They were very excited about the opportunity to work with native speakers. We followed the lesson plan for the day which included a lot of vocabulary, a crossword puzzle, and “Scattergories.” The students did well, and it was great to get to know their personalities; they’re all great kids.

After class was lunch, where the food was good, per usual. The lunch ladies were reluctant to give us any spicy food and laughed at us when we asked for it. The always serve it anyway and it usually proves to be delicious.

After lunch, the group headed back to the school to work on our “mini-projects,” our afternoon classes that the students get to choose, sort of like an elective. These are taught in Chinese, and we are assisstants. Jenette and I were assigned to the industrial Packing class, since we are both IOE students. The language barrier was really difficult, but they really appreciated our insights. The instructor (one of the Chinese LAC volunteers) even asked us to help design the class! It felt nice to be able to help. We were both afraid we wouldn’t be much use due to the Chinese instruction. The kids put forth a lot of interesting ideas on how to improve packaging for things like toothpaste, shampoo, and baby formula.

After the mini-projects came dinner, followed by a meeting regarding tomorrow’s lesson. We discussed some of the good things that occurred today, and reflected on some possible improvements. This meeting ran until about 9:30, after which everyone dispersed back to their rooms and relaxed until bed. Another great day in LuXi.

-Luke

Day 4: Welcome to Jishou (China)

The girls and I woke up around 7 AM on Sunday morning. It was the best night sleep I’ve had in a long time. We got ready and walked to the boys’ dorm. However, they were quite lazy and got off to a late start. While waiting for them, we toured the school campus. There were some ladies sweeping the grounds. There is a basketball court very close by. Red lanterns are definitely symbolic here. I was feeling a bit dizzy and light-headed (probably from the time change). Already so early it was very humid outside, which probably added to my dizziness. We finally met up with the boys and the Chinese LAC teachers. Since breakfast isn’t served at the school cafeteria, we decided to walk into town. We stopped at a breakfast place to get Chinese buns. They were bread filled with either pork or red bean paste. I told myself that I needed to have an open mind about the food here and try everything that I can. One of my biggest fears about coming here was the food. The bun actually turned out to taste really good!

We then walked back to school and went to an empty classroom to get to know each other. We played an icebreaker game and then talked about the projects the students were doing. I was put on the sociology survey project team with Nikki, Jesse, and two Chinese volunteers. It sounded exciting, like it might be a good opportunity to learn about Chinese customs and culture. Joe and Keith are on the photography project which also sounds awesome to me. Jenette and Luke are working on a production class, similar to IOE. Yijia and Eric are working in the Debate group and Chen is in the Drama group.

We moved to the library to talk about our first lesson for tomorrow: food. We decided to add pictures to the lesson plan and we brainstormed ice-breaker games to play with the students in the afternoon.

Lunch was almost like stir fry. It started with rice, then cooked squash, mushrooms, tofu, chicken, and a spicy mixture of peppers and beans. I can see why Chinese people are so healthy. The chopsticks were a challenge at first but we caught on quickly. However, we eat much slower than the LAC volunteers. I actually love the spicyness of the food – which surprises a lot of Chinese people.

After lunch we headed over to meet our students for the first time. They were overexcited to see Americans and took lots of pictures of us. We gave our students English names and I memorized quite a few of them today. I teach class with Yijia and Tony (an LAC volunteer). Our class is the most energetic, which I love. The students loved to hear me speak Chinese and helped me write characters on the board. Some Chinese boys from another classroom spontaneously came into my room and gave me a hug. They came up to me and said “Um, I’m sorry” then smiled and gave me a hug. I thought that was really cute.

We ate dinner and then started an intense basketball game. It was so much fun. By the end I felt like it wasn’t physically possible for me to sweat any more. Jesse threw me to the ground when attempting a layup. It was unintentional of course J. After that we all gathered in the boys’ room and played four games of mafia. By the end of the day a cold shower was absolutely glorious. We fell fast asleep.

-Christine

Guatemala VA: Day 1 Recap

This post will the first in a series of recap posts about our trip in Guatemala. If anyone has any questions or wants any additional information, feel free to mention this in the comments.

On the afternoon of August 14, our group of nine students arrived in Guatemala City and proceeded to take a shuttle to the Casa Sito Volunteer House in Antigua.

We stayed at the Volunteer House for the night and used our free time to explore the city and grab a delicious Guatemalan dinner.

We got to bed early so that we would be ready to leave early for the Xela Highlands the next morning and start our volunteering.

Day 2 & 3: Travel to China

Christine and I were the first to arrive in Beijing at about 3 PM local time. Conveniently we happened to be on the same flight. After getting strange looks for sleeping on the floor for four hours and finding out that Jesse would arrive an hour later than expected, Christine and I decided to find dinner. After grabbing some “Chinese fast food” we went back to our meeting spot and Yijia and Jesse showed up within ten minutes.

By midnight everyone except Eric had landed. After waiting in a very long taxi line we discovered that they would not take us to our hotel. Although they claimed that they did not know the hotel, the real reason for our rejection was that our hotel was too close for them to make good money off of us. Nonetheless, we figured out that we could take a hotel shuttle from the airport, so the girls got to the hotel around 2 AM. The boys waited a bit longer for Eric. Since Eric and Yijia both speak Mandarin fluently, it worked out perfectly. While we only got one hour of sleep, we all got to shower which made going back to the hotel worthwhile.

We made it back to the airport without a problem. After an uneventful flight to Changsha, we met up with Chen whose luggage magically appeared on the same carousel as ours! We then took an hour bus ride to the town’s bus station where we killed time by playing cards at McDonald’s. I guess we weren’t ready for the Chinese experience yet – that was really the only restaurant near the station, so we sadly ate there.

Our next bus ride didn’t have assigned seats so Nikki and I grabbed the two in the very front row. The Hunan province is beautiful. About halfway into our ride, we entered the mountains. The country side was very lush. Everything was green and there was even occasionally some flowers along the side of the road.

Interestingly, a lot of the road signs were in Chinese and English. I noticed a few other interesting things about driving in China. Our bus driver honked almost any time he passed anybody. I’m guessing he didn’t trust anyone not to change lanes suddenly. Or no one uses their mirrors to check behind them. I think that all drivers in china have very good awareness of how large their car is. People tend to pass each other in very tight spaces, like a small two lane road on the side of a cliff that also happens to be under construction.

We arrived in Jishou and met the LAC volunteers easily. Jesse handed his suitcase to some older woman to roll for him… Guys and girls dorms are on opposite sides of the complex. We dropped off our stuff and had a chance to change our clothes before heading off to dinner. The shuttled us in cars to a local hotel that had a very nice dining room.

We sat at a huge circular table with the largest lazy Susan that I’ve ever seen. There were some brief welcoming speeches in Chinese and Keith spoke on our behalf. Then we ate some fantastic Chinese food. I did not take up the offer for a fork and successfully used chopsticks for the entire meal.

Then we returned to the dorms where I managed to fall asleep before 9 PM. I woke up at 2 AM and was very confused for a second about why I had perfect vision – my contacts were still in. Needless to say I and everyone else were quite tired after two days of traveling (three days if you count the fact that we lost a day flying to China. I am very excited to start volunteering!

-Gina

EGL VA China

*NOTE: this blog is written on a two week delay – we weren’t sure we would have internet access throughout the two weeks, so we kept a journal throughout the two weeks and are now blogging from the great University of Michigan.

Day 1: Day Prior to Leaving for China

I am very excited to go to China! I have been looking forward to this all summer. I was lucky enough to study abroad in Spain earlier this summer, and I found out that Europe is very similar to the United States. I have a feeling, however, that China is going to be very different. I am looking forward to learning about Chinese culture and to teach English to Chinese students. I don’t know how well the teaching will go, because I don’t know any Chinese. I wonder how much experience the Chinese students have with English. I’m curious about the food that we will eat, and nervous about the bathrooms (I was told that they just have holes in the floor – no toilet bowls!). I am all packed and ready to head to the airport. Luke, Jenette, Joe and I will meet in Detroit, and Keith will join us in Seattle on our second flight. We will meet everyone else in China.

-Nikki

Last Day in Cape Town

Hello All!

This is Manny a senior BME volunteering at Ellerton Primary with earlier blogger Drew Johnson. Today was our last day in Cape Town, and we all had to say goodbye to our learners and fellow teachers. It was an extremely emotional day for us all.

Throughout the past two weeks I have gotten to not only talk to some of the teachers about the education system in South Africa, but also experience firsthand both the great advancements and issues of the modern-day system. Many of the learners at Ellerton travel great distances from the townships, which are non-permanant settlements outside of Cape Town, to attend school everyday. While this speaks well for the quality of education at Ellerton, it is obvious that the schools in the townships are as inadequate as the housing. The government is currently implementing a plan to build permanent homes with electricity and running water for the nearly 9 million citizens living in shacks, but this takes time. In addition, the economic gap between ethnic groups has yet to be closed. After a lengthy conversation with one teacher I learned that when the schools in South Africa were desegregated, instead of raising the colored and black schools up to the level of the white schools, standards were decreased to the lowest level. This caused all the families that could afford privates schooling, mainly the white families, to leave the public schooling system. Less than 2% of the learners at Ellerton Primary are white.

While the conditions within the South African education system are not ideal, the children have proven to be a beacon for the future. I spent most of my time assisting in a 2nd grade class and came to love all the children I worked with. They were energy packed and had little-to-no attention span like all 8-year-olds, but were instantly accepting and eager to learn. I was greeted the first day with songs and finished today with heart-warming letters from each (and even a few tears). Many learners do not get the love and support at home and simply needed one-on-one attention and someone to care for them. The teachers are engaged in the classrooms, but do not have the time or resources to attend to each learner's individual needs. I hope that my time spent with them has touched their lives like they have touched mine, and that meeting someone from America has broadened their horizons. Heading back to the U.S. I plan to keep in touch with the learners at Ellerton as they develop into the men and women that will shape the continuing transformation of their country. Based on my experiences with them, I am excited for what the future holds.

It was a crazy day in Cape Town

So you may be sitting there wondering "Nathan, why haven't you added any pictures to the blog yet?"  The short answer is the internet here isn't perfect, and I don't want to rack up a huge bill uploading pictures (they charge by the megabyte).  I will instead posts some picture blogs after we get back into the states and collage all of the pictures into an awesome picture blog.

So on to the last to days.  Today was incredible, we started in the morning at our school (St. Paul's) by teaching the lesson that we did yesterday, which was the Water Bottle Rockets MindSET Module.  We taught grade 5 and 6 about energy, Newton's laws, and force.  We split the learners into small groups where they worked with another EGL to complete a worksheet and build a rocket.  We then (thanks to some amazing engineering by Akshay Desai and Daniel Kiefer) launched the rockets into the air.  They went everywhere from 1 meter to 13 meters.  It was absolutely amazing.  It gave the kids a chance to learn by doing experiments, which, according to some of the teachers is very rare.  All of the kids went crazy over the rocket launches, and I even saw some of the volunteers crack a smile.  I really enjoyed the chance to introduce the kids to a different kind of learning and do something that I've been doing for a couple years back in the United States.  I'm not sure if the lesson will stick, but I hope the kids come running back to their parents or friends and say "GUESS WHAT I GOT TO DO TODAY!?!?!?  I got to shoot rockets in school!".  I would count that as an awesome day at school.

And now, another guest blogger (I swear I could write these blogs, but people are chomping at the bit to blog too [sarcasm]).  Here is Melissa Boelstler to tell you about her experience so far (but really today):

I have fallen in love with South Africa since the day I arrived.  Every day reveals more beautiful wonders than the last. Between the beautiful scenery and attractions, the adorable children at the school, and the amazing people I've gotten to know and spend my time with here, having a bad time would've been impossible.

Today we were able to explore one of the seven new wonders of the natural world (according to some random sign), Table Mountain. It's a beautiful mountain that sits right in Cape Town, and if we went to Cape Town without visiting it, it would just be disappointing [editors note: it was on my bucket list]. All 15 of us met up after volunteering at the base of the mountain to start our hike to the top. We got a later start than we wanted, so to avoid hiking down in the dark we had to be quick. We ended up splitting up into three groups and I was in the middle group (we had a fast group and a slow group, based on hiking abilities), and this is what happened.

So out of all the trails up to pick, we decided on the one called Skeletons Gorge. Yes, I know it sounds like not the best one to pick, but we heard it was easy. We were wrong, it happens sometimes. After about 15 minutes up [editors note: it was 15 minutes of climbing steps, which as the least physically fit member of the group was rather difficult], we came across some ladders. We climbed up about 6 sets of ladders and once we got to the top the trail disappeared. We were in a gorge with a waterfall coming down, trying to climb up the rocks with really no other option.  We literally had to climb up a waterfall for 100 m or so. After some very careful decisions and some awesome climbing, we managed to make it up safely and all of the sudden the path reappeared! There was even a sign that suggests you don't climb that part of the mountain, because it could be dangerous in the winter and rainy months [editors note: the current months in South Africa]. As helpful as it was to see that AFTER the trail, we were relieved to see some stable ground. After a couple hours on much better terrain, we made it up to the first peak, and we spotted the first group in the distance. To make sure it was them we decided to yell out GO and were thrilled when the response BLUE was returned [editors note: this was really me yelling "GO", even while out of breath.  My voice carries a ways]. After a few of those, we finally caught up to them, only to have them start their hike back down to beat the sunset (hiking in the dark is very dangerous). We decided to keep on going to the top to see the full view and take the cable car down. It was about 5:00, and we still had an hour to the cable car, which closed at 6:00. Needless to say we were walking quickly; no one wanted to get stuck on top of that mountain. After losing the path a couple of times, walking through some marsh and strange plants, and, after stopping for a couple pictures, we made it to the cable car with 3 minutes to spare. Plenty of time! We were exhausted, but every second was worth it. From the top, we could see the sun set over the ocean with the mountains range running straight into the coast. Even the cable car ride down was an amazing sight.  Definitely something that you can't see anywhere else [editors note: unless you check the blog after we get back, when I will be posting videos].

More Guest Blogs from South Africa

Today we have Andrew Czyszczon writing about his experience so far:

Hi everyone,

I'm Andrew, a Junior studying Mechanical Engineering. I'd like to share a bit about my day today, which is similar each day in structure but offers new experiences and adventures daily . Since St. Paul's Primary School is the furthest of the 3, we left the volunteer house around 7:15AM and arrived at the school about 15 minutes later. The past few days we've been working with some 5th-7th graders who come in early to get extra help with their math work. The first week or so I was primarily with fourth grade classes, spending at least one day with each class and also moving around with specific teachers (i.e. math, technology, etc.). This opportunity has allowed me to get to know some of those students individually, even creating super-cool handshakes with several of them. Last night while going to the local grocery store for some snacks one of the kids spotted me from across the store and yelled my name while frantically waving. Today, I was actually with a few 2nd grade and 3rd grade classes which was a new experience. They were probably just as rowdy as the 4th graders, but at a slightly lower volume. During the day today as well I was able to grade some practice exams with Melissa which I think the teachers appreciated because it allow them extra time to work with the children.

The nice thing about working at the school furthest from the house is that we are near "downtown" Cape Town as well as several museums. After work today we visited a museum known as the "Slave Lodge," which formerly housed slaves of the Dutch East India Company in the 17th and 18th centuries. I found it pretty interesting to learn that slaves  were actually brought to South Africa from other countries including Indonesia, Mozambique, Madagascar, as well as West Africa where a majority of slaves brought to the Americas were from. The museum building also housed several interesting exhibits relating to the region, from weapons and treasures of the original Dutch settlers to a silent film and photographs from an Italian anthropologist/movie director who visited the Zulu people in South Africa in the 1920s.

Following our visit to the museum we decided that it would be nice to walk back to the house and stop for food along the way. Once we determined where we were in the city we decided to find a restaurant we learned about during our initial tour, the East Asian Bazaar. The restaurant itself was over a block long and had counters where an incredible variety of Indian food was being prepared. After eating the walk back proved necessary and fortunately we had amazing weather to enjoy along the way.

Hope you've enjoyed reading this blog...and now back to South Africa.

-Andrew

Nathan's footnote:
Tomorrow we will be launching water bottle rockets.  Oh yes, I'm bringing MindSET to South Africa.

South Africa Guest Blogger #1

And now, a guest blog from Drew!

Hello All!,

My name is Drew Johnson and I am a senior in Nuclear Engineering. In fact, I am the only nuclear member of EGL, which makes me "special" and "unique". At least that is what the rest of the EGL community keeps telling me. My trip to South Africa has been an amazing one, starting in Washington state. I took a slightly different route to SA, going through London right after the close of the Olympics. Despite the 15 hour layover, I got to take a picture with a member of the gold medal winning four-person crew team from South Africa. At that moment I knew my trip was about to be ultra-amazing.  Since arriving here, I have been working at Ellerton Primary School. I've primarily been working in the school library where my responsibilities include putting books away and helping the kids with various projects. One of the coolest things about the library is that I get to see and interact with all of the different classes and grades at the school. This gives me a unique perspective on the progression of the students and how they develop over their years of education at the school. Other students volunteering at the school celebrated instant fame as they were welcomed into their classrooms with gratuitous amounts of hugs and affection. I, on the other hand, did not receive such a warm welcome until very recently. I attribute this to the fact that I am the only one of the school campus who has a beard, and I believe they think I look scary. I swear I'm nice! Most kids in the school think that  I am 35, even though I am one of the younger volunteers in our group. My facade as "The Enforcer" has diminished as of later, and the children have become more social and curious around me. I talk with them about America and coming from the west coast. They are always disappointed when I tell them I don't know celebrities like Beyonce. Some projects include studying the flags of different countries, where America is a favourite, and writing biographies about famous people. A few children decided to write their biographies about me, where I was more than happy to contribute my time and attention to help them to complete their project. I have also had the privilege of teaching an entire class for the day with the help of the other volunteers at Ellerton. I can assure you it is a much different experience than teaching nuclear classes back at Michigan! It would be hard to find a better bonding experience than handling a class of 6th graders for a day. The cultural experiences don't end at the doors of the school. The volunteer house has many people from England, Ireland, Russia, and Germany. Speaking with them and learning about their stories has been as interesting as learning from the kids at school. Bonding with learners from school, guests at the volunteer house, and fellow EGL members has made this a trip I will never forget. Friendships have been forged here that will never fade and I look forward to the upcoming year with the new relationships I've developed in the past week. So much has happened in the last week, and I couldn't ask for a better crew to be here with. With an entire week to go, I can't wait for the fantastic adventures still in store for me and the rest of the gang. Hopefully we get to keep teaching maths all day and bonding with the Ellerton crowd. From Cape Town, Stay classy Ann Arbor and Go Blue!

Cape Town Weekend Recap!

Hello Everyone! This is Tim Curran, a senior CHE/IOE student on the Cape Town VA trip. I am writing a blog post to first briefly talk about my experience volunteering, and then to talk about some of our weekend adventures, specifically Friday night and Saturday.

As Vicki mentioned in her previous post, I am working along with her at an elementary school near downtown Cape Town. While she has been placed in the 1st grade, I am in a class of 42 6th graders, which has been an exciting but exhausting experience! I have been helping wherever the teacher needs assistance, whether that is teaching a science lesson on photosynthesis (I did that two hours into my first day), grading math quizzes, or typing up English assignments for the kids to complete. So far it has been a great experience, and I look forward to continuing to volunteer again starting tomorrow!

On Friday night, we had the opportunity to go to dinner with an EGL alumni named Ryan Purcell who lives and works in Cape Town. We went to dinner at a place called Mama Africa at the heart of downtown Cape Town and enjoyed a delicious meal. The more adventurous of us tried delicacies like warthog, crocodile kebabs, ostrich steak, kudu (antelope) steak, or springbok (gazelle) steak, and everyone had a great meal and a fun time meeting Ryan [editors note: there was a combo plate for ~R250, so instead of ordering that the business savvy EGLs each ordered one of the meats for R125 and just shared, because EGLs rule]. The evening showed us that the network of EGL alumni truly extends everywhere!

On Saturday the schools were closed, but we still had an early morning, as we had a full day touring Cape Town and seeing the sights. We started the day with a beautiful scenic drive through Cape Town along the ocean, and we eventually reached Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost western part of Africa. From here we had some spectacular views, especially from the lighthouse on top of Cape Point. After driving to an area nearby and enjoying lunch at a seaside restaurant, we went to an area called Boulders, where we were able to see a multitude of African penguins. They were even smaller and cuter than we had anticipated, and it was difficult to restrain ourselves from trying to bring one home as a pet! In addition to the penguins, some other animal sightings for the day included several ostriches and a group of baboons, so we were able to see plenty of South African wildlife. After seeing the penguins, we ended the day with a tour and wine tasting at Groot Constantia, one of the wine farms in the greater Cape Town area [editors note: don't worry, everyone was of legal South African drinking age]. Our guide, Eon, was friendly and funny and made the day even more enjoyable, and we are excited to have him as our tour guide for the rest of our weekend activities!

And now to talk about today's activities, it's back to Nathan!

Luckily for us, we got to sleep in till 8:30 am this morning!  It was amazing, since we all went to bed before midnight.  We started the day off with a quick trip to the oldest building on the island, the castle (it's really a fort).  This was built by the Dutch and then occupied by the English, then the Dutch again, then the English again, and finally it's now occupied by South Africa.  It housed a lot of 1700s war memorabilia and was a very interesting relic of the Colonial era.  We then took a short boat ride over to Robben Island, where many policial and regular prisoners were held during the aparthied era, including Nelson Mandella.  We first toured the island in a boat, and then walked through the prison itself.  It gave many of us a chance to reflect on the suffereing that some people went through to give the freedom that all South African's enjoy today.  Nelson Mandella, specifically, was imprisoned for 27 years, which is longer than all of us have been alive.  I personally felt touched at the sacrifices made by people like Mandella in the name of equality and freedom.  After that, we took a ferry back to the mainland and drove up to Signal Hill, since Table Mountian was closed.  We had a mini EGL photo shoot with lots of crazy pictures (which I promise I'm going to post later... seriously) and got to enjoy a very nice view of Cape Town.  We then headed back to the house, excited to spend another week volunteering and helping our awesome learners out.

Look for another guest blogger from South Africa tomorrow, and maybe even some pictures.

Checking in from Guatemala: 8/19/2012

Hello everyone,

This is Karl Nagengast checking in from San Mateo, Guatemala. I apologize for the lack of updates but I haven't had much time on the internet to write blog posts. I plan on including much more detailed recap posts when I get back to the states. For now, the summary is as follows: we flew into Guatemala City and spent the night in Antigua. The next morning, we took a shuttle to San Mateo to begin our volunteer work. After completing two full days of volunteer work, we traveled to Laguana Chicabal with our host Tino. Today is our final full day of work. Sorry again for the breif message but I have to run to breakfast.

It's the weekend in Cape Town!

Sorry about the delay folks, we were without internet yesterday. We've entered our first weekend on the Volunteer trip and we have all been having an amazing time. We have been busy volunteering at our schools and trying to soak in as much of the culture as possible. We are split 8-4-3 between three different schools in Cape Town. I can only speak for the school with 8, but we will have others blogging about the 4 and 3 schools. Our school is St. Pauls Primary school, and it is located on the side of a mountain. It has about 800 learners (students), and they sit about 40 to a class. The learners are grades R (kindergarten) through 8. We were thrown into the proverbial fire from pretty much the first moment we set foot in St. Pauls. After a quick tour, we split into different class rooms and helped with everything from reading to maths to technology to PE. We have even been put in charge of classes when teachers do not show up. It has been very challenging work, but extremely awesome. A couple highlights have been when I spent most of a period helping a couple learners complete a worksheet about reading comprehension and the wheel. The teacher later remarked to me that that was one of the few times that one of the learners I helped had actually done his work. The teachers simply do not have time to give individual attention to students, so us getting a chance to help them will hopefully make a huge difference. I also found a kid in my class with my first name (Nathan). Since the learners are required to address everyone formally ("Master ___, Sir, Mam', etc), the kids started addressing me as Sir. Nathan. After schools, the learners will usually approach one of the volunteers and ask "when are you coming back?" and "will we see you tomorrow?" with these huge grins on their face. Now for a bit from the other schools, here's Vicki Yu who is volunteering at Prestridge Primary School with Tim and Tom Curran. Our school has around 800 students from grades R through 7. Each class has 40-45 students with just one teacher. The first day walking through the entrance of the school, we were drowned by hundred's of children running, playing and screaming in the courtyard. Somehow making our way through the wild playpen, we found our way to the principal's office. He quickly gave us a tour of the school and immediately assigned each of us to a classroom. I got placed in a first grade classroom and was ecstatic to work with the younger kids. When I first walked into the classroom, all the students instantly looked my way gleaming with the biggest smiles. As volunteers, it is our responsibility to aid the teachers with their daily lesson plans and occasionally take over the class. The kids are ALWAYS full of energy and overly excited to learn, however as you may imagine, forty students is a wild goose chase for one teacher. Some highlights of my volunteering experience have been teaching the students how to subtract with their fingers, singing the ABC's with them and playing with the students during break time. (By playing with the students, I really mean giving them piggy back rides, airplane rides and letting 20 kids climb on me at once.) We get quite the physical workout at school! Nevertheless, the endless hugs, kisses and adorable smiles makes every moment of the experience memorable and worthwhile. Waking up the morning knowing that I get to see those smiles right away is my favorite part of this abroad experience

Reporting in from Capetown

We have finally landed in Cape Town!  After an exhausting 1.5 or so days of travel we made it to our volunteer house in Cape Town.  The weather is nice and chilly, which is a nice change of pace from hot and humid.  We are about to go to sleep and start our volunteer orientation tomorrow.  We should have plenty of awesome stories to tell in our next blog post!  Some more thoughts now that we've landed:

Meital Haas: "I'm excited to be here!  I can't wait to start tomorrow!"

Andrew Czyszczon: "The flights were long, I didn't sleep, I watched some movies, did some seated calisthenics.  Flying over Africa was amazing though, I got to see the desert from the air. I can't wait to see Cape town in the light (we flew in at night). They drive on the left side of the road here, which was really cool to see.  I like everybody we are sharing the volunteer house with and I can't wait to stop."

Manny Hill: "I'm too tired to answer your questions Nathan."

We hope to have plenty of cool pictures in our next post Tuesday or Wednesday!

Preparing for Guatemala

Hello everyone,

Despite what it may say below, I am actually Karl Nagengast and not Nathan Rowley and I will be the blogger for the Guatemala VA trip. I am in the process of packing my stuff and making sure that I bring plenty of DEET. The Guatemala trip will take place from August 14th to August 27th and I will do my best to blog about our trip as I go. If (as I expect) we have very limited internet, I will write the blog on paper as I go and take plenty of pictures to post after the fact. Thank you to everyone that made this trip possible and I appreciate everyone taking the time to follow our trip.

Greetings from the Chicago Airport

Greetings from Chicago! The EGL VA South Africa trip has officially started with myself and three other EGL taking the red-eye from Detroit to Chicago. We are now waiting at the gate for our flight to Cape Town through South Africa, and it's exactly as exciting as it sounds. Anticipation runs high as I wait for more people to talk to. Some initial thoughts from the poor souls sharing this gate with me:

Dan Kiefer: "I'm glad I found the terminal. I'm also excited to fly on a triple 7 (being carried by GE-90s, he pointed out), whatever that means."

Nick Clift: "This is awesome. I love staring at planes take off."

Phillip Bunge: "I'm excited. Also Nathan is the best blogger ever! (The second half of the sentence may or may not have actually happened)."

Nathan Rowley: "First time of the continent! If you had told me 4 years ago I'd be on a plane to South Africa, I wouldn't have believed you. The chance to go halfway around the world is an amazing one, and I'm so thankful to everyone who helped make this happen!"

Alec Cohen: "I am so excited. I was too busy bugging Nathan to start the blog to come up with anything else."

Some Pictures:

Nathan and Dan at the gate (I hope this will be the lamest caption from the trip).

Nick ponders what the next two weeks will hold.

Welcome!

Hi reader, and welcome to the EGL Volunteer Abroad blog for 2012. My name is Nathan Rowley and I am the main blogger for the South Africa trip. My co-blogger for the Guatemala trip is Karl Nagengast, and the EGLers blogging from China will be Christine Zugaro and Nikki Haven. As a forewarning, we may not have internet access in every location, so if that is the case we will be posting the blog for that site on a two week delay. I would like to use the rest of this post to thank all of the people making this awesome trip possible, especially our EGL alumni who provided us with the financial support for everyone to go on this trip. As for the future of this blog, expect everything from penguins to guest bloggers to pictures (assuming I can figure out how to post them). From everybody at the EGL blog team, I sincerely hope you enjoy our blog.