Chapter 11: Ethnic China

The backyard of Xiao Zhen's home

 Three days ago, some of my team members here in Wen Shan and I went to a village to celebrate that they have running water. The water project team worked on a well in this village for a very long time, and finally they got it to work and the village has running water for the first time. So it was a big deal!
All of us who went took different directions, and I happened to go with the a family who is living here in Wen Shan. BL and AL (for your reference) are from Oklahoma, and they have 8 kids who are absolutely adorable and so much fun!

oink!

They have asked me if I would be able to baby-sit them while I'm here - um YES!!! :D So that's probably going to be happening sometime soon... :D

So the L's and I went to the village together, but we first stopped at their old house helper's village that was on the way to our final destination. She is a young Chinese woman, and she has one son and is pregnant with her second baby. She lives with her husband, mother, father, and husband's younger sister. They cooked lunch for us and we spent a couple hours visiting with them.

Xiao Zhen's first son

i just really like this picture...

An Chuan's village

Then we went to An Chuan's village where we celebrated the village's running water. (An Chuan is a Chinese friend who lives in this village.) It was beautiful scenery and a gorgeous day - particularly for photos!

We walked through the whole village to get a look around, and it was such a cool experience for me. "I'm walking in a Chinese village... a real Chinese village... this is so cool!"
I kept feeling like Ingrid Bergman in the movie called The Sixth Inn of Happiness. Anybody seen it? You would understand if you have ;)

they have a ton of chili peppers throughout the village hanging up to dry ou

mooooooo

heading down to the school to see the dancing and to eat dinner later

i've never seen a duck that looks like that. have you?

the whole village gathered to at the school to celebrate that they now have a well and running water

the elderly ladies of the village

We eventually got to the village school, where everybody was gathered to watch dancing for the celebration. There were several groups of Chinese women dancing and all dressed up in costume that represented their minority.

 Later on, everybody put tables together in the school and a few guys brought out trays of food for the whole village. It was really cool, I just can't get over the idea that I walked through an ethnic, rural village in China. It was a totally new experience of the Chinese culture.
Supposedly I should be able to visit a lot of villages while I'm here in Wen Shan! :)

That's all the news for now. The kids at the PT center come in on Monday, and I'm super excited to start working with them. Keep me, the kids, and their families in your thoughts! I'll let you all know how it goes. :)

PS Sooo I kind of messed up the little reactions thingy at the bottom... I wanted to add more and it just wasn't working with me. So for now, if you have any of the reactions listed below, just click the box. I'll fix it as soon as I figure out how!! :P

these little girls were hanging around me for a little while, so i decided to have fun with them and take pictures :)

so cute!

this is my favorite picture

Stuffed Zucchini! So Simply Delicious :)

Hey Friends! I recently came upon this very tasty recipe for Stuffed Zucchini. It's really, really good, and I think a hearty vegetable dish for any meal, or even a main dish on its own. It's very simple, and a really nice recipe to have in China since it's mostly fresh vegetables - nothing complicated.


Stuffed Zucchini
Preparation Time: 20-30 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
2-3 zucchini
1 tomato
1/2 onion
2 green peppers
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves chopped garlic
One small package seasoned crackers (about 20 crackers)
Grated Cheese (here in China all we have is white cheddar - use the cheese of your choice!)

Directions:
Cut each of the zucchini in quarters. Steam the zucchini until you can fork it. While it's steaming, chop up the rest of the vegetables and mix them together in a large bowl. Crush the crackers pretty finely and mix them in with the vegetables. Mix in the cheese.
When the zucchini is done, scoop out the insides so that the shells are left. Put the shells into a metal pan. Mix the insides of the zucchini with the vegetable mix. Use a spoon to stuff the mix into the zucchini shells - fill them up pretty good.
Put the pan of shells in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they look a little golden brown.

Bon apetit! If any of you try it, let me know what you think! :)

Chapter 10: I know, I'm way over due...

It’s been really busy these past couple weeks, thus preventing me from making myself sit down and blog an entry… sorry! BUT last week was really awesome and intense. I went through Physical Therapy training in Kunming. I wish I had taken my camera to take pictures so I could show you all the sweet children I saw and what we did. But the training was really good and I feel more equipped for working with the kids in Wen Shan.

I’m staying one more week in Kunming, then I’ll head back to Wen Shan – but I’ll only be there for about two weeks, because in about two-and-a-half weeks from now “Beauty and The Beast” opens at KIA!!! I forget if I mentioned earlier that Lexi was cast as Belle and Wyatt as Lafou for the play, and I’m so excited to see it. I keep hearing it’s going to come out really well.

My project for the kids in Wen Shan is pretty much finished! I have the posters and cards made and laminated, and they look amazing, basically exactly how I pictured them. Now all I have to do is make songs and get pictures of animals, and then make it a functional learning tool for the kids. But I can’t do that until I actually use it with the kids… we’ll see how that goes!

There’s not much else to report, really, except that Gd is definitely stretching me here in China. He’s challenged me to look at the world, myself, and my faith in different ways. One really cool thing he’ taught me is I can have peace whenever I want to – it’s just a matter of obeying him with a willing heart, and he fills it with his peace and assurance. I’m excited to go back to Wen Shan and to see what it’s like to live with the different perspectives he’s given me.

Hope you all are doing well!

Chapter 9: Beautiful Places

It's been a long time since I've blogged, I've been busy moving from one place to the other!
I got into Kunming this past Thursday, and left on Friday with my family and the other foreign teachers from the college for Gui Lin and Yang Shuo. These two cities are known as some of the most beautiful tourist spots in China, and they definitely live up to that title!

Gui Lin and Yang Shuo are both famous for their hills that pop up all over the place. And everything there is so green, so the scenery is just gorgeous.

  We climbed mountains, saw caves, walked through the cities, and had a lot of fun just exploring the tourist spots. In Yang Shuo we spent one evening in the West Street, which is also known as the Foreigner's Street. It has a ton of restaurants and pubs with western foods, and it's a popular place to hang out on the weekends for foreigners and locals alike. So it was a good balance of seeing the pretty sights and hanging out in the fun places. 




One really cool thing we did in Gui Lin was a visit to a Pearl Museum/Store, and a tour guide at the museum showed us how they take the pearl out of the oysters. It was so cool! I had always wondered where the pearl sits inside the shell.

 

Probably my favorite part of the whole trip was connecting with Caro, the girl I'm standing with in this picture to the left. She is Chinese and teaches English at the college where Dad teaches. She's a few years older than me, but we connected and spent pretty much the whole trip together. She's a really sweet girl and very fun to talk to. We had some really awesome conversations. She and I shared with each other about our cultures, our beliefs, our hopes for the future - so many cool topics. I have great hopes for her life, especially as I'm going to be connecting with her more and talking to her in the future. So keep her in your thoughts!
So, all in all the trip was good. Now I'm back in Kunming and will be here with family for a week and a half. I'm still working on my project, and hopefully this week I will go shopping for the materials I need to make the posters! I'm so excited for this, especially as I keep doing research and ask people for ideas - Gd is definitely providing me with ideas and opportunities that I never could have found or thought of on my own. He is so good!
More to come next time! Hope you're all doing well. :) Blessings!