Home Again, Home Again

This Friday marked our last day of teaching our kiddos. It's been a whirlwind of emotions around here this last week. Most of last week was spent rehearsing for the final performances- Thursday night for the younger kids, Friday night for the older kids. 

On Friday we got to spend all morning playing with and taking pictures with the kids. 

Green group- these little guys have been the most
rambunctious group, and consequently the most adorable. 

All the younger kids. This is as collected of a picture as we were gonna get. 

Fifi, Rocco, and Helen. 

For my home group -purple- I bought a blank scroll
and had my kids put their handprint on it. I wrote
their English and Chinese names underneath. It
turned out to be a pretty cute keepsake. 

During the Thursday night performance, the younger kids tugged at our heartstrings and refused to let go. The night consisted of English children's songs and oh-so-Chinese dancing and singing. At the end, all of us teachers sang "Getting to Know You" from the King and I. Never was there a more relevant song to a situation.

Sweet, sweet Juno would not stop weeping on our shoulders,
he was so distraught at our departure.
If my kids are half as loving as him,  I will be content. 

The older kids performance was a bit less....emotional. First of all, we were given the task of ruining our sweet children's faces with unnecessary stage makeup- white foundation, bright red blush, and garish shades of eyeshadow. Purple eyeshadow for the girls, blue for the boys. Yes, even the boys. Even more surprisingly, there was only one boy who resisted playing dress up doll. In the words of Jessica, our poor kids looked like a mix between clowns and prostitutes.

Sadly, the older kids didn't really seem to process that we were leaving, even though we were assured that they were informed in their native language. Each "See you monday, teacha!" was painful to hear. The end of the younger kids' performance was appropriately heart-rending. Seeing the older kids for the last time was just awkward. Ah, well. I got my share of good-bye cuddles from Baby Rick.

Baby Rick. This kid is Abu from Aladdin personified. Squeaks and everything.

This weekend has been full of packing, cleaning, and trying to finish off the food in the cupboards-which has meant lots of plain ramen noodles and oatmeal. Have I mentioned how excited I am to go home? 

Four months is a perfect length of time to have been here. It has been a blast. Although participating in ILP wasn't exactly what I had always planned to be doing the fall after graduation, I know that it's improved me in irreplicable ways, and I'm so grateful to have had this experience.

Thanks to everybody for all the prayers and thoughts sent my way, and to everybody who has endured reading my rambling attempts to recount my incredible experiences these past four months. 

Merry Christmas everybody!

Pilgrims and Indians

The week of Thanksgiving, our poor kids were introduced to the all American holiday of Thanksgiving by being ambushed with a confusing assortment of turkey, pilgrim, and Indian related activities. Apart from the classic hand turkey, they were introduced to this glorious manifestation of American culture with toilet paper roll Mayflowers, pilgrim and Indian three-legged races, and adorable Pilgrim hats.

Our Thanksgiving celebration consisted of ordering a veritable feast of Chinese food from our local restaurant. We were able to gain a sense of privacy and avoid omnipresent clouds of cigarette smoke by eating in the back room, where we had a lovely session of giving gratitude before stuffing ourselves.

We have visited this local restaurant at least every other week since arriving here. At first, I felt terrible for the lady who runs the place for having to deal with orders comprised of gestures and broken Mandarin. But I think she actually started to get a little fond of us. After the first few dumpling runs, she pointed us to the dishes of food that she knew we liked, so that we didn't have to search the entire menu. We had never had any actual conversation with her, but I felt a little sad at leaving our dependable friend as Thanksgiving constituted our final supper at our little restaurant. She's a wonderful lady.

In order to include some semblance of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, I baked a pumpkin pie in spite of all the difficulties baking a pie in a Chinese toaster oven using somewhat unorthodox ingredients posed. It wasn't Aunt Susie's pumpkin pie, but I will say it was pretty dang good.

We ended our evening by kicking off the Christmas season with The Holiday, pumpkin pie, and Christmas chain assemblage. It was a Thanksgiving to be remembered.