Xin yin kuai le!

Happy New Year! Well, Chinese New Year :)

Last night definitely made up for our lack of our New Year! Half of the team went to the home of some factory workers who were unable to go home for the Chinese New Year. We enjoyed a "hot pot" meal followed by setting off our own fireworks! It was such a fun time. It was also really sweet to be able to spend time with people who were not able to go home to be with their families, which is a HUGE part of the tradition here. I'm sure it meant a lot to them to be able to spend their holiday with foreigners!

In the meantime, we've made it back from Zhengzhou and it's been SO great to be back with our leaders! In some ways, it was like being without parents, so it was nice to get back to them and come back with a new appreciation for all that they do for the team. I've also realized that I actually learned some Chinese during our time in Zhengzhou. I actually know four Chinese characters now as well as more of the language (kind of)!

Back to Zhengzhou...on one of our last days there, we went to the Kung Fu/Shaolin Temple. It was an interesting piece of Chinese culture/history to experience. In addition, it was in the mountains, far away from the city, which was so nice to see since all we'd seen so far was cities.

SURPRISE! We get to go to Beijing during a few of our last days in China! We just found out last week, so we're pretty excited about that opportunity. Just thought I'd give you all a little "heads up" on that, in case you were wondering. Great Wall, here we come!

Sorry that I'm all over the place in this post. Perhaps it's the smoke-filled internet cafe that's keeping my mind from being focused! Haha...it's definitely a different culture around here, but it's all part of the experience.

Hope all is well with all of you and thank you for checking out the blog!!!

Insanity is fun!

Well, our English Camp is almost over now. Today is the beginning of the fifth day. There weren't many people who signed up for the Camp, so the Camp was opened to younger kids. We now have a class of four Korean children who are attending. I've worked with them for two of the four days of the Camp and today will be my third day with them. They are SO much fun, but it's a huge challenge with all of them being at different levels of English ability!

In another turn of events, our team leaders left us! Don't worry...it's standard protocol. They have left two of us to fill their shoes, not that it's possible because they are two of the most amazing leaders and people I have ever known! The two they left in charge? Ben and me. Yes, insanity. I just wrote an e-mail home and told my parents I never would have expected to be in this position, but it's exciting and I know it's all going to work out. The team is really great, so we all tend to work together anyway. That makes our job as "leaders" not so hard :)

Anyway, we have two more days of the English Camp, three days of "rest", and then we're headed back to Guangzhou! It will be interesting going back to weather in the 70s after being in such cold weather for about three weeks! Hopefully there won't be another round of sickness. Speaking of, my teammate who was sick is FINALLY better and able to eat real food again! PTL! She was out of commission for about one week...we think it was because of street food...

Ok, so funny sidenote for those of you who would like to know a bit about Chinese culture. The children here rarely wear diapers. So what do they do? Wash clothes all the time? No. The childrens' pants all have slits on the bottoms so that all they have to do is squat: anytime, anyplace! It's quite an interesting cultural difference, especially here in Zhengzhou where it's SOOOO cold! So, maybe I won't be getting pants from China for Baby Girl Hentnik...

I think that's about all for now! Stay tuned for the next update sometime in the next week!

New Year, New Post!

Happy New Year! So much has happened since my last post, including a change in the year!

We left for Zhengzhou, a city north of Guangzhou, on December 30. We got here by a 15 hour train ride! We've been helping out at a "language school" which has been very busy. There will be an English Camp January 13-18 which my team is in charge of running. Since we've been here, we've been going to various schools, mostly universities, to do recruiting for the school. This past week, we had English Corners on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. The turnout was actually GREAT (low 20s the first and last night; nearly 30 on Wednesday)!

Oh, and I should mention...IT'S SO COLD! No heat is supplied by the government, so not all of the rooms have heat. Showers and such are quite interesting and we tend to spend the day wearing our heavy coats. Today is a little warmer so I'm able to go without the coat, but I've still got a good number of layers on. At least I get a little winter to remind me of home :)

I'm finally learning more Chinese, so I'll actually be able to say a few things by the time I get back. It is such a crazy, hard language, but it's been fun to learn and try to pronounce things correctly. Definitely a huge challenge!

There have been many other challenges while being here, but none that were too hard to handle. A lot of us, however, are getting sick. One of our teammates has been sick for almost four days with some kind of stomach thing. Many of the rest of us have been battling colds. That's what we get for jumping into the freezing cold after being in Maui for so long!!!

I'm definitely missing all of my family and friends back in the U.S., but I know it won't be too long before I can talk to/see you all again. There's some hope and comfort in that, but there are still times when it's hard. So, know that I haven't forgotten you! You are often on my mind and will always be in my heart!

Thank you all for your continued support during this time. It means SO much to me to know how much you care!