Home Sweet Home

I came home to a piece of toast with Marmite :)
My time in China has been absolutely amazing!
I don't think I can possibly recount all that has happened on here - or at least, if I did it would take so long that no one would be reading by the end, so there's absolutely no point.
I shall, therefore, recap some of the highlights of my trip, and shall hopefully stay succinct enough to keep interests:
First of all we travelled to Xi'an, a humongous city quite a long way from Beijing (I'm afraid that's all I know on the Geography front!). We arrived on the Tuesday evening and on Wednesday Dave and Susie Bickford (friends working in China) gave us 'culture and orientation' lessons, just so that we knew what we were up against!
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday mornings we ran a summer school for about 20 Chinese students, most aging 12 to 16. Each of us students (we were called 'Oxford teachers' - how cool is that?) had 3 Chinese students in a little group with whom we did activities and talked, to improve their English. All of the students had English names which they'd chosen themselves, because that was easier than us trying to say their Chinese names correctly. The best names were a couple of girls called Mickey after Mickey Mouse, Candy, Snowy, David Beckham, two Magic Johnsons and my personal favourite, Lorry. He was a really nice guy and probably the student we got closest to, but it was funny because we all thought his name was Laurie until half way through the week!
In the afternoons the students would come round to our rooms and we'd play games and things, just so that they had to speak more English. We taught them Uno, which was interesting, but they all loved it in the end!
We also wondered round Xi'an in the afternoons, went shopping etc, and did the same in the evenings, usually until 10 or 11ish. We'd then sit and chat for about an hour and a half, so we only had about 6 hours sleep each night, but we didn't get that tired - well I didn't anyway!
We spent a lot of time with other Westerners who were working out there, namely Steve Onn, an English student; Natalie, an Irish girl planning to go into childcare; and Shannon, an American doing the same thing. It got quite confusing with two Steves out there, which is why we had to use both surnames the whole time!
We also visited the Terracotta Warriors, which are amazing, and an orphanage run by Christians. It's just devastating to see so many children who have been rejected or abandoned, because of their sex or because they weren't deemed good enough. Lots of the children had cleft palates, which is so easily and cheaply reversible, and it breaks my heart to think that they can be so unwanted because of such a small and fixable problem. Barb Gill, who was one of our leaders, is a nurse so got to go into their dying room. She said that the worst thing was there was no reason for most of them to be dying.
After we'd been in Xi'an we travelled to Beijing on the sleeper train. That was really fun. All us students had a good chance to talk over everything, including how well we were getting on, so I think people were better friends after that! We got bored at one point and someone had turned most of the lights off, so Amy and I were making up an absolutely terrible, completely unfreaky ghost story which was scaring the heck out of Hannah because we kept grabbing her foot at random points. But then we got to the culmination of our story and both jumped up screaming simultaneously, which was hilarious because Hannah, Steve and D all jumped about a mile and looked really freaked :D We hadn't thought we'd scare anyone, we were just taking the mick, which was the funniest part.
In Beijing we toured all the famous attractions and did other touristy things as well. It was all really fun, and we had a really nice guide called David, but we were on the go the whole time and it was vaguely annoying because we had to do what the company said the whole time. I think perhaps my main problem was embarrassment as we had to follow a blue flag around, since I always mock that sort of tour group, but there we go! Everywhere was so beautiful, it was amazing; we just did quite a lot of walking, especially in humid, 40 degrees heat!
I honestly did have an amazing time and really enjoy myself, and hopefully we managed to make a small difference to some people's lives as well. We visited a slum area and it's incredible to realise once again just how much I have and how privileged I really am. I'm so grateful that I had this opportunity and I really want to go back again now! Maybe I'll join a future team as a leader, that would be fun! I'd like to learn Chinese as well now, I have about twenty phrases in my vocabulary, including, most bizarrely, the Chinese for watchamacallit :)