Quzhou, Hebei again

July 13th

Well, I just taught my last class at this camp, which, because I'm the coordinator for Inner Mongolia, means that I've taught my last class for about two weeks. i taught about Minnesota today, going over geography, the plight of Native Americans, and teaching them how to say Oof-Da and Youbetcha. That last part was pretty fun, and they figured it out pretty quickly. Every class has to do something for the closing ceremony tomorrow, so I taught mine Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and you know what? They can't quite get the pronunciation of peanuts correct. I'm totally going to have someone record video of it tomorrow, it may be hilarious. Oh, a kid puked in my class yesterday, that was fun. The students cleaned it up quickly. Two of the program members went to the hospital today. Rachel was puking constantly, and Ish was pooping blood, and looked like he was going to pass out. We don't know what's wrong with them yet. The shower's working now, so I'm clean-ish, which is neat. we woke up with a finch in our room, and no clue how it got there, went outside pretty easily, though. Oh, and a disturbing rumor has swept through camp. Apparently we might not be getting paid for the summer camps, although that is unconfirmed. Apparently they consider this volunteer work, and if that's the case, it's complete bullshit. I'm asking Bonnie about that tonight, I'll report back with news tomorrow. The more time I spend int his school, the more it gives me the Hebei Jeebies as we've been calling them. Apparently the school is brand new, but it also shows serious signs of wear and tear throughout. Everything's super dirty, there are a ton of empty classrooms, and most of the classrooms that have things in them seem like they're just setups. Art classrooms with art but no materials, and completely unused computer labs. Seriously weird stuff. The officials come tomorrow, and we're half-plotting ways to make them do embarrassing stuff, like the Cha-Cha slide. The day after tomorrow we're touring the old city, which will either be interesting, or completely awful, I'll have to wait and see which. Hope for the best for Ish and Rachel, I'll have photos of this place up when I can get my hands on a cable, I left mine in Beijing.

-Cooper