Happy Election Day! This photo was taken in the Kunming airport. The world is watching us today.
We have arrived in Zhoutong and we met five of the girls this evening! We had just a short amount of time with each girl because they had to get back to school. We talked with each one separately and took photos and video. Many of the girls were nervous because they were unsure of their English but we assured them that their English was much better than our Chinese!
School is six days a week in China. In the morning, classes begin at 7:40 and end at 12:00 for lunch. School begins again at 2:30 and breaks at 5:45 for dinner. Five of the girls came to our hotel room during this dinner break and had hamburgers. This was a special treat for them because meat is very expensive here. We would have liked to have more time but by 8:00 the girls were already late for evening classes which begin at 7:30 and finish up at 10:20 in the evening. Total daily class time ~ just about 10 and a half hours a day, six days a week!
Because school takes up so much of the day, we asked how the girls got their homework done. One girl giggled and said, “Oh, we don’t go home at night.” (The high schools here are all boarding schools.) We explained that homework, as opposed to housework, is school work that you do after classes are over. “Oh, yes,” one girl replied, “we have holiday homework that we do over the summer.” We eventually learned that the girls have “study time” after evening classes are over from 10:20 until midnight.
YN 001 ~ Taiting
This is Taiting pronounced Tie-Ting. Tie means “too much” Ting means “good and beautiful.” Taiting is very confident and her English was impressive. We didn’t need much help from the translator at all. It was also clear that she is very patient, as she waited for us to figure out what was wrong with our camera.
In the letter to her sponsor, Taiting wrote a story about harvesting pine nuts with her friends when she was a child. She told us that the children would climb pine trees to get pinecones. In the center of each pinecone, is one pine nut. The children would break them open one at a time and fill their pockets with pine nuts.
When she finishes school, Taiting wants to be a teacher in her village elementary school.
This is Leili. She giggles all the time ~ very sweet! Her name means Jasmine. Her family grows rice, corn and potatoes.
Leili wants to build a new road to her village some day. She says that this has been her dream since childhood. The road between her village and the market is very muddy and needs lots of work.
Leili is concentrating on math in high school. Her dream is to become a doctor in Shanghai.
YN 003 ~ XinghuiThis is Song XingHui (pronounced Song Sing Whey). Song is her family name. Xing means means "happy and excited" and Hui means "you can do it". Her name fits her well because when she took the high school entrance exam, XingHui got the highest score in the history of her township.
She says that her hometown is high on a mountain. It is very cold but very beautiful there.
YN 004 ~ WeiThis is Wei. Her name means "great and famous". When she wrote to her sponsors this year, Wei said, "Though we are separated by thousands of miles, fate has found a way to bring us together."
The translator says that Wei loves to laugh and is always happy. We could see that right away. Wei wants to be a doctor in America some day.
YN 016~ RunThis is Run. She wrote to her sponsor, "I had a happy vacation this summer. I helped my parents working in the feilds in the daytime and did my school work in the evenings. Though I was tired, I still felt happy."
Run wants to be an English teacher in her high school some day. Based on her English when she was speaking to us, she will be a great English teacher!
