Restart!

Still recovering from our journey through Vietnam and southern China, our two week training in Chengdu was another shockingly emotional journey. After the excitement of seeing some of our friends from pre-service training that we hadn't seen in months, we started our first training session by hearing the terrible news from our country director that one of our fellow Chongqing volunteers had died (official Peace Corps statement here). We didn't know him well, but empathized with our fellow volunteers who did, unable to imagine what his family must have been going through. It was also a stark reminder of our own mortality, and how important it is to take care of each other and ourselves during our service. With that dark cloud hanging over the group, we kept up a brisk pace of training sessions, including language, TEFL training, safety and security, and health. Colds started going around, health issues started springing up, and people generally were feeling run down after all the sessions, particularly since many people were arriving at training after keeping intense vacation travel schedules (and it was hard to go to bed at a decent hour when there was so much socializing to be done with all our training pals). But despite it all, some of the sessions were really helpful and got us thinking more critically about how to improve our teaching for the upcoming term and how to create secondary projects that might have a lasting impact in our site communities. It was particularly exciting to have guest speaker Rob Gifford (NPR correspondent and author of China Road) come and talk to the group, and even more exciting when he showed up at the bar that evening to continue his discussions with volunteers. We ended our training with a touching candlelight memorial for Cannon, and after our goodbyes with friends from far flung sites, headed back to Chongqing exhausted, but ready to get back to work.

Our first week of classes started right away. I was pleased to be assigned all English-major writing classes, and Richy seemed content with his oral English workload. Starting with our usual introduction lessons, we have been working on streamlining our classroom rules and expectations to avoid some of the pitfalls we ran into last term - such as the several students who freaked out (channeling their frustration into incessant phone calls) when they didn't pass my oral English class, even though they had only attended a fraction of the classes. Luckily I found myself sitting next to the English department head one morning on the bus and he was able to explain to me the English department policies in more detail (we were provided an English translation of the policies at the beginning of the term, but they didn't make much sense at the time). Apparently if students miss more than 1/3 of classes for the term, I shouldn't allow them to take the final, because if I let them take the final, they have the right to a retake the following term. If I don't give them the final, they get a zero and have to retake the class. Although hopefully I won't have that problem with my writing classes this term, as English majors are much more engaged in their English classes (surprise, surprise) and have much fewer problems with attendance.

We are still waiting for word about the on-campus apartment situation, although it seems like something will definitely happen this term. In the meantime, I am planting up every container I can find and fit into our window-cages (our 5th floor apartment features cages around all the windows for security), keeping myself busy with craft projects, reading student papers, daydreaming about secondary projects (my students seem way more excited about cooking club than a resource room or anything else), and trying to keep the construction dust from building up on everything. We are ready to enjoy the Chongqing springtime as we know all too well that the sweltering Chongqing summer is on its way.

~ Katie