South of the Clouds

Tuesday, July 26, 2011  (10:32am CST)

There is no greater feeling than having someone waiting for you in an airport in the middle of nowhere. Given my journey up to this point, I would not have been surprised if I had just had to hitch hike to the Teach for China (TFC) location (of which I had no address!). Lucky for me, it was smooth sailing from this point forward. Welcome to Yunnan, meaning "South of the clouds."

A nice young Chinese-American summer intern was waiting for me in that one-room building. We loaded my things into a pretty modern and nice bus and drove about 40 minutes into the city.  After inadvertently playing twenty question with him on everything that had been racing through my brain over the past thirty hours, we arrived at the hotel where the TFC staff are staying. Upon entering both the hotel and my room, I was pleasantly surprised. The accommodations are very clean and modern. I am staying in a room by myself with two full beds, a table and chairs, a tv, internet, and even a shower that sometimes has hot water. I will be staying in this hotel until the end of August when we will get our placements and have a better idea of where to find an apartment.

I quickly dropped my bags in the room, and headed over to the middle school that is serving as TFC’s Summer Institute headquarters. Summer Institute is what TFC (and TFA) use as an initial training for teachers before they enter the academic year. During these weeks, teachers gain practice writing and executing lesson plans as well as building classroom culture and building relationships with students. During Summer Institute, TFC is using workspace in this building to train the fellows, and in addition, it is also a partner school that is participating in the summer school program.

Upon walking in the gates I was greeted by lots of smiling faces and without knowing what hit me, was introduced to about 15 people (who I instantly forgot their names) who were all signing students up for summer school. The intern then walked me on a tour of “the city” of Lincang. For those of you familiar with Boston University, It is about the size of our campus (or any college campus for that matter).  The weather is humid and tropical. The sky could rain at any unpredictable bipolar second, day or night. But you almost don’t mind because it’ so hot out a sprinkle is actually refreshing. The stores range from technology, to Laundromats, to musical instruments and lots and lots of cheap food and clothes! With the $250 RNB I was able to exchange for the dollars in my purse, I was able to buy the cheapest phone in the store along with a SIM card. Score! To celebrate (well, really, to fill our bellies), the intern then took me out for some delicious noodles – yes, the tomato-egg soup dish (worth breaking my veganism for :).

Once we returned to the school, it was time for about an hour of orientation and then off to work (yup, it was a Saturday…). I quickly learned that all fellows were starting their first day of summer school on Monday, which meant the stress and tension amongst all hands on deck in the organization was overwhelming the air.  Feeling bad that everyone was working feverishly and I had nothing better to do than write my blog and pick my nose, I decided to dive into the mix – face first!