I spent two weeks of my summer in Linze County teaching teachers! Situated in Northern Gansu near the city of Zhangye, this little area the size of Sioux Falls, South Dakota (roughly 170,00 people) is an oasis on the fringes of the Gobi Desert. I was in the land of the Silk Road and the Rainbow Mountains (Danxia), where echoes older than the United States shift and sift through the sands. Distant dunes and blades edged mountains rose leisurely from the window of my eighth floor hotel room while the warm breeze came through. Eight floors below the street buzzed with family packed mopeds and marketplaces stocked with steam-dried noodles.
Nine Gansu volunteers were sent there. Not on camels, though. We took the fast train!
i couldn’t stop listening to drops of jupiter
For summer project we were all required to teach classes alone for three hours in the morning or two in the afternoon. The rest of the time was spent doing various activities with each other or with our trainees. Sometimes doing Zumba (dance exercise), oftentimes throwing around a Frisbee, always eating breakfast, and never ever eating Western food.
We ate A LOT. We even had three big Chinese-style banquets to celebrate the starting and ending of summer project. These occasions were sobering.
Spoiled Milk…?
Having time with other American volunteers was good and needed, but a little bit like leaving a carton of milk open behind the sofa for two weeks. There are lots of healthy bacteria living in milky harmony happily going about their business, but then eventually some mouth bacteria from the moistened papery opening starts munching on the milk too. Before you know it, the milk done gone bad.
“…and that’s why I never had any milk time friends back in school.”
That’s taking it a bit far; we didn’t completely spoil our bubbly Peace Corps provided milk. We did have our fair share of in-fighting, though.
I’d hazard to say that any extended social situation, like serving in the Peace Corps with other volunteers, risks flaming up into a throbbing, cystic zit. Despite all the doxycycline pills and non-comedogenic moisturizer in the world it can still be out of anyone’s control. I’d say that our biggest challenge as a group during summer project was living together for two weeks trying not to pop it.
I gotta share this NOW
They’re usually able to offer a fresh take on the situation. This makes me feel better.
The Don
Thankfully I roomed with a guy named “The Don” for the duration of the two-week teacher training. The Don is a well-dressed kid from the East Coast who had previously lived in Korea. Observing The Don’s behavior in any situation was like watching Don Corleone in the Godfather.
When attending to important matters of business, each Don looks you in the eye, speaks softly, not raising his tone of voice or changing his rate of speech, appears to listen to you (demonstrating engaged body language) and then calmly asks a question or offers a solution. This emits an air of confidence and control that naturally brings people down to his calm, reasoned level.
From my perspective living in the bubble is a good thing because the other people inside can aid in the process of reflecting on your service and growth as a person. You get to digest the China milk with some other person’s stomach. Like a mother bird, whenever my stomach gets too full with Chinese culture I vomit some into the mouth of another American in my bubble. After all they’re going through similar things, right?!
In most situations being calm is more important than being right.
Even in the classroom.
Banana Method
I often felt like I was running out of time in my classes. I taught Public Speaking and Using Roleplays. We reviewed the three tools of public speaking: balloon, banana and cabbage. Balloon helps you calm you down, banana helps you slow down and cabbage helps you speak up.
not demonstrating proper condom application
Theoretically, this delicious method of speech preparation was supposed to get my students ready to speak, but practically we had more fun with it than that.
The students really like the activities in both my classes and, overall, it was a great summer project.
The students really like the activities in both my classes and, overall, it was a great summer project.
Originally posted in an old blog.
My Peace Corps timeline of service.
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