Jiaren

这 是 我 的 家人。
Zhe shi wo de jiaren.
This is my family.

Yesterday (day 3 of camp) was all about family!  Culture class was one of my favorite lessons of the week.  We taught them about American families and most of the activities involved the Asian students comparing & contrasting Chinese families to American families.  I think over the past few decades, and even just the past few years, a lot has changed here.  For the most part, Asian families are similar to American families.  It's always fun to see the students react to our questions and their reaction to each other's opinions of their own culture.

We had a pretty massive rainstorm yesterday and, as soon as the rain came down, the Americans were ready for a volleyball game/mud fight.  The boys all brought swim trunks for this exact reason and the girls just threw on shorts.  The same thing happened last year and all of the Asian students stayed inside and took pictures of us but this year a few of them ventured out into the rain.  It got pretty crazy once mud was thrown and today I did the laundry from that and that was a FOUL smell.  No clothes should smell that bad.  (They will LOVE me for informing you all of the odor that came from them).

We thought the rain would stop but of course it didn't.  I think it rained pretty well for at least 5 hours with no break.  Then we were asleep so I don't know.  No thunder though.  That was a bummer.  The thunderstorms here are my favorite!

Last night was movie night - thank goodness - so everyone got to stay nice and dry inside.  We got the projector and speakers all set up to watch Ice Age 3 in the classroom and several people brought over blankets and pillows to lay on.  To top it all off, it was Lonnie's birthday!  Kirt had John go into town to pick up a cake and we got the classroom all set up and surprised Lonnie.  We sang her the Asian and English happy birthday and then all had cake while we watched the movie.  It was a pretty great night.  We even got to look over the pictures I've taken so far, which everyone loved.

And I got to bust out my matching raincoat and boots! YAY!

Camp is going great.  Last night was a good break in the relationship aspect of camp.  Everyone is really starting to communicate and bond and today has just been fantastic.  But it's only halfway through the day right now so I'll wait to describe the day's events.  It's Christmas in LC (for camp that is) and I will have plenty of stories and pictures to share tomorrow!

Zai jian,
Zhong Guo Hailey