Touring Taidong + Second Week Sentiments

This past weekend, we got the chance to hang up our ugly orange volunteer uniforms (those of you who follow my Facebook photos have seen them... we joke that we look like prison convicts) and stow away our lesson plans for a bit. A few teachers drove us around Taidong county so that we could see some of the highlights. A few of the stops we made were:

- Rice farms. Agriculture is big here in rural Taiwan, and the big farms even give tours of the machinery used to sort, shell, rinse, and package rice.

- Buddhist cave shrines. Much of the meaning of this was lost on our group, as none of us subscribe to the religion... but it was still inspiring in a different way. (Those who have taken any sort of literary theory class will understand when I refer to Longinus' term the 'sublime' here)

- A beef noodle soup restaurant. I still think my mom's is better :]

Now we are halfway through the second week of teaching. We've certainly fallen into a routine: Powerpoint presentations, games, activities, worksheets, review... but the students still keep us on our toes. On some days, they are truly little monsters and there is nothing more we would like to do than to drop kick them from here to Narnia, but there is always something that makes up for even the worst ones. For example, today there were two little girls, 8-year-old Fiona and 12-year-old Amy, who came up to me and offered to braid my hair. They told me that my hair smelled nice, and that I was cool because I am not afraid to yell at the bad boys of the class. Both of them fought over who could hold my hand during the activity, and then at the end of the class they gave me hugs and said that they would be sad when I left. In that moment, I wished I could stay here with them forever.