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14 August 民工学生的营会Carmen joined her first volunteer service in BJ in early July. It was a 6-day daycamp organized by a NGO here. Its target were children of workers who have moved to BJ from other provinces. The edu system in BJ only supports BJ people, and thus these children are actually studying in those unofficial schools here without any gov't subsidy. You can guess its facilities and teachers' qualifications are a lot poorer, but it is better than providing no schooling for children. Originally we had around 1,000 participants, but when parents knew that they needed to pay RMB 10 for 5 lunch meals, 40% of them withdrew!! ( their living standard is very low....)
The camp was quite tough for Carmen as she needed to wake up at around 6:30am every day and worked until 5-6pm, and sometimes needed to prepare for the next day lesson during night time. It was also difficult for her to manage lots of children ( around 20), given her soft voice and inexperience in teaching. Nevertheless, after 1-2 days' adjustment and a bit hardship, she had started to enjoy the time with her students. They will be P5 students in the coming academic year, and it is sad that they generally have a shorter summer vacation than local BJ children as their parents are too busy to take care of them. They will resume school in mid-Aug!
One of the things that impressed Carmen a lot was the result of a game. Students were given lots of things to choose, which aimed at reflecting their value system. In one question, the majority of students chose " having a pure heart", rather than "having success in every thing". Some of them explained that having a pure heart can protect them from going astray ! Carmen was moved! Shanghai TripIn mid-June, Stephen had a training in SH and Carmen joined him for a short trip. Weather was really fine. Though we went there before, it was only until this time that we find SH is quite a small place when comparing with BJ! Thus it is more convenient for us to traval around! Generallly food is better there. To be more specific, Chinese food there suits our taste more while western food is of higher quality ( Western food in BJ is not good lah! ). It may be due to the presence of more foreigners there! Staying for a few days is fine with us, however, we perfer the rich culture and history of BJ to SH! :) 宋庆龄故居Around June we visited 宋庆龄故居 in BJ ( one more is in Shanghai). Originally it was a place of a royal family of Qing Dynasty, and thus it is really nice! 宋庆龄 had followed 孙中山先生 for about 10 years and she continued to actualize their dreams after Sun's death. She was a woman with a wide horizon, strong commitment and kind heart to people. We were deeply impressed by her contributions to the country ! YOu are invited to its official website here :www.sql.org.cn 05 August Summer Vacation - Hokkaido, Japan (北海道)Late June, we went on our annual summer vacation to Hokkaido Japan. We had a fun and relaxing trip. The air is fresh and the vista is beautiful. More photos are in the album. 02 August ChurchCampIt was Carmen's first time to join our church members here for a camp. The committee told us that it was a kind of retreat camp, but it turned out to be a very intensive Bible camp! May be we have different understandings of " retreat" :P ! Stephen could not join it as he needed to go back to HK that weekend. What a pity! In everyday life, we seldom have lots of time and space to hang around with church members. It was so good to live together with them for 3 days! I remembered the heavy rain on the 1st night, the interesting questions raised by b/s during Bible study, & the entertainment programs prepared by each group..... |
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