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'TRAVEL THAT FEEDS THE SOUL'........this is what GLOBAL VOLUNTEERS is all about.

A week ago, we completed our third year teaching with GLOBAL VOLUNTEERS, we were the 2nd team to teach in Haikou city, Hainan Island. We taught each morning to Chinese English teachers at Haikou Educational Research and Training Academy. Every other year English teachers in China must get re-certified. This is our 2nd time having HuDi as our team leader; last year her partner, Baoli, led our small team in Xi'an and HuDi participated. We feel as tho these leaders are a part of our family now. We stayed at the Golden Sea View Hotel, which overlooked Evergreen Park--was comfortable & modern. We had breakfast each day on the 31st floor, which was a revolving restaurant; we enjoyed many views of the city and sea. We usually had a western meal for breakfast but enjoyed Chinese food for lunch & dinner; the food was very good. After an impressive opening ceremony, our teaching began. Every morning at 8:10 am we were off to the Academy on the bus! My partner, John, and I had 12 Chinese English teachers, ages 21-35. Roy & his partner, Sandi (from Hawaii) had 7 students. They all had a good knowledge of English, were smart, attentive, fun and eager to better their conversational English --they were delightful gals and easy to get attached to!

Many afternoons, we were assigned to teach after lunch. I gave my China/Global Volunteers powerpoint presentation to approx. 200 students at Haikou Middle School #1 & also at the Academy. Middle School #1 is a new, modern & impressive boarding school. They have 4,000 students & 500 teachers board! Thru my presentation, the students learned what volunteers are all about. Their questions were very interesting. I've been to #1 middle school three times, working with students who are majoring in English; have also taught 3rd grade in a fairly new elementary school in a small village. They were so cute & enjoyed singing 'row, row your boat' & other songs!Many schools in the city would like the vols to come to their school but time doesn't permit. Several of my teacher students were hoping that John & I could spend an afternoon at their school but, again, there just wasn't enough time.

The Academy had us for a lovely dinner cruise with excellent food! We had a hot pot & many varieties of fish. Haikou is famous for it's fish, being on the South China Sea. It was a mild evening & lots of fun.....even had a strolling guitarist on the boat. Middle School #1 arranged for us to have dinner in fancy restaurant and we had a variety of delicious foods, 2 soups which I'd never had before......one was a crabsoup served in papaya shell, quite delicious; another soup served in a coconut shell, great presentation!

The Academy gave us a heartwarming farewell ceremony.......each class sang a song or two & the Global Volunteers also prepared songs to sing. Since we had 5 global volunteers from Hawaii, they chose a Hawaiian song! Wha fun we all had. My students rented costumes (from the Han period) & looked very festive. Unfortunately, my camera was stolen with photos of the closing ceremony but the memory will last a life-time.

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