Gifts

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The past week has been filled with the comings and goings of our daily lives. We wake up, shower, eat, water the plants and wash the dishes before heading off to school. We great our students with a thousand hello's, teach our classes, go home, go to the gym, have dinner and settle in for the night if it's a weekday, or if we're feeling saucy we might go out for a coffee.

The weathers starting to warm up and with it we head out on the weekend to do more activities. Hiking, bike rides and trips to the beach are all favorites. We try to get a good deal of outdoors activities under our belts by the time the rainy season shows up in June.

This past weekend we spent Friday night in, watching live footage of the Expo opening ceremonies, currently the biggest thing in our little town. We'd planned to get up and skype that following Saturday and it's always best to get up early and do it so having a late one of Friday doesn't happen on those skype weekends.

The Expo volunteers are out in surprising numbers. Right now I can look out of the window of my classroom and see the kids playing soccer on the dirt pitch in front of the school. A newly constructed bridge takes drivers over the bay and shipping crates that have been converted to information centers dot the street. Our school houses one in the parking lot. There is another on the corner filled with elderly volunteers that look eager to help. Each day I ride my bike home through these voluteers and get stared at as I ride past. I'm not sure why but I feel I'm getting noticed more, if I had to guess I'd say that it's because the Expo opened up and the locals are expecting hordes of tourists to show up anytime so when they see me on my bike they must assume I'm one of them.

The other day on my way home I was stopped at a cross walk when a man introduced himself to me and asked if I'd rented my bike. "No," I told him, "it's mine." He looked confused that one, I had bought a bike and two, I appeared to know where I was going and wasn't just riding around aimlessly. I explained to him that I live here, have been for over a year now and that the bike was my transportation to and from my job as an English teacher. "Oh, have a nice day." he told me and headed on his way. I guess he lost interest.

During the 3 months that the Expo will be open the city has made all public buses free for riders. I found this out last monday when the door opened and I wiggled my way in amongst the sweaty bodies and tried to find something to hold onto as the bus learched up the hill. If you've never been on a completely packed bus or subway I don't really know how to describe it. The sardine reference seems to be the most cliched metaphor although is probably the most accurate. It's like being up front at a big concert, 15 feet from the stage, back to face with a bunch of excited strangers who all start to push as the band comes on stage. Since then I've been determined to ride my bike everyday and so far the weather is co-operating.



Recently, we've been getting some wedding gifts from my co-teachers. Young, the lady I teach 3rd and 5th grade with gave us a really cool paper lantern for our home. It's just the type of thing the cat would like to shred to pieces given the chance. So it's been boxed up and shipped back home, with a few other things. One of our favorite gifts was from the head of the invention class, and if there is any wonder why Asian countries have bright students it's probably because they have things like invention class. But anyway, his gift to us were two wooden ducks. Great wooden ducks, you're probably saying, fantastic. The thing with these ducks or "love birds" as he called them is you use them to communicate with your spouse.



The birds are meant to sit on a mantle or somewhere prominent in the house. When the birds are facing each other both members of the relationship are happy and content. When one spouse is upset with the other they go up and move their duck, we have a green one and an orange one, so that it's facing the other way. Brilliant! Never again do you have to wonder if your spouse is angry with you, just check the ducks. Just think about waking up in the morning, seeing that other duck looking at the wall and knowing that you've got some apologizing to do before the day is out. I don't think either of us have been so excited to have our first post duck argument. I'm waiting until that first disagreement that will probably have us both racing for the ducks, trying to turn theirs before the other gets the chance. But as it's Friday, I hope they stay facing each other and the weekend turns into a good one.

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