China-XiMiao School

Another record I have broken for myself was boarding a 35hours train from Beijing to Chengdu. I felt so happy when I finally reached Chengdu as it was really too bored and tired on a train for 35 hours! Below is the picture of the train , I slept on the 3rd level , which was so narrow and I hardly sit straight up on the bed. And there are 2 seats for 4 person along the corridor , so luckily the people sleeping at the lowest bed are kind enough to allow us to sit on their beds during the day time.

In order to get to XimIao school where I do my voluntary work, we need to hoop up for a 3 hour bus from Chengdu after the 35 hours bus, then an hour van on a very terrible road condition to reach the school.
This is the place I stayed for 1 month at the school. The students there need to squeeze 2 person on a bed, it's really quite pity for them ...

This is our 'office' where we did our stuff when we have no lessons for the students =p

The most amazing part is the toilet of the toilet! It was just like a ditch without doors ( as what most of you know about China's toilet), but the most unbearable part is that there is no water to flush the ditch after you use it! The toilet will only be cleaned by the students every day in the evening, but during weekend when students go home, the toilet wouldn't be flushed/cleaned for 3 days..so you always see many 'gold' in the ditch until you have no feeling on that...but the smell for sure is really unbearable...I could even smell it though I was having heavy cold .

But that's not the most 'awesome' toilet I have ever seen, the most surprising one were at some students' house. There was a toilet which was inside the room where they rear pigs, and the hole of the toilet was just right in front of the pig's gate where you need to use a stick to block the pigs from coming out ! Another toilet was so narrow, just with a width that a person can move, with both pigs beside! You could feel the pigs blowing air onto your face when you are squatting down for toilet, and you need to be careful not to kiss any pigs haha... For both of the toilet, it's basically can't be named 'toilet' for us as it was just a small hole with diameter of 3cm! Could you imagine how small the hole and the toilet?

Below is the pictures when we do some home visit to students' house during weekend. We need to climb 3 hills and cross 2 rivers to get to their house, it took us 1 hour and a half to reach the nearest house haha...
The student is cooking for us ...he is really a good chef, just 16 years old!


This is called " Chuan Chuan" -a typical local snacks that we often have it there !

We taught the students English, Art, Music, Sports, Chinese etc.....It was not a good job teaching there as the class was big consisting of around 60 students per class ! And it was a great challenge to teach the smaller students especially Standard 1 student! They are always fighting, running all over the class which I need to shout and shout always...I got a terrible cold there due to the weather and my voice become so coarse till even after the program end for 3 weeks I still have a coarse voice, total having 7 weeks of terrible coarse voice ...and terrible coughing which I get so painful on the chest!

Other than that, we help to organise many events for the students as well...in which each of us need to train the students from each year to come out with some performances! I had a challenging time training my standard 4 students! Some pictures of the Christmas party ...
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Another record I have broken for myself was I drank countless of beer and wine in China ...I think the most I had ever have before....The teachers and district officer, area officers are all too warm and kind enough to treat us big meal every few days, and even trip to nearby town every weekend! But I'm kinda phobia about the big meals as there were always too much food served, there was a time we visited a town which is famous for Taufu, the restaurant there could made 56 dishes using taufu, and we were served 18 dishes of Tofu just for only 10 person per table, at the end so many food was left. Besides that I'm phobia of 'YUm Xing' there, every time we were treated for dinner, they will sure 'Gan Bei' with us. There are usually 10 person treating us, and each person will at least 'Yum Xing' with you 4-5 times, or even more. 'Yum Xing ' or 'Gan' means you need to finish the whole glass of beer in a shot, so you could imagine how many bottles of beers I drank for a day!!!
The last before we left the school, I even got drunk as I was treated with red wine they made themselves together with more beers! Finally I experienced the feeling of drunk, I could say it's unbearable, you would feel the surrounding spinning, then vomitting, aweful headache...it's really sucks!
Below are all photos with my friends there, all are volunteer like me.




I miss all of them so much and also the lovely students! The students even called me after I left the school and some sent postcard far from China to me in Malaysia during Chinese New Year. I wish I could go back at least once to visit them again , all the best to them and my fellow friends =)

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