It's been about a month since I first got here and life here is pretty much what I expected it would be. Since our school is located off a main country road, a lot of farmers pass through. I've seen everything on this road from water buffaloes, to live chickens on buses, to multiple pigs jammed into a back of a truck. Lots of mopeds pass through as well with the father, mother, and 2 kids on the same one. Driving here is a sport in its own right. Cars will pass a slower car on the left, even if another car is coming from the opposite direction, forcing that car to move all the way to the shoulder just to accommodate the passing car. Taking the private mini-buses are also pretty fun. I’ve once counted 19 people including myself in what we call in America a minivan, with the interior seating adjusted of course. Sardines!
Also as expected, I'm honing my farming skills. Besides the rice harvest, everyday with the students I work in the fields tending different crops we grow here. We grow chili peppers, winter melon, pumpkins, chives, garlic, radishes, green onions, cabbage, and other various Chinese green leaf veggies. It's a very "green" school here. Everything is fresh and nothing is wasted. We even use all natural fertilizer from our very own bathroom waste. All of it is piped down into a big tank where it collects and ferments for a few days. After adding some water, the solids and liquids turn into a greenish sludge that the students directly add on top of the crops using a bucket and long handle scooping ladles. Although not the most sanitary method or pretty to watch, this seems to be the common agricultural practice in this province and probably all the villages in China. But you can’t complain about the results. All the vegetables grow very colorful, healthy, and big. Plus it’s 100% organic and all natural!All 3 meals of the day are prepared in the cafeteria
by the friendly school cooks, who we call 大妈 (eldest auntie). For breakfast, we have rice porridge, hard boiled eggs, and stewed radish. Lunch and dinner we have rice and a couple stir fried dishes including different green veggies, radish, bamboo shoots, different types of tofu, peppers, potatoes, etc... Usually there is some meat too that is stir fried with the veggies and sometimes there's fish. All the food is really good and fresh tasting (all locally bought or grown). I noticed they really like spicy here too, and the kids often bring bottles of homemade chili sauce to eat. Before eating, the 1st-2nd graders have to wash their hands, line up outside the cafeteria, and then in a single file line get their food. The 3rd 
graders also eat in the cafeteria but appoint a few classmates to serve the class. But the 4th-6th graders, because there is no more room in the cafeteria, have to bring the pots of food to their respective classroom and serve themselves. I eat all 3 meals in the cafeteria because it's fun watching the smaller kids eat - and they can eat a lot! Maybe it's because they don't have a lot of food to eat at home, but when they're here they have very healthy appetites. Their small little hands can hold chopsticks pretty well but they still resort to directly shoveling rice into their mouths. After eating all the students wash their dishes themselves while another student inspects to see if it's well clean or not.
I teach grades 4-6 and it has gone pretty well I think. Although I don't have a lot of teaching experience, there is another English teacher, Wang Lingling, who is my age, and she's been helping me plan lessons. The kids are very excited to have a foreigner teach them English but can also lose interest very quickly. Basically what I figured out is the more games we play in class, the better! It’s been fun teaching so far although they can be a little rowdy sometimes. The most rewarding part of teaching is seeing noticeable improvement. You’ll also have a few kids who are naturally very sharp, so it’s exciting to know how bright their future can be.
Of course, being so isolated is also hard to get used to. I knew that my social life would pretty much be nonexistent compared to Beijing or back home, but there are some teachers my age that I hang out with sometimes, and I've been able to go out to climb a mountain and visit other popular local sites around here. This area called Huizhou (徽州) has a lot of deep history and culture, and you can see it from the different architecture they have as well as the food. I also have a bicycle now and have played basketball a couple of times in the next biggest town of Xiuning (although it takes 25 minutes and lots of guts to bike on that road).
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