one step closer

I can't believe I'm about to post again so soon...it's almost like I'm gaining a hint of consistency.
Winter camp ended for our school last week and all the children are now gone on break for Spring Festival, but we still had to go to school to prepare lessons and decorate for the New Year. Because the schedule was a bit different, we had to take a different bus. All we knew is we were supposed to get off at the stadium. Well...we didn't realize that it was the stadium, and therefore our stop, till we were past it. Breanna went to the front of the bus and tried to motion to the driver that we wanted to get off. He would have none of that. So we got a good two mile walk in before finally getting to the school! And we were 25 minutes late. But it's China...no one minds that much. It was such a nice walk too! Even though it was about 99% humidity.
After a day full of skyping with Jenna (I did my lesson plans too), we decided to wrap up and walk back to the bus stop. The others wanted to get on at the stadium and just pay a bigger fare, but Abby, Sarah, and I wanted to walk back to the fruit stand. We turned down a wrong street. We didn't realize this until we were passing a gas station with about 50 motorbikes all lined up. But we found a lovely little street filled with shops and markets selling everything from fruit to real Chinese straw brooms. I bought a baby pineapple...I haven't tried it yet though. As we were browsing through the shops, we realized there was an indoor market behind the street markets! It was the curious smell that brought this to our attention. It looked something like a hanging dead-meat Costco. (I must really love Costco; I seem to use it in comparison often.) AND they had beautiful fresh produce within close vicinity to all the yummy dead animals. So appetizing. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing I should probably wash my pineapple before I cut into it. The important part of all this, is I bought one of those awesome Chinese brooms. I've already swept and it was awesome. Jillian made fun of me for getting so excited about it. She obviously doesn't know me well enough to know that effective cleaning products always make me happy. As we were walking away, it started raining again. An older Chinese lady tried to get us to buy umbrellas and kept pointing at the sky saying something that I figured was along the lines of "it's raining you crazy Americans!" I didn't need one though. I'm so Chinese now that my hair has adjusted to all humidity/precipitation. The acid rain on my skin may be another story though...
I hope all of you know that Chinese people squat on the ground. If they're waiting, they squat. If they're just relaxing, they squat. If they're in a queue, they squat. Get the point? We got an awesome picture of a line-up of Chinese people squatting in front of a bank on their break. It was only a tad bit awkward taking the picture as we don't blend in well enough to be inconspicuous.
On the bus home, I realized that you can die in cars here. I've become so relaxed with their crazy driving that I had begun to think we were all invincible on the roads. Don't you worry; our bus driver only almost got us killed twice. Apparently he didn't think it was too necessary to slow down on the road covered in rain. All I know is it wasn't too out of place for me to be nervous. When a bus full of Chinese people gasp in terror, you're safe to gasp as well.

I had a little bit of an epiphany last night. The First Presidency has asked that we help with the situation in Haiti through whatever way possible. So I think I'm going to go this summer for a few weeks after I get home from China. The program that I found has many different positions for volunteers and I think I'm going to go help with the kids. It's a daycare/teaching thing. I just hope situations allow for me to actually follow through on this one because it would be so amazing.

I hope everyone remembers that Chinese New Year is coming up on Sunday! Spend lots of time with family. That's the best way to do it. I am going to celebrate Chinese New Year every year from now on! I love it.