HOLY FAMILY CHILDREN’S HOME
Teacher Fan is a very mellow and low profile person, but with strong faith in God’s providence for the children and people she works with. She was grateful for my help but gave me little direction, so I had to create my own position helping with these 22 children aged 4 to 15.
They yell out ‘Grandma, I am home’ to Teacher Fan everyday before they enter the front gate. As long as ‘grandma’ is not busy at her desk, they either climb up and down on her lap to tell her how funny new Teacher Wu treats them or work with ‘grandma’ on her school projects all over the floor or write letters to their adopting parents and siblings or draw pictures for them. They all know they have been loved so much, so they in turn remember those flooded in the Tsunami, benefactors, and souls in purgatory in their daily morning and night prayers. Two older girls even told grandma that they would like to follow grandma’s footstep to serve the poor when they grow up.
If they are sick with small causes, there is an acupuncturist, Doctor Wu (no relation to me), who is given room and board on the premises to watch over them. He is a retired army pilot from
When I kissed a five-year old girl named Holy Joy good night, she held my face and asked, “Teacher Wu, do you have a mother?” I paused and did not know what to reply to her because she reminded me of my elderly mother back home. When she saw tears coming down from my eyes, she held me tightly and drew a small cross on my forehead. Some 15 years old kids are only at 2nd grade level because education wasn’t available until Teacher Fan accepted them into Holy Family. They know they are way behind so they are very studious and want extra homework.
HUEY-LONG VILLAGE CHINESE ELEMENTARY AFTER SCHOOL
(Monday thru Friday from 4:30 – 7 pm and Saturday 8 am – 4 pm).
The main reason so many Chinese schools are needed in northern
In order to introduce daily sanitation customs to the students, we put on a little play for the kids. I acted the homeless lady, spitting, tossing garbage out the window, wiping my runny nose with my sleeves, dragging my shoes, and rubbing my eyes. I got the local hospital to provide toothbrushes and pastes for all the children, using a model of the teeth they loaned me to teach kids how to brush from the bottom of the gums all the way to the end of the teeth, and tongue, and why. On Christmas day, we climbed up to near-by Lahu mountain village to distribute some old clothes, dried food and daily items to the less fortunate. They offered us sticky rice patty in return. In the afternoon, I took some of the older kids hiking to
40% of the students are non-Chinese speaking ethnic students. One day in my English class, after I taught them ‘you are a bad girl and you are a bad boy’, they asked me how to say teacher in English. They turned around and told me ‘you are a bad teacher’. Later, their home class teacher came in to pick up something and they repeated ‘you are a bad teacher’. Songs were my primary mode of teaching English, so they all enjoyed ‘Edelweiss’ and ‘Do-Re-Mi’ from “the Sound of Music’. One day in our assembly, I put them up on the stage but they did not cooperate and would not sing those songs at all and it made me very upset. Later they told me that they could not grasp English lyrics comfortably. It made me realize that I had ignored their absorbing ability and overestimated my teaching ability. After I apologized to them, they asked my forgiveness for not trying 100%.
On my last day, I asked how they would remember me the most. One boy said ‘your big butt’ (for my Jazzercise friends, you all remember how I stick my bootie out exaggeratedly when dancing and that was how I taught them to dance in their PE class). Another boy told me ‘you fart so much’ (I guess he is absolutely right on this, because I was fed potatoes, yams and beans most of the time. I just got my blood work report with perfect cholesterol and glucose. If this kind of diet triggers my normal cholesterol and glucose, I would go for farting anytime). In return, I told them I would remember them the most from the smell of their feet at nighttime prayers before they take a shower. (It smelled so bad). They asked me “When shall I see you again?” and I told them I could not promise them anything because if I cannot keep my promise, I would be a cheater and would disappoint them.
In the early morning of the day I came home, I left my slides with one boy whose slides had just broken. I left my aerobic shoes with another boy who is going to middle school in April and this will be his first pair of sports shoes. Without further thinking, I wore a pair of very thin slippers provided by China Airline on my way to
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