better space, baby

The first week on our new campus has been nothing if not eventful. In the space of a 10-minute taxi ride, we segued from the tranquility of quarantine to a raging party of moving boxes, 350 new students, 40 summer volunteers and an unfamiliar place.

The main building housing our office and living space is being renovated around us. The schedule is spontaneous and things have to be moved from room to room, downstairs to upstairs and back again.

We are eating fresh peaches everyday which almost makes up for the fact that they are jack-hammering the cement floor below our room (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.), everything we own is lost in a moving box and we are sleeping on opposite sides of the room on bunks made of wooden slats without mattresses. Incredibly, it all seems reasonable and normal.

The first few days of the program have been tremendously long as we have been trying to put everything in order, orientate the students and help the summer team get situated and stay on track. Everyone is working extremely hard to provide the students with a great experience under conditions that can we are generously calling challenging.

Despite the pace and confusion, we are truly happy to be back in China (in the right time zone), eating Chinese food and working with the Chinese people. We are also excited about the opportunity to help the summer volunteers have a positive and rewarding experience in an environment that is probably more difficult and crazy than they had imagined.

While the positive aspects of our new home are numerous, we have already identified several notable improvements. There are two convenience stores/fruit stands right on campus and they are actually open regular store hours. The cafeteria offers a larger selection of food and the overall quality and taste is better than before. Most importantly, we are less than a five-minute walk to the front gate and the outside world filled with stores, restaurants, public transportation and millions of opportunities to practice our Chinese!

Photos online: http://picasaweb.google.com/peace6371/