Thursday October 30, 2008

Hello all!
I just finished my first assignment and the team leader liked it so I feel like I am on the right track.

One of the things we do here is have a lunch chat everyday with students. Students come into the center and eat their lunch and practice English. Yesterday one of the students told us that someone said she looked very skinny and wanted to know if she'd been sick. The student didn't know how to answer her in English. She was offended because she didn't feel this person really knew her well enough to say something like that. We told her we would probably say MYOB, and told her what that meant. All of the students at the table got a big kick out of that and turned it into the YMCA song. We all learned another universal topic....the YMCA song is known around the world. We also tried to explain what it means to be a sponge, or to sponge off of others. The lunch time chats are so much fun because we get a chance to talk about things that we wouldn't talk about in a class. One of the students is a TV reporter and she and I talked today about possibly taking a 3 day jaunt to mainland China to see the Great Wall. She was born in Macau and hasn't ever seen it either. We will see. I would like to go with her because her English is a lot better than my Chinese.

Last night when I was opening the third door to my apartment I put in the wrong key and it broke off in the lock. Fortuneately Mary gave me a cell phone to use while I am here so I called the Center and one of the workers who speaks Chinese called a repair person. He got to my apartment in about 45 minutes and got the broken part of the key out of the lock in about 2 minutes. I hadn't broken the key that opened the door. The key I broke was a key to the Center. I got it replaced this morning. When I paid the workman, it was $20 US. When is the last time you had a repair done in your home for $20?

Tomorrow I will have an opportunity to do some sightseeing in Macau with a group of Pastors who have come from the US for leadership training. It will the first time I have had a chance to see any of the more famous sites.

I look forward to reading your comments. Thank you for them. They keep me connected to home.
Lois