School and More

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. ~Lin Yutang

Classes are going well, but I think my favorite work, albeit the most tiring work, is going out with the mobile library. We visited one village where about twenty-five to thirty kids came out too see us. They were all really excited to see me and kept asking again and again if I was really American. We had a lot of fun. A little girl read a couple of books to me, the boys jumped on my back and played around and they all drew pictures for me. They were a lot of fun, and they were so excited for the mobile library to come around. But at the same time, I had to put things in perspective. These kids who looked so happy, only got this experience once a month. When at home they were helping their parents with work and taking care of siblings. They live in small, often dirty homes, and they have an immense disadvantage to students in Taipei or other cities for pursuing careers in the future since their schools are under funded.

We went out for dinner that night with the director to a restaurant atop one of the mountains. It was a traditional aboriginal restaurant, so while we waited for our food, in the center of the place (it was all outdoors by the way) there was traditional music and dancing. I took more video, though not too much to be obnoxious, and sat and enjoyed the full moon, food, and dancing. It was a good meal. Once again, I was limited by the rapid Chinese being flying across the table, but I understood that the director was leaving for Mongolia, this coming week now to work at a TFCF chapter out there. He told us about a trip where he once hunted coyotes with the people there after Mrs. Kao mentioned that a coyote had once eaten one of her cats. He is a funny guy. Always joking and laughing, but he does very serious work and has seen some sad and terrible things with the children he helps.

The next day we went out with the mobile library again and there was one girl very eager to improve her English, so Celeste and I helped her read through an English storybook. She did pretty well. I liked this girl a lot and I really hope she can get out of the life she is in right now. If she works hard in school and gets into a University maybe she can, that’s why TFCF exists really. Her dream, or at least what I could understand of it, was to get into hotel management and to one day visit Finland. I don’t know why she wanted to go to Finland but why not, we all have dreams…her name was Winnie. I really liked Winnie.

Anyway, I thought I should share some of the food that I have eaten on this trip. Perhaps I have mentioned some if it before, I lose track, but I know there is a lot of stuff to add. I have eaten shaved ice with red beans (I personally prefer the mango kind, but this was pretty good), duck feet, fresh octopus, sea cucumber, “100 year old” black eggs, and chicken in a thick rice wine sauce that tasted…well it is an acquired taste and I have yet to acquire it. There are others as well that will come back to me I’m sure. I have eaten chicken heart soup (though I didn’t eat the hearts), numerous vegetables and fruits that I cannot for the life of me name, and just about every day I try something new.

Speaking of something new, Celeste and I tried drumming with the kids. The school has a set of snare drums, tom toms and bass drums that the kids and teachers learn to play from the only black person I have seen on the entire island. I don’t know where he is from but he looks like a stereotypical Rastafarian who teaches the kids to drum and dance in enthusiastic Chinese. Chinese with a Caribbean accent is pretty cool.

As different and incredible as all this has been, none of it would have been possible without Cash. Cash has driven us to every location, gotten us meals, made us meals, brought us food from her family’s farm, helped out with kids, equipment, everything. The other night, about seventy kids from the TFCF were going on a camping trip. So we went out to help set up tents and cook meals. I helped Cash prepare a soup in the largest pot I have ever seen in my life. It would have to be since it needed to feed 70 kids. She lit fires, played with kids, cooked; she’s awesome. That night was fun. I met Shawn that night, a TA from the school last year with Mrs. Kao and Celeste, and he came with us to camp. So after we helped to cook the soup, we set about cooking our own meal. It was fun sitting around our little campfire roasting meat and vegetables. All of the kids routinely brought us food from their fires and then ran away shyly, giggling. It was pretty cute. We tried to buy marshmallows to teach them how to roast them, but all we could find were fruity knockoff marshmallows that tasted more like candy. The kid liked them though, so we managed to give those out and everyone was happy.

We found out that Cash, who had just driven us up a mountain and made soup for seventy people, was getting up at four in the morning the next day to plant rice on her family’s farm. I really wanted to give back in some way, to thank her for all she did for us, so I started my next great adventure…I offered to help plant rice in her fields. I didn’t get up at 4:00 am with them; I started at 8:00 instead. I think they would have been too worried if I had started working with them at 5:00. They constantly worried I would collapse the heat, but I actually handled it quite well. I have a new, educated, respect for farmers and their work and for Cash and her family. But I should probably tell the full story.