I had to leave early to catch the bus for Baotuquan
Campus. Whenever I start to enter that
campus, one of the guards at the gate always greets me with, “Good Morning.” That may be the only English phrase he knows,
but I love how he says it. I always
greet him back the same way. There is
another guard that greets me with the Chinese greeting, “Nee Hao.” They are just such friendly guards on that campus
that it makes having to get up so early to get there a little better.
As soon as I got to the building for my first class, I had
three students waiting for me. One had
not done his presentation yet, so I had him do it for me. The other two were “self-study” students that
I had help lay out a plan for so that I could give them a grade and I had to
meet with all of them before I started with my regular students. I had a good time interviewing the students,
but I still got behind time. It wasn’t
as tearful as it is with the freshman students because I haven’t gotten to know
the sophomores as well.
When I was done with the interviews, I had to find my way to
the south end of campus so that I could catch a bus to the Qinfushan hospital
and meet with Dr. Tricia. She has
invited me to lunch today so that I wouldn’t have to go all the way home after
classes before coming back to the hospital to meet with the surgeon. I first of all had to stop and say good-bye
to the guard that I gave the banana bread to.
He was always so friendly and so helpful to me. He always tried to speak what little English
he knew and understand what I was saying.
I hope I got through to him that I wouldn’t be seeing him again and that
I appreciated his kindness to me.
I tried to find my way out of the campus, but got lost and
when I saw that the way I was going was not going to get me where I needed to
be, I asked a girl that was ahead of me.
She spoke really good English and after I told her where I need to go,
she started to walk me there. On the
way, I found out that she was one of Libby’s sophomore students from last
semester that also helps to run the English Corner! We had a nice visit on the way. There was a little store on the way to the
south gate and we stopped to get me a bottle of water. They were busy having lunch and after I
bought the water, one of the women offered me some of her dumplings that she
had made. I was very hungry, so I took
one. It was really good so I gave her
the “thumbs up” sign. The Chinese know
that it means “good,” and then she offered me another. It was just what I needed to get me to the
lunch meeting with Dr. Tricia. Just
another case of the Lord sending me the people that I need in my life to help
me here in China!
Dr. Tricia was waiting for me when I finally arrived and we
had lunch together. She had one of her
helpers go get some lunch from a local place that was supposed to have a
special kind of Shandong style chicken.
He didn’t get the right kind of chicken, but it was still really good… chopped
up bones and all. We finished a little
before two, so we cleaned up and then it was time to go see the surgeon.
Dr. Li has been a nice man to deal with, and he is very competent
in his job. He checked things over and
pronounced me ready to go back to the states when it is time. I will miss him and his kind ministrations to
me. It didn’t take long, so that by 2:30,
I was on my way back to campus.
David met me at the KFC and we stopped to have some ice
cream. Then we went home and after a
nap, I got busy with putting grades in the computer for the sophomore classes
and sending them to the person I needed to on that campus. We had a light supper and then played some
games this evening.
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