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Farewell to the village - Yunnan, ChinaJan 23, 2009
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We joined the middle school teachers for an end of term dinner.
The association and our host grandma also gave us a farewell dinner.
The chairman of the association gave us each a Yi ethnic clothing...
After 5 months living in the village, it was time for us to leave. School semester was over and all the students are back home. Since Yi don't celebrate Chinese New Year, there was no special reason for us to stay. We wanted to get back to Kunming to rest a bit before transitioning to our future project site in another rural area.
It was hard to believe that our time has come to leave. Although the temperature has been really cold and sometimes almost unbearable, the experience we had was unforgetable. Olivia wanted Jonathan to be permanent school teacher so we can continue to live there. It was sad to leave the many bonds we had established in the village. It was nice to be in a small community where we know everyone. We also felt sad to leave our horse, ducks, chickens, and pigs behind. Joani held her birthday party few days early in order to celebrate with her classmates whom she built good friendhips. Jonathan showed pictures she took during the 5 months with his students. The 9th grade class also made a video of us and themselves and gave us as gift. The school also invited us to their annual end of school term meal.
Jonathan and Annie's students both wrote letters and notes to say farewell. One of the memorable note came from Jonathan's student, where the student expressed that at first, everyone said we are a rich family who came here to have fun. Now the student knows we came because we care. The student was at first discouraged about not able to go to the academically better school in the county town. Now she is renewed with energy to not give up and to try harder in school.
We gave our precious horse to our host's nephew as we like him a lot and know that he is in need of a horse but lack the finances to buy one right now. We could have sold it for RMB 1700-1900 but at the end we wanted the horse to belong to someone we know so that we can visit our horse Salta in the future. The nephew thanked us by killing one of his small pig for a farewell dinner to us. We didn't want to accept it but we weren't able to refuse. That night, we had a great feast. We also ate lots of pork BBQ with Jonathan's cousins.
The Rural Association, of which we are its volunteer, also in a different date brought fish from the dam to give us a farewell dinner. Our host grandma also killed one of her chicken as well for the meal. Later the Chairman of the association gave each one of us an ethnic minorty clothing. We all wore it to the wedding and everyone were excited as it was a great honor for the host for their guest to come in their best dress, which is their ethnic dress.
After 2 days of packing, we came away with 20 boxes and bags of items. We bid farewell but the memories will last a lifetime. We thank the Lord for his protection and wonderful plan during these 5 months.
