Okay, I saw some page views so I think I owe whoever you are a post. I had planned to compose at least one post a week, on Sundays, but this Sunday I was too sick to even think about it. It is surprising that I did not get sicker sooner. I had a bit of phlegm stuck in my throat a week ago and thought maybe it was due to the dust storm we had that day.

Every morning at 9:20 am some energetic and patriotic sounding music plays over the loud speakers and all of the students file out onto the basketball courts. Then for about eight minutes they do some exercises while I stay in my office (unless it's Thursday or Friday when my classes start later in the day) and listen to the counting: yi, er, san, si, wu, liu...

But last Wednesday the exercises were cancelled due to the bad weather. I thought all of the dirt in the air might have had an effect on my larynx, although I had been wearing my face mask.  The next day my students stared at me when I called out my usual energetic "Hello!" in a deeper voice than usual.

Modeling my dust mask and demonstrating how I've been feeling lately

I probably should have stayed home from Erika's birthday dinner on Friday. She is the another foreign teacher at my school. She only teaches there on Tuesdays and Fridays, as she also teaches at the #8 middle school in Baiyin. We had a variety of dishes in a little room with Bob (the middle aged teacher from England) and Todd from Colorado, who had just arrived four days before. The hosts were the family of a student (Erin) at Erika's school. During the dinner the student father and uncles (really family friends) were gan bei-ing at an alarming rate of about four beers in 20 minutes and I had to turn my head to cough every now and then. Because I do not drink, the family ordered a jug of juice for me, and expected me to gan bei with that. The sugar of the juice and the birthday cake which we consumed first didn't do any wonders for my throat. I'm not sure why but it seems to be tradition in China to eat birthday cake before the meal. That's what was done at my birthday dinner with the leaders of my school.


That evening when I returned home I went to bed early and woke up at 3 am coughing up so much phlegm that it was like I was having a hangover. The next day instead of going to Lanzhou, Gansu's capital, with the other foreign teachers I stayed home. I also canceled the private English lesson with the cute little six and eight-year-old girl who live in my apartment complex. I started teaching them for an hour every Saturday three weeks ago. I called an English teacher at my school to cancel the appointment I had with her to make dumplings the next day. She was alarmed when I told her I had a cold and said she would take me to the hospital. I'm guessing she didn't know exactly what a cold is. I declined but allowed her to buy some medicine for me. She brought me some Chinese traditional medicine as well as Western medicine.


I wasn't feeling well enough on Monday and Tuesday to return to work so I asked for those two days off. I had several visits. Ms. Hu called to see what was wrong on Monday and came over to see me. The next day Lavender (the teacher at my school assigned to help me with basically anything I have a concern about) took me to the market near my home and bought some fruit for me. That evening Mr. Wu called to ask why he hadn't seen me lately and when I told him I had a cold he said he wanted to visit me too.

While I was eating dinner, Mr. Wu arrived.  He brought milk (the low lactose kind that doesn't have to be refrigerated and is stored in the same kind of boxes we use for juice in America), a loaf of bread and a personal sized cake from AILI, the local bakery. 

The lovely little cake from Mr. Wu

Despite the fact that dairy, sugar and starch were about the worst things for the congestion that was still lingering in my throat, I was touched by Mr. Wu's kindness yet again. He looked at the millet, bean sprouts, carrots and squash I had cooked for my dinner and said, "Very simple. You eat cake." He opened it up, handed me the cake and the little plastic fork that came with it. 

"Drink lots of water," he advised me for the third time before he left. 

However, because the water had just been turned off without notice, I didn't want to do that. I didn't have any extra water to force the toilet to flush, you see. Thankfully, the water was back on before I went to bed.

Today I felt much better and returned to work. I was quite excited to finally give my lesson on pirates. I taught my students to say, "Arrgh!" but for some reason couldn't get them to make hooks with their fingers. They seemed too embarrassed to do it. The top class did really get into the role plays I had them do later, however. They were grabbing things in the classroom such as badminton racquets and triangular rulers to use for makeshift weapons. Their role plays were fun to watch, though I was a bit disappointed when the top student announced that her group's role play was a silent one! She narrated while the others mimed. I guess next time I'll have to make it clear that I want each student in the group to have a speaking part!