Noah's Ark

Josh and I had the chance this week to play the part of Noah as our dear little province of Hunan was flooded. It rained from Sunday until Friday, non stop, and that proved to be a problem for China's limited sewage and drainage facilities (plus the fact that we live about 100 yards from a river.) By Friday afternoon, the northern half of Dao Xian was under water--literally. The water actually made it up to the second floor of some buildings and stayed there for a couple of days. Erin and Dianna, the girls who teach at the other high school in town, weren't able to go back home. Their building was flooded to the second floor (fortunately, they live on the fourth floor, so their stuff was ok.) So they came over and stayed in Josh's apartment, and he moved downstairs with me for a few days.

The flooding was amazing, really. I'll take a picture of the bridge near our house. Josh and I estimate that the river must have risen at least twenty feet, because the water was up past the supports and running along the bottom of the arches in the bridge. It was supposed to rain a few more days, but I guess the storm moved along and we had a couple of sunny days.

The nice part of all this was that it was so cool, albeit very humid. I guess that doesn't really make up for all the homes and businesses that the flood destroyed, but it was a pleasant change from how hot it had been before the rain. Other than that, though, we still had to teach classes, and our power was out for 14 hours on Saturday. That made it an incredibly long day--I guess I didn't realize how much I use electricity for entertainment. On a day that I had stuff to do, it would have been ok, but there was absolutely nothing to do. Very very boring.

Other than that, not much is new. We have two weeks of teaching left, which is great. I'm teaching my last lesson this week, and then next week I'll show a video. Josh has preempted me and is showing a movie this week and next week--Hoosiers. He said the students really like it, but it's about basketball, so it was sort of a given. We're trying to decide what we want to do with our four travel days at the end of the semester, before we go home. Any suggestions? Right now we are leaning toward Xi'an, to see the terracotta warriors, but it's still up in the air.

There's also the slight chance I might have a few days off next week for exams, but that's based on the words of a student. So I sort of doubt it. In any case, I'll just be showing a movie, so it doesn't really matter.

Well, that's all for me, I'll go ahead and say goodbye for now!