Silkworms, Steak knives, Crawfish, and other Adventures of May

My room has gotten a little more crowded lately.

First of all there’s Saffton. Saffron is my silk worm. You see, last week Peter was playing with something in his desk. That isn’t at all unusual, but normally he’s messing with a pocketknife and a stick or trying to surreptitiously swigging of pepsi. On that day, however, he happened to have in his possession something else entirely—a rather large, white worm. He held it up as if hoping to scare me and then set it on his desk, wherefrom I plucked it, and, ignoring the screams of my female students, walked it over to the windowsill. I stuck it there, but it didn’t seem too happy, so at the end of class I took pity and brought her back to my room. I found out that she was a silkworm from Yiming. Malijun shrieked, pronounced it scary and ugly, and ran away. Silkworms only eat mulberry leaves. Luckily, there are several mulberry bushes quite near the school, so I ventured out once every couple days to get her a new stash. Over the weekend she built a cocoon, so in a week or two I should have my very own moth. Unfortunately, the moths only live for a few days and can’t eat or fly. Still, pets are good.

I wish Saffron was my only pet, but this is apparently fly season, which means that there are not 1 or 2 but rather at least a dozen flies buzzing about my room. This is the punishment, I suppose, for having a room that cannot ever be completely closed off from the outside. They like my computer. There are three on it as I type—no, make that four—and I’ve grown accustomed to the little colony that forms on the edge of my keyboard. Fun times.

Speaking of fun times, I’ve collected, over the course of this year, quite a few knives from my students. Most are of the pocketknife variety and are not particularly scary. Two nights ago, however, I pulled from William’s desk, despite his best efforts to divert me from it, a full-fledged steak knife. He was only cutting up the desk and not his classmates, which I suppose is a plus, but it nonetheless caught me somewhat off-guard.

As if that wasn’t enough, yesterday I walked into class to find a very big, very much alive crawfish on my desk. The boys who’d put it there tried to snatch it back, but I held onto it and brought it to the lake after class ended.

When we first arrived in Heqing last August, we had nary a day of sunshine in a good month. I remember seeing patches of blue in early October and being amazed by them. We’re heading back into the rainy season now, so there’re a lot of days that range from brightest sun to rainclouds and back. I’m taking as much advantage of the non-rainy weather as possible, biking into town a few times a week and going on walks and the like. I’ve discovered a way to town that goes along village roads instead of the main ones. There’s prettier scenery and less traffic. There’s also a whole lotta straw and other plants on the road. This is apparently the time of year when the farmers beat the seeds from last season’s crops, and to take some of the work out of the process they often lay the plants out so cars and motorcycles and people will dislodge the seeds.

Last Saturday, Mark and I went to visit three of my students in their village, about a half hour bike ride away. We didn’t know exactly how to get there and ended up biking through a lot of fields and, on more than one occasion, having to half drag, half carry our bikes between fields over these rather precarious ladder/bridge contraptions.

The thing about Chinese villages is that there are not street names or, often enough, distinctive homes and landmarks. It’s mostly a lot of fields and dirt or cement roads. Thus, when we finally reached the village, I called Malia to ask where to meet her, only to discover that clear directions weren’t in the forecast. Luckily, we stumbled upon an eighth grader from our school who guided us, on her own bike, to Malia and Molly.

The visit was fun. I got to see three of my students’ homes and get a tour of their village. They were really excited to see me outside of school too.

We’re kinda-sorta-a little bit coming into the home stretch. I have three units of new material left, followed by review time. This semester is much less demanding, time wise, than the last, when Mark and I were absolutely scrambling to fit everything in by the end. School goes until sometime in July, but whether it’s the 10^th or the 20^th or even later is still very much uncertain. This made buying a ticket home difficult, but I did. July 25^th. Beijing to Atlanta. I am ever so excited. In the meantime, I’m trying to get as much out of these final two months as possible. I may be ready to go home, but I also know that this is in some significant respects the most extraordinary circumstance I’m likely to find myself in for years.

For now, it’s Friday afternoon, which means a major room cleanup, reading time, and perhaps a trip into town for bubble tea and groceries. Weekends are good. I'm going to try to get a new batch of pictures up soon, so stay posted.