TheBanyanTree: Early June

[Pat M]

For a couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling bitter about Peter but now, thank
goodness, my dark mood is lifting.  I haven’t definitely decided I’ll come
back here but I’m going to leave my things behind: a microwave, hot plate,
laminater, house wares, books, teaching materials and clothes. I’m learning
to place less value on possessions and it won’t hurt a bit if I don’t return
for them.

I leave next week and am so excited! Pingguo is not a tourist area and there
simply isn’t anything unusual to take home except for wooden bedding.  I
have fallen in love with the bamboo slat mat that covers the top of my bed.
It really helps keep me cool and if it weren’t so heavy I’d pack one in my
suitcase.  My wooden pillow is also too heavy but I found some bamboo slat
pillowcases that make a unique souvenir.

Aside from that, CDs and DVDs are so cheap here that I have accumulated many
to take home for myself and for gifts. I really love Chinese folk and
classical music. The CDs and DVDs are all pirated and sold for next to
nothing in all the stores. It isn’t even possible to get legal copies. I
love the DVDs because there can be as many as 12 movies on one disk.
Hopefully,
they won’t be confiscated when I re-enter Canada next week.

It has been oppressively hot lately and rivers of sweat pour off me all day
long. I’ve had to resort to turning on the air conditioner in the evening to
cope. The other day it was so humid and hot that I ended up with a burning,
scarlet-coloured heat rash on my chest. I drink copious amounts of water and
Scream, the Chinese equivalent to Gatorade. Scream comes in a bottle with a
special cap lid that the children like.  I have supplied most of them with
their own ‘water’ bottle.

At night, I sleep without covers but I had a shall-we-say, interesting
experience the other night that resulted in me sleeping with a sheet over
me.  A few times when I’ve gone to bed I’ve heard noises in my room and I’ve
assumed it was either a very large cockroach or a small mouse and haven’t
investigated.  (There was a time that would have freaked me out but I've
toughened up some.)

A couple of nights ago, I had insomnia and heard the noises again.  This
time I turned on the light but saw nothing. When I turned off the light the
noises started again.  What the heck was it? Again, I turned on the light.
This time, I saw it and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the largest black
spider I have ever seen—perhaps 3 inches across and it sat immobile next to
my fridge. I screamed and gasped, “Oh my God.”  (Under pressure I talk to
myself.) What to do?  I picked up my broom and crept up on it very slowly.
It didn’t move. I knew that the broom wasn’t the best tool to help me but I
couldn’t figure out what else to do. I was afraid to get too close to
it.  Finally
I gathered my nerve and bashed it, but it escaped behind my bookcase.  Now
what?

I didn’t want to wake everyone up to help me hunt it down so I sat down at
my computer and began searching for pictures of China’s poisonous spiders.
It was hard to find any information and I finally gave up.  I was on edge
but decided to deal with the problem in the morning, reasoning that it had
been in my room before without incident.  Just in case though, I covered
myself with a sheet. It took a very long time to finally go to sleep.

The next day I tried to find it to no avail. All of the children emptied
their lockers but it wasn’t to be found. My room has an entrance to the
attic and perhaps that’s where it came from and returned to.  Hopefully it
doesn’t visit me again.

Another day, I went to put on one of my shirts and saw that it had a batch
of white eggs on it that looked like small pearls. I disposed of them in the
toilet, having no idea what they were.  Some days later I saw the same eggs
on the outside of my window screen.  I decided to leave them and see what
they were.  Yesterday they hatched. (see the photo on Picasa) I called the
girls to look at them. They told me they were not good and indicated through
gestures that they spit and could damage one’s eyes. I got my hairspray-the
closest thing to poison I have- and doused them.  Then, we knocked them down
and killed them all. Ah, the joys of the tropics.

These children make it all worthwhile, though. They are wonderful kids, so
loving and so well-behaved.  In Chinese, bao bao (sounds like the action
‘bow’) means baby. Sometimes I say they are my bao baos. Then, they rush me,
each one vying for my attention to be picked up. I count one, two, three and
they jump up (some are very big!) and I settle them on my hip. They have a
few seconds of baby time and then I pick up the next, one after another
until I am tired.

I really wish they were my children. I see so much potential in them and I
know that most will end up in the rice paddies and fields working long hours
but barely making enough money to survive.

There’s a little girl who just turned five, Hejiemei. The other day, I saw
her crouched on her haunches (as all the Chinese do) with a little shoe box
so I went over to investigate.  It was her little box of treasures—the only
things that belong to her. Wide-eyed, smiling, she shared the precious
contents with me. Most were things from me—a picture of a butterfly I’d
printed on the computer and given to all the children along with glitter
pens to colour them; another of Cinderella I’d printed and she’d coloured,
and a simple friendship bracelet from the coloured cord I’d provided. She
was so proud of the contents of that box that it touched my heart.
There is always something to test my patience, though. Some weeks ago, I
bought some cucumber seeds. One of the boys, Tang Hu Wei, and I planted them
together. He is a very good little boy and he always helps everyone without
being asked. We watched them grow, visiting them every few days, commenting
on how many flowers there were and how big the cucumbers were getting. In
the past couple of days, the cucumbers grew long and ready for picking. I
just went outside to look at them and they were gone.
Earlier today, Peter told one of the workers to pick them and they were
eaten by everyone except me.  It isn’t that I didn’t get any. It’s that Tang
and I were going to pick them together and he was going to have the
opportunity to ‘give’ them to everyone. It would have bolstered his
self-esteem and given him a sense of accomplishment.  I was so disappointed
that I came very close to crying.

It’s a good thing I’m going home next week.
Pat

Pingguo China 2009 photos can be viewed at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ms.Pat.Martin/Pingguo#