Our school has transformed greatly since just two weeks ago. It is amazing how much work can get done when you hire hundreds of workers and must finish things very quickly. They have painted all of the buildings on campus, inside and out, our new gate is finished (it is super huge and seems to be missing something that makes it exciting), they carved the school name into huge limestone blocks, and everything is cleaned up. It is all in anticipation of today. Today was Day One of the Grand School Inspection. Important leaders from the government come and check on the school and whether to promote it. We have grown to be a little used to such huge festivities that seem way over the top in China, but this is something to yet another level. It seemed like everything special that could be done was done for this event, to make our school look grand...as though it is a "new" school. It makes us laugh to think about it.

As always we seemed to be right in the middle of it. We wanted to take Noah out to walk this afternoon and let her loose to run when we saw the line-up of important people at our new gate. There were women in the traditional Chinese gowns lined up for 50 m followed by other women in Guizhou minority gowns behind them and other leaders waiting everywhere around. We decided this would not be the time to go running in front. The English department had a special event for them...a staged and nervous outdoor English Corner. We arrived a little early and waited for almost 1.5 hours for the leaders to come and they stayed for a grand total of 10 seconds. The students in charge were very bummed!! They put tons of work into it to only get a hello in passing from the leaders, but that was the same throughout the campus, the PE department and others had special events which were seen quickly and passed by.

The school inspection leaves lots of questions with me: why do they need to just fix up the school to be nice every 5 years, what will the school be like next week, will it return to how it was before or will students and leaders work to keep up the niceness, and always why why why something so grand and expensive for just one day. The new gate was reported to cost 400, 000 RMB more then $50,000, but I am happy to see that they fixed up the auditorium and can now have more performances and events and the special buildings are really nice.

This weekend was a holiday in China...May Day or Chinese Labor Day. We celebrated the day with students doing no work--they love to hear those words, "No Homework." We went instead for a barbeque--it was our first time planning and preparing everything. We had 15 people in all and also Noah on a rainy day, but luckily we planned ahead and booked a place indoors to have the event. As always, we questioned the amount of food: we bought potatoes, egg plant, zucchini, steamed bread, meat, hotdogs, and various kinds of fish ball type things. The food is made on a grill with charcoal under and we put all of the things on sticks and grease them with oil and soy sauce and cook them adding spices and things and can eat all day. We ended up with almost a refrigerator full of leftovers.

For Saturday and Sunday, our plan was to go to nearby, 2 hours, Ziyun a poor part of our area. We bought some books last year and some clothes and money for some poor students of our friends for this year. We did not get to go to the school to deliver them as we had the barbeque but we heard many stories, like of a child who was crying in class because of not having money to eat for two days and others overwhelmed by receiving new shoes, shirts, etc.

On Saturday, we went to Getu He (a famous river in the area). The river is green in color and has tall mountains around it. It is amazingly beautiful. All of it formed from large flooding that shaped the tall mountains of limestone. Along the way, I was able to see water buffalo fighting. Describing the park is difficult to do, but we did get to see many different kinds of karst topography and enjoy the nice weather. After seeing the area, we went to the last remaining tribe to live in a cave. The car ride could have been a good indication, very rough with students hitting their heads, but we arrived at the place with a long path that led into the mountains. We walked and walked to the top of the mountain only to see the cave far in the distance, maybe another 3 km (1 + miles away). The path to it was not filled with mud and poo and was quite the interesting terrain, but after feeling like our legs would die we arrived at the top. The cave was relatively open so quite a bit of light came into the homes made of bamboo...there were houses made of brick outside provided by the government that the people did not like and did not use. We walked around looking at the houses and visiting with the friendly people. It was hard to discount their feelings of hospitality, as they seemed to be cut off from the rest of the world except for the tourists that survive the crazy trek. They had an old school inside and several houses. We visited with one family who showed us their home and food--field corn that is crushed into a meal and cooked over a fire...no rice, some goats, but this was their main meal. I was tempted to try it but it was not finished at the time.

We returned rather tired, so as the women went off to their house to sleep at around 10 pm, the guys were invited to a party, first by a group of the Miao women celebrating a festival in their colorful clothes, but finally at another persons house. We drank tea and talked about many things before they asked me if I wanted to go out to eat snacks. Sure, I like snacks!! What I found out is that snacks can also mean a meal late at night. We sat down at a popular late night hang-out and they ordered ribs and spine with some meat on it and we at them with our plastic gloves and they wanted me to try hot beer with them--with some Chinese medicine in it. I dislike beer in America and this was nasty by all means. They ordered several gallons of the stuff and I forced down one glass. Then they ordered more food and drinks. We had toasted fish at 1 am and they wanted to play drinking games. They played as me and another girl who also hated drinking were the judges and drink pourers. We played a little but did not receive the prizes. At around 2 am the third kind of food was finished and our case of beer was gone--I was ready for bed. They wanted to go out to a KTV to do some karaoke and I found out just how old I am. I had to say that I was too tired to go. I guess this is a regular weekend activity in a small town. We were up early though to eat food and head back to Anshun around noon. A good time.