Community

One of our desires in China is to be part of a community.  In the USA, we were able to use our home and our lives to invite people in for meals, holidays, game nights, barbeque's.  Here, it is easy to be part of a community of foreigners.  Actually, we could spend our whole lives here and spend most of our time with the foreign community.  However, we are in China to get to know Chinese people and culture and that takes some intentionality on our parts.

Today was a good day for community and getting to know people.  

The day started off with some teaching in a local language center.  I just spent three weeks teaching a Saturday morning class for a friend who returned to the US.  It was fun to teach again and the kids were really cute.

The boys.  I'd like to say that sat quietly like this all class...but they are third grade boys!

The girls.  They did sit and do their work most of the class.

While I was  teaching, Elisabeth stayed home and did her homework.  Finals are next week and she has a lot of studying to do.  Paul rode his bike out to the big foreign grocery store to get tortillas.  There weren't any out (not uncommon) but he asked and they found two packs in the back.  We could have done homemade but needed some simplicity for the meal.

Taco meat can be cooked in a wok!

Pinto beans were soaked overnight and then cooked with some oil and salt in our pressure cooker.  Then Elisabeth mashed them down with a whisk into refried beans. 

The people came-young and middle aged.  We explained how you prepare and eat a soft taco.

Pictures were posed for.

Taco's can be eaten with chopsticks!

The girl making the V for victory sign made us the red pillows on the back of the couch. They say "Husband"  and "Wife."

Elisabeth taught some high school girls how to play Mexican train.

We ran into Elisabeth's biology teacher in the market so we invited him to to dinner.  He and Paul taught a different group how to play Yahtzee.

The cat was a big hit.  He was exhausted by the end of the night.

Tonight was a good night,  a night where we felt we made some major steps to getting to know more people and being part of life here.