mrveitch

Peace Corps China is special for many reasons. The most visible difference is the availability (or illusion of) modern amenities. As I’ve noted before, most sites here in China don’t have as plush a set up as I do.

Other differences are the struggles we face here. Language and isolation (stemming from China’s inability and outright refusal to assimilate foreigners which I’ll talk about another time) are cited as the top struggles of volunteers in China.

The largest administrative difference is based on our occupation. As teachers, we follow the teaching schedules of a fall and spring semester. This makes the length of service shorter 3 months shorter because we start in July and saying 3 months into the summer at the end makes no sense. During the two years, we get all holidays that teachers get totaling about 4 months between spring festival, summer holiday and other smaller ones. School ends in June and begins again in September, so without Peace Corps making something up, we would be chilling for about 3 months.

So of course they made something up.

Every volunteer participates in 2 weeks of teacher training for local primary, elementary and high school teachers. It is to be framed more as an exchange of ideas and introducing American style teaching. Some of the teachers will have decades worth of experience in comparison to my year and change.

Many previous volunteers cite Summer Project as one of the highlights of their service. I’d be lying if I said I was even remotely excited to spend time in a classroom again (no, I don’t like teaching English at all) but it’s the job and I’ve got one more year to give it my all.

加油