Teaching the "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" song - by John

These Americans are so silly!!! - by John

We visited a small school in a town called Li Luo outside of Luoyang. It was here that we were able to experience teaching for the first times in most of our lives.

After awhile, at least, in the classroom I was in, the four people assigned to the room pulled everyone together for a class session of what they had learned. It was here that they were taught animals, numbers, the alphabet, and yes, the macarena and ‘raise the roof’.

Four of us were given to each fourth grade classrooms in the efforts to give the students a memorable outlook on the English language (because they were soon going to be learning it, they start it mandatorily in fifth grade).

Groups began split up in fourths in the classroom and kicked it off by belting out our most rusty versions of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and “The Eensy Weensy Spider”.

Guitar Entertainment - by Micaela

John and Seth Juggling Act - by Audrey

Once we had parted with our adorable new companions, we were set outside to perform for them. It was unlike any performance we had done yet, and the tiny, interested children gathered around us like flies to an open-faced jelly sandwich. We performed, they oo-ed and ahh-ed and we smiled back at their fragile faces.

Group of school boys assigned to learn English from Audrey

It was a spectacular thing visiting Li Luo, it was the rawest village life that we were able to see. In fact, we experience so much of the village that we were able to walk in the streets with all the children, smell the sulfuric stench that was seeping from the gutters, walk through vegetable fields, go fishing, and eat lunch in the villager’s houses all in one day.

Kids Learning the Thumbs Up Sign

Eating lunch was quite a task for us, because no matter how much you ate, more and more came. Not only that, but the hosts had a tendency to offer us beer and cigarettes, which we kindly declined to. The livingroom was a big, empty place with a couch on one end and a TV on the other. We ate off a coffee table that was near the couch end of the room.

Spending time with a family - by John

We thanked the villagers and left with the rest of our group to go to a fishing spot way far away. On our trek there we walked through a large field of tall plants and on the streets where farmer had their grains out to dry. Eventually we made it to the fishing place and had our hand at it. Only Billy caught a fish, but everyone else had fun trying!

Stephanie posing with a family

Tired from the long day, we went back to our hotels and enjoyed a little bit of city life that night after eating a hotel prepared dinner, which in no way compared to the village cooking.