March 1 - Heifer at Chinese International School

Mar 1 – Thursday

Today I had a presentation for Heifer at the Chinese International School. Fortunately this school is located at the end of one of the bus lines that goes right past our apartment. I left plenty of time, but had to wait for the bus about 25 minutes. Good thing I left early. I’ve ridden this bus before, but never to the end. It goes through some very populated areas & everyone had gotten off by the time we started climbing the hill. I was way in the back & when we pulled into a bus station about halfway up the hill the driver stopped & got out. I assumed this was the end of the line, so I got out also. He seemed surprised to see that anyone was still on the bus & asked where I was going. I said Breamer Hill & he motioned me to get back on & pointed on up the hill. So I got back on. He got off & headed to a small building for the drivers. I figured out that it was a quick bathroom break. Never thought about the drivers having to use the facilities. He shared a few words with some other drivers who were playing cards & having snacks, then reboarded the bus. We went on up the hill, typical HK road, full of twists & turns & going ever higher & higher. We passed several schools on the way up, but at the very top, I saw the Chinese International School, it was tremendous. Several floors high (I learned it was 8 floors later in the day) & very new looking.

Jeanie, my Heifer companion, was there waiting for me as arranged. She is so sweet & was very relieved that I’d had no problems getting there. I was exactly on time. We had to go through security & get name badges in order to enter the school. We headed to the auditorium, Jeanie has been here before. She loaded our power point onto the computer at the front. The guy she works with at the school showed up & he was an American. He heads up the English department. He explained that today we would be talking to the “little ones”. First group would be K-2nd grade, then the 3 & 4 year students. Tomorrow we would have his group, 5 & 6th years. This school goes up to high school, which is why it is so large. It has been around a long time & is very prestigious. Jeff, our connection, was very casual & friendly, just like at the other school. He spoke fairly good Cantonese according to Jeanie. He said he’s lived in HK for 13 years & isn’t really that good at the language.

Jeanie explained to me that this school mainly teaches in English, but the kids also have to learn/know Cantonese & Mandarin. She said this is one reason why many people want their kids going there. There were many more Chinese children at this school than the first one I went to.

The little ones filed in & were very well behaved. The project this school sponsored last year was different from the other school, so I had to adjust my talk accordingly. Jeanie asked if I’d do both presentations, as they wanted it in English & I could do it better. I happily agreed. Last year this school raised over $350,000HK (close to $50,00US). The project they sponsored was to purchase honey bees for some communities in the mountains where farming is difficult and the level of poverty is very high. The kids loved that they’d bought bee hives. We had some lively discussion about why bees were a good thing for these people and how it improved their lives. I read 2 letters from kids whose families participated in the project & they talked about how much the bee hives had improved their lives. The girl had never had any new clothes & with the money from the honey & wax, she was able to get a few new clothes & their diets improved considerably. The boy said that nobody would ever come to his house to play because it was so awful and they never had any food to share. But after a year with the bee hives the family could remodel their home and now they could afford better & more food. The kids liked hearing these stories.

Then I spoke about the project they will sponsor this year. It is the same as the other school I went to, building water tanks & giving pigs. The kids were amazed that the children in the new area have to spend about 6 hours a day collecting water for their families. They quickly figured out that either the kids couldn’t go to school or they wouldn’t have the time or energy to do anything but go to school & collect water. It was interesting to see the kids figure this out. They also thought the pigs were cute, until on smart boy near the front figured out that in order for the families to make money from the pigs they were most likely going to have to kill them for the meat. He wasn’t very happy about this, but we kept it quite so the other kids wouldn’t get upset about “their” pigs getting killed in order to help. By the time the boy left, he guessed it was OK, since pigs have lots of babies & pork is one of his favorites foods. Overall, the kids behaved very well & I seemed able to keep their attention for the 20 minute presentation (thank good ness).

Jeanie & I ate lunch on the 8th floor (that’s how I knew how many floors) in the cafeteria. It was a good Chinese lunch of rice & veggies. The second group went very well also. Same presentation & pretty much the same reaction & response. Only thing that was different is that the teachers were so excited about the new project, because these grades have been studying water, so this fits perfectly into their curriculum. We were very glad to hear this. There was a lively discussion about water & what they’d been learning all year about it. When we were done Jeanie asked me if I would mind very much coming back the next day for the older group. The person she’d asked to help her never called her back & she felt like I had a good handle on the material. Of course I was more than happy to oblige her. We took a mini bus back (holds 16 people) & it’s generally faster than the city buses. It’s always a fun experience being around native folks as I get a chance to ask all my stupid gweilo (that’s white person) questions. Fortunately the people I’m with never seem to mind.