tinawarren, 28 Jun 2008 05:04 hours
Xifeng, Qingyang, Gansu, China The last weekend... Yes. It's finally arrived - my last weekend in Xigfeng. Next weekend I will be travelling to Xian and Beijing leaving China on 8th July.
I've had a very busy week visiting project schools in two of the counties. It was great to meet up with familiar faces from previous training courses and visits. Luckily I have a good memory for faces and names which really helps. We stayed in the hotel in Zhengning where we had previously spent during the primary training. After visiting schools in Zhengning we moved to a small town in Ningxian County.
It is harvest time at the moment and the farmers spread the wheat and straw across the road. Our progress was slowed up by driving over piles of straw and trying to overtake convoys of machines ( sort of combined harvesters) moving from field to field.In the smaller villages and towns we visited the wheat grains were spread across the roads and I found it a strange experience walking on wheat which I knew would soon be turned into flour for bread and noodles. It didn't seem quite right somehow! ( Also i had sandals on so got a lot of wheat grains between my toes!)
The school visits were wonderful. The teachers had really tried to demonstrate many of the things they had learnt. The lessons were really good - Happy School, Effective Learning in action.
It has been very rewarding for me to see how many of the ideas have been put into action both by teachers and Heads. I am now satisfied that despite the ups and downs it has all been worthwhile. The hardest part will be letting go but with Email and skype I hope I can still keep in touch and find out what is going on.
I've got a lot of things to sort out this week before I leave so I will probably not have time to write again. Loooking back I realise how much much more i could have written but its hard to know what to include and what to miss out.
When i get back to England I intend to write about things I miss and things I am glad to have left behind.
It has been a wonderful experience - a bit of an emotional roller-coaster at times but the most frightening thing is how quickly the time has passed. have I really been here for nearly two years?????
Thank you to everyone who has followed my "progress" and sent me such encouraging comments.
Very best wishes
Tina
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