After lunch on Monday through Thursday I walk from the primary school in DuTou down to the Li River where I take a boat back to the FuLi side. The dock on the DuTou side is made from logs. At times the river is high enough that the end of the dock doesn't quite reach the shore for comfortable access. Walking the logs can also be a balancing act.

The dock on the FuLi side of the river is stone and cement and the location of the two dozen steps. At the top of the stairs is a gazebo type of structure.

There are benches around the edges of the structure where travelers can wait for the next boat or rest or catch up on the latest news.

During the earlier too hot, too muggy weather, I started the habit of stopping here to enjoy the breeze, the view and a bit of a rest. Several times during my respite I've heard erhu music from visible or invisible sources. An erhu is a two stringed traditional Chinese instrument. I've learned to enjoy erhu music.
But by 1:45 I must continue on my way to the FuLi school where I volunteer. My afternoon classes begin at 2:10.

In 2006 when I taught summer school at DuTou, we drove by this school in FuLi on our way to the river crossing. I thought then it looked like an interesting school. So this fall, when Peter, the principal at DuTou, suggested I might fill out my day by volunteering here in the afternoons, I was intrigued. The school is grades K to 6. There are two classes at each level with 30 to 40 students in each class.

These are the teachers I share an office with at FuLi. They have been very friendly and supportive. It turns out the teacher in the back row on the left is Peter's wife. She says I am her English teacher but really she is my Chinese teacher. At least once a week, she takes time from her correcting and we work out some sentences together.

These two are the English teachers at this school. I am impressed with the English of their students. Grades three to six get English instruction. I support their instruction by meeting with each of their classes once a week for oral practice. Since I am doing oral practice, I have no papers to correct!
I meet with two classes each afternoon. On Mondays it is this fifth grade class and a fourth grade class. I am the first foreign teacher they have had. For the most part the students are intrigued with me. My afternoons here have turned out to be a good completion to my day.

Mornings, Monday through Thursday, I am at DuTou Primary School. It is the only school in DuTou, a village of 2000. Here I am with the staff. Peter, on the far left, is the principal of the school. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming and helpful. Even though you would not guess it from looking at this photo, they have a tremendous sense of humor!

I am responsible for the English instruction for these third graders. Here they are seen with their head teacher, Mr. Peng.

And I am responsible for the English instruction of these fourth graders. Here they are in their new desks and chairs with their head teacher, Mr. Shu.

The school has seven grades: kindergarten to sixth grade. There is one class of about 30 for each grade. Here the kindergarten students wait in four lines for their turn to jog around the playground with their teacher Huang Qi Juang.

I teach one or two classes each morning I am at DuTou. The remainder of the morning is spent making plans, correcting papers, resting, etc, at my desk in the staff room. Peter's desk is at the front of the room on a raised step. Luke's desk, he's the assistant principal, is also there. The rest of us are assigned to the desks facing each other down the middle of the room. Men are at one end, women at the other.

The staff take turns preparing lunch. When it is their turn to prepare lunch they bring the vegetables and meat that will be the dishes served that day. So there are often peas, beans, peanuts or other foods that need snapping or shelling. The teachers also take turns with those tasks. Here some students lend a helping hand.

At 12:00 the morning classes are over. Most of the students go home for the two hour noon break. However some live far enough away that they bring or buy a lunch and hang out around the school. Although half the staff lives in DuTou and half live across the river in FuLi, Luke and Katie and I live farthest away in Yangshuo, everyone eats at the school. We all enjoy rice and two or three stir-fried vegetable with meat dishes each noon. Here Luke, English teacher and assistant principal, is deciding if he will use chopsticks or a fork I brought to eat the apple pie I provided that day. Much to my surprise, you can eat apple pie with chopsticks. The entire staff gave me proof. And like all food, apple pie is better with hot peppers!

After lunch the teachers adjourn to the staff room for cards and rest, while I head to FuLi for my afternoon classes.

It's another year of apartment living. However this year I am on the ground floor of a home. I'm beyond the basketball court in the back half of the home on the right. I'm about two blocks from Owen's school and offices. This neighborhood is, without a doubt, the best in Yangshuo. These buildings contain single homes. The long building contains eight homes built with no space between them...like a row of townhouses. Each home in this neighborhood has four floors. Many home owners rent rooms, apartments or both.

My apartment is through this gate and through the accordion gate just beyond. Both gates have locks. But there is no gateman this year! We have a private little patio area between the gates with some potted plants at one end and some seats - you can see one of the seats to the right. And in this patio area is the line for drying laundry.

Through the gates and the sliding doors is the living room. This apartment is for those of us with VET(Volunteer English Teachers). Carly, a Texan, is just stepping out of her bedroom. The middle bedroom is ready for a third volunteer who should arrive this week. The corner behind Carly is the "VET office" which consists of two shelving units full of materials. You've probably spotted the hot water tank and necessary hoses above the table. This is the hot water for the showers in the two bathrooms behind that wall.

Here's a the other side of the living room. We have a hutch for storage of dishes and other items, a TV and DVD player, bottled water, and a refrigerator. Beyond the refrigerator through the sliding door is the kitchen.

The teachers before us left a well-stocked kitchen. We have two burners, a toaster oven, a microwave, and a small convection oven....but we eat most meals out! For weekends and for breakfast, though, it's nice to have the kitchen. It is what made apple pie for the DuTou staff possible!

Here's my bedroom. I'm here for the year so I have the larger room with the heater/air con wall unit, the extra TV and the double bed.

And here's my bathroom. Look - I have a bathroom sink this time! Each bedroom has its own bathroom, so nice!, and mine has the Western toilet.

No, I don't believe this is a typical apartment in China....it's not even typical in Yangshuo. But sharing it is very typical.

After a month in Yangshuo, Guangxi in southern China, my weekly schedule seems to be in place. Monday through Thursday I travel east of Yangshuo along the Li River to be a volunteer teacher in DuTou and FuLi primary schools. Fridays I travel north to be an Owen/Buckland teacher for some ninth graders in Guilin, but more about that later.

Mondays through Thursdays I generally leave the apartment by 7:45. I walk fifteen to twenty minutes to the bus station in central Yangshuo. The town is awakening. Parents and grandparents are getting children to school. Shops are opening. Vendors are selling breakfast breads and milk drinks. Workers are pedaling, motorbiking, and driving to jobs. The traffic picks up as I progress through the town. Some streets are already busier than this one.

At the bus station I take a mian baozi, so named for its loaf of bread look. It's the mini van. The ones to FuLi are always parked in this spot. They depart every ten minutes. The driver hopes to carry ten passengers and will stop to pick up people along the way if he is not at capacity. The van seats six passengers "comfortably" and ten by adding a box between the middle seats and a board behind the driver's and front passenger's seats. We drive through the outskirts of Yangshuo, two tunneled kaarst and farmland countryside for fifteen to twenty minutes to reach FuLi. It costs Y2.5, or 30 cents.

At Fuli I walk again for about twenty minutes. Once I took a san lun che, three-wheeled vehicle seen in left half of picture, and will do so again if the weather demands it. The road is only partly paved and the ride was very bumpy! FuLi is a quiet town of 20,000 except on days whose numbering includes 2, 5, or 8. Those days are market days and I meet many country people on the road headed to that business and social gathering.

At this landing I catch one of these boats to cross the Li River. The boat ride will take about five minutes, the wait for the boat to depart can add ten to fifteen minutes to that. The dock is at the bottom of maybe two dozen steps and yet people use these boats to ferry their bikes and motorcycles across the Li. And large incredibly heavy loads are carried up and down on a pole slung over a shoulder.

After docking on the DuTou side of the Li, it's a five minute walk to the school. DuTou is a small village of 2000. As I draw near to the school, I can hear the students preparing the buildings, the grounds, and themselves for the new day. Students, some barefooted, turn from their activities as I cross the playground to call, "Hello!"