Birstay's, B-ball, and Bowels

4th email sent Aug. 20

Dearest Friends and Family,

Nee-Hao! Since we last wrote, we have been swamped with school activities including meetings, setting up our classrooms, and planning for our classes. Thank you for the many emails – we will be answering them soon, and calling some of you as well (Skype).

We’ve had some fun amidst the busyness:

We celebrated another teacher’s (Matt) birthday by going out on Tuesday night to McCauley’s Restaurant and Pub with a lot of other teachers. After our meal was finished, a few of the dinner staff came to our table and sang happy “birstay” to Matt. By the end of the night, we were all singing various “birstay” songs while playing pool and foosball. Happy “Birstday” is the ongoing joke, now.

On Thursday, three other teachers and I went to the local outdoor basketball courts across the street. We shot around for a while, when two local teams arrived to play in a league game. We found out they were employees of local companies who had paid for the court. The four of us watched as they played – they weren’t too bad. Within 20 minutes, they had invited us to play with them. I was a little nervous – it’s been 2 and ½ years since I have stepped foot on a basketball court and torn my Achilles. I took it easy at first until I gained more confidence on my leg. We played for an hour with the local guys and had a blast. They have invited us to bring a full team next Thursday night to play.

On Saturday, the school rented 2 buses for 30 teachers in order to drive us 2 hours to IKEA, in the city of Guongzhou. Marea and I shopped for items to complete our our apartment. We were a part of 3 couples who hired a truck in order to drive some big furnishings back. Another teacher (Matt) and I, shared a nerve racking experience as we traveled back with the 2-ton truck. We witnessed, and were a part of, several near miss accidents. This traffic system is nuts! Along with this, we had to have the windows down in order to stay cool. The smog was awful. We made the best of our situation by spouting off random Chinese phrases to the 3 men riding in the front. “Are we served a meal on this flight”, “Can we have an interpreter”, and “Where can we get a shower” proved to be very popular with the Chinese guys. After a long time of holding our bladders, we learned how to say “bring us to the toilet” in Mandarin. We held up an empty water bottle and all had a good laugh. A half hour later, we stopped, used the restrooms, and bought a round of Snicker Bars for the truck (we were actually nervous about ever getting home so we decided to bribe them with candy ).


Some of you have been asking about Judah. I am happy to say that he is doing very well adjusting to his new environment. Right now, he has four other friends his age that he plays frequently with. Yesterday, he met his teacher and visited his classroom for the upcoming year (he will be at school from 8:30am to 11:30am). Judah is so excited about the prospect of school.

Last week, we hired an Ayi (Chinese for nanny/house keeper) to help out for a portion of the days and evenings. Her name is A-Ling (Auntie Ling). She has been a God-send, as she has helped with taking care of Judah, cleaning our apartment, shopping for food, and cooking. I must say, we have been eating like kings for the time she has been here. We have been exposed to some amazing steak, chicken, shrimp, and vegetable dishes that have been complimented with rice and noodles. We have become very good with chop sticks as well. The first week, our hands would cramp into a claw-like form half way through our meal. Now, “the claw” comes around the end of the meal (we’re growing).

A lot of you are still interested in how our bowels are doing. I’m pleased to say that we are still regular .

Please pray for us this upcoming week. We have a lot of stress associated with starting this school year.

We think of you often, and are looking forward to hearing from you. Keep the emails coming – they make us feel close to home.

Much Love,

The Bouma’s – Robb, Marea, and Judah

Settling In

3rd email sent Aug 14

Dearest Family and Friends,

Nee-Hao! We hope things are going well wherever you may be. I am writing this letter, sitting in my classroom on the 5th floor of our school. If I look straight ahead, I can see our apartment. As I turn my head to the left, I see a panorama view of the ocean, boats, and local mountains. What an amazing scene. This is definitely not a traditional school setting. We have a 5 story building that was converted from a business building. In fact, there is an architectural firm down the hall that will be out of the building by Christmas. When this happens, the only other space in the building that is not occupied by the school will be the small Park-and-Shop store on part of the ground floor (this is a great convenience).

It’s been a while since I last wrote. We have been busy preparing for school, getting to know new people, and enjoying our last days of the summer. On Friday night, 20 or so of us teachers got together at the Chinese Lantern (an amazing local food joint that we’ll take you to when you come) and enjoyed a multitude of appetizing dishes. Saturday morning, 6 of us, and our kids, climbed the local mountain. We had great views of the city and across to some Hong Kong islands. After resting much of the day, we got Judah together with his new friend Jack – the 2 year old son of two friends from Colorado. They had a great time playing, while we ate delicious food that our Ayi cooked.

Sunday morning, we walked 5 minutes to a local church. A few of the QSI teachers attend this non-denominational church, which is headed by an American who manages one of the local factories. All in all, it was good. I spent a lot of time in Judah’s Sunday school class, where they sang song and taught the lesson of Joseph and his colorful coat, solely in Chinese.

Later that day, a bunch of us teachers got together and went down to the local massage parlor. As we walked into the lobby, the ambiance was set with a Chinese man playing a “Guzheng” next to a water fall. A Guzheng is sort of a long rectangular guitar that sits in your lap, and is plucked with both hands. We walked upstairs and all sat on reclining chairs set in a circle so we could converse. Water and watermelon was brought to us along with a piping hot bucket of tea of which we were to soak our feet. A woman walked around, and asked us if we would rather have a boy or a girl (I don’t think I could have another man give me a massage). After a few minutes, a dozen masseuses came out, and had us sit on our footstools, while they began the hour-long body work over. They massaged and cracked our backs and necks, before taking our feet out of the tea bath. They then proceeded to work our feet and legs over for the rest of the time. I’ve never had someone besides me rub between my toes. I kind of felt bad for her. Overall, though, it felt great – what made it feel best, however, was when we went down and paid 33Yaun ($4) for the hour of pleasure. We laid in bed that night with our bodies feeling like Jello and we both agreed that we could get used to doing this once a week for a date.

Monday morning brought on some work in our classrooms, and business items for the school. Our teaching assignments have had changes – Marea has been given a 2nd grade (7 year olds) class of 12 students and will be working full time. She wasn’t crazy about this idea when we arrived, but after spending time with the other 2nd grade teachers, and realizing that the part of the day that she would miss out on would be her planning period if she only worked part-time, she felt good about this job change. It also helps that we don’t have to come home and clean, make dinner, or do laundry (I’ll talk about this in the next letter). My job has changed, too. I will be teaching Physics, Chemistry, Life Science, and an SAT prep class. Along with these things, I’ll be leading the high school staff meetings and doing other administrative duties. I’m no longer teaching Algebra (yeah!).

Tomorrow (Tuesday), the school is having their school bus (more like an airport shuttle), take us to the South China Sea to a local beach. We are looking forward to cooling off. It’s been about 85 to 90 degrees the last few days. This is a little warmer than what we’re comfortable with, especially with the high humidity. We have been assured that this is the hottest time of the year, and it will cool down within the next month.

Tuesday

The beach was outstanding! We cruised through traffic, past Hong Kong, to the South China Sea. Twenty or so of us spent time in the water, playing with the kids, and having a grand time. I didn’t know there were such amazing tropical beaches in China! What struck me, however, was how they had towers with loudspeakers playing some Chinese elevator music – not your typical beach noise. Also, about a ¼ mile out, they had nets set up to keep away any sharks. Tonight, we’re leaving Judah with our Ayi so that we can go out and celebrate the birthday of one of the teachers.

Hugs and Kisses to you all. We love and miss you. Thanks for all your emails.

Robb, Marea, and Judah

A Taste of China. . .

2nd email sent Aug. 9

Dearest Family and Friends,

Nee-hao (hello) from China! It’s been a week now since we’ve left, and we are settling into life here quite well. When we got off the ferry, we were taken to our house – a 3bd, 2ba, 1500ish sq. ft. apartment on the 6th floor of a high rise (yes – we have ample space to house those who visit – hint, hint). We were pleasantly surprised when we walked through the door to see a partially furnished place. We had a table and chairs, living room couches, coffee table, TV’s, beds, refrigerator, propane kitchen stove, and a heated dry rack for dishes. As we looked through the windows, we found that from our living room we had a beautiful view of the ocean and soccer fields across the street. The school had a small care package full of peanut butter, jam, bread, candy bars, milk, juice, and chips. Along with these foods were bedding, hangers, and towels on loan for the week. After eating a sandwich, we crashed until we woke up bright and early at 3am, with the sound of Judah calling for us in the next room.

After waking up, eating, taking cold showers, and watching some Chinese TV, we walked 3 minutes down the street to our school (it’s going to be great being this close!). We met up with our director, Britt Brantley, along with Helen Du, who works for the school and is the set up person for new teachers. That day, we set up a local bank account (this would have been impossible without Helen), as well as started shopping at some local stores for some food and other household items.

Within the surrounding blocks of our neighborhood, there are many restaurants, stores, bars, and businesses. The roads are bustling with buses, cars, trucks, and bikers. The traffic system is quite peculiar. Bikes and pedestrians travel on the streets and come close to being hit frequently. I’m surprised I haven’t seen an accident yet. You know how we have crosswalks at home and people give the right-of-way to pedestrians – not so much here. You always have to be on the look out when en-route somewhere.

Within a 5 block radius from where we live, you can find many western style restaurants and shops. Right now, I’m sitting at a comfortable Starbucks sipping on a coffee and using their free wireless high-speed internet. In fact, I’ve called a few of you from our computer here using Skype (yes, I think I’m becoming a spokesperson for this company). We can readily get pizza, Brazilian BBQ, Korean food, Japanese food, KFC, McDonalds, Subway, etc. This is not the common China that we think of, however, despite having these at-home conveniences, we still feel very much in a foreign culture.

As we walk out of the front door of the building, we are gawked at frequently. The locals love seeing Judah in his baby backpack. They don’t have anything like that here. When we go out with it, we almost feel like we’re somewhat of a circus sideshow. As we travel down the streets, there are some stalls selling DVD’s (yes – they are very cheap and shown in English with Chinese subtitles), food, and other various items. Within 10 minutes, there is an open market where we can find many household items. We just found a small shop in which we had some sheets made for our beds. There are some beggars in the area we see daily. We have been told by the school not to give to them because it enables them to keep begging. We aren’t quite sure how we feel about this – especially when we see kids with them. Maybe bringing some food to them would be a better idea.

We have made some efforts to explore the areas around us. We’ve hopped on a few of the local buses and ventured out within an hour of our home. About 20 minutes away, there is a Walmart and a Home Depot type of store. We have been able to get some inexpensive household items that we need to start out at these places.

We’ve also made efforts to eat at some local Chinese food places (I wonder if they are called Chinese food places here?). Very few locals speak English, so we’ve had some interesting interactions to say the least. Some places have misspelled English written into their menus, while others have pictures of the foods they serve. We’ve tried to stay away from items like “Ox Penis Braised in Soy Sauce”, “Pig Lung Soup”, and “Stir Fried Sheep Entrails”. We have found some extremely delicious foods, however. Yes, I’ve ordered the sweet and sour pork, but they have so many excellent vegetable dishes as well. Their dumplings are delicious. The beer is pretty good. We haven’t had to worry about getting sick or not having good water to drink. With that said, our bowel movements have been very firm (for those interested J).

I feel like I’m rambling on -- there is so much more I could say, but I better save a little for later. For those of you that are still with us at this point – thank you for reading! We’ll send out an email again soon. Also, we’ve enjoyed the emails we’ve received from many of you and will write you back when we have more time. Feel free to email as much as you like – we enjoy the interaction. Also, send us some email addresses of others who would like to be on our letter.

Much Love,

The Bouma’s—Robb, Marea and Judah

Our Arrival

1st letter sent Aug. 8


Dearest Family and Friends,

The Bouma's have arrived and partially settled into our new life in China. All in all, it's been great, albeit a few bumps and bruises along the way.

The fights out of Bellingham and Seattle were good. When we got to San Francisco, we rushed to the international flight departure area in order to get checked into our next flight. While waiting, I looked over at Marea and she was about as white as a sheet. "I forgot my purse under the seat in the plane", she exclaimed. As Marea wept, I sprinted back toward where we got off our airplane, thinking that it still should be there. Since 9/11, they do not let people into the departure areas of airports -- when I reached the security line, I was turned down and told to go to the Alaska desk. Being that it was around midnight, only one person was at the desk, but he agreed to run over to the gate and check to see if the purse was still there. 20 minutes later, he came back to say that he unfortunately was unable to find the purse. Since we were the last people off the plane and the cleaning crew hadn't arrived yet, we think that either a flight attendant picked it up, or someone sitting behind us snatched it. It has been a pain cancelling credit cards and checkbooks, however, we feel very fortunate that our passports and onward tickets were in another location (thank you Sally and Ma for all of your phone calls!). God is watching out for us.

The next exciting moment occurred as we approached Honk Kong on our 14 hour flight. We thought we were going to land, when suddenly the airplane made a 180 turn and headed back out toward Taiwan. We were all baffled until the pilot came over the loudspeaker and informed us that Hong Kong was in the middle of a typhoon with 150mi/hr gusts. The plane travelled for another hour and a half until we reached Tapai, Taiwan and landed safely. We thought "how nice, now we can say that we've been to Taiwan!", but after 6 hours of sitting on the runway with no air-conditioning, we felt different about the situation. About halfway into our pit-stop, the plane got ready to take off, only to be turned back to wait the storm out more. We refueled and finally got into the air. The pilot told us that we had enough fuel to circle Hong Kong for two hours and get back to Taiwan if need be. As we approached the airport, the plane started to go into landing mode. For the next 15 minutes, the plane dipped and tilted many times. As we looked out the window, we could see huge wave in the ocean -- not a boat in sight. Marea and I prayed as we landed safely. I started clapping and the rest of the airplane joined in. God is good -- we were one of 2 planes that landed that day.

As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, we loaded all of our belongings on a high speed ferry boat in order to reach Shekou. As we were waiting to load, the wind ripped off part of the roof in the ferry building. We were wondering if we would actually be able to make the crossing. When we finally were called to get on the ferry, I had flashbacks of making a similar ferry crossing in Zanzibar, Tanzania when I filled up the bag in the pocket in front of me. This time, however, we had air-conditioning which probably ended up helping my psyche more than anything. The crossing was rough, but we made it safely and as we crossed through immigration, our school director was there waiting! They had been following our flight on line and were able to meet us when we arrived.

You are all probably wondering how Judah did -- let me just say that Benadryl really works (just kidding). Although we did give him a couple of doses over the whole trip, he was a real trooper -- on the Hong Kong flight, especially. Since we have arrived, he seems really excited about being here. He seems to understand that our new apartment is our new home (away from home). He sometimes picks up our phone (which isn't connected to service, yet) and pretends he is calling Beppa and Paka or Sally and Darryl or Grammie or Emma or Boppa and Grandma, etc) It's been five days now, and we have all finally adjusted to the new time zone.

We will send another email soon -- on Thursday, we will have Internet hooked up in our house. Right now, I'm at a local Starbucks emailing you. We just bought a plug-in adaptor from a local shop and were able to charge up our laptop.

Within a week, we will be able to contact you more frequently over the phone as well. Our Skype account (check it out at www.skype.com) allows us to call Skype users for free, your phone number for 2.6 cents a minute, and possibly set up a phone number in Bellingham for you to call us for free. This Skype stuff is awesome! For those who are interested, you can purchase a web-cam with a built in microphone for about 60 bucks that plugs into your USB port. You can then see us as we talk -- although sometimes you might us in our boxers with messy hair if you call in the middle of the night :)

The next email will describe some of our experiences since we've arrived. We love you and miss you very much. Thank you for supporting us in our endeavors! We feel blessed to be able to have these experiences and pray that God uses us mightily in this area.

Much Love,

The Bouma's

PS -- If you know anyone else that would like to read this, feel free to forward and send us their address to add to our list. Some emails that we were going to add were in Marea's purse (pray that someone honest finds it and turns it in).