Day 4- Part I

Hi everyone,

My apologies for the lack of captions for the pictures for day 2 and day 3. I was caught up by the other administrative tasks on hand. Hopefully the pictures themselves will give you a fairly good idea of what we were doing.

The weather in Nanjing is quite warm, pretty much like Singapore. We had a good dose of the Nanjing sunshine when we went outdoors yesterday. No worries though, we always make sure that the children are well hydrated during the hot days.

The evenings are relatively cooler but nothing less than 20 degrees, I reckon. It had been quite a chore trying to get the children to keep their jackets on as they seems to enjoy the "air-conditioned" temperature.

The food here is marvelous! (That's according to me of course.) In fact, we did had a child telling us that he likes the food here better than his home cooking. :) The dishes here seem to be fusion of Northern and Southern Chinese cooking. A typical meal may comprise the southern staple diet of rice and vegetables complemented by dumplings and buns. The vegetables are absolutely fresh as they come direct from the surrounding farms. I can't say much for the meat as I am a vegetarian but the kids seems to enjoy them.

Most of the children are adjusting very well to their new surroundings. As the days goes by, we are beginning to see the leaders among them emerging and taking charge. The teachers are also pleasantly surprised by the resilience and adaptability of the children, especially the P4 girls. Being youngest and fairest of the lot we did not expect so many of them to conduct themselves with such maturity but they had been great!

Many of you would have heard from your child that many personal comfort items are rather lacking here. This is a village school after all. I am glad to report that most of them are taking this adjustment rather positively.

Some of you would have also realised that there were some changes to the itinerary. This mainly due to poor weather condition on the second day.

I hope this short update will put you heart at ease for the time being.

Wish everyone peace and good health.