WOW, I spotted 3 white guys in my town!!!

Hey Everyone,

It's been almost a week again since our last blog update. It's been all school. I've had many frustrations with the school lately. They keep adding more and more children to my classes. Classes that are very small to begin with. They add these new students to classes that I have already started weeks ago, so of course the students have no idea what I'm taking about. Administration assures me that they make the newer students come in earlier before class, and on weekends to do extra tutoring....nice try....poor results. I mean they are not in class to help them with their weaknesses, and I don't have time to cover 5 pages, do a vocab test, play games, check their homework and fix all their weakness in an hour and a half.

Thank goodness my kids are soooo cute. They are so much fun to teach, well 99% of them. They chase me around the hallways, try to trick me, sneak open the staff room door to giggle and say "Hello Teacher"...I'm trying hard to get them to call me Jeff, but that idea is so foriegn to them. It'll happen.

When I woke up this morning, I went for a walk to get eggs at the ONLY store in this town where you can buy refrigerated eggs. Michelle insists on eggs that have been kept cold, and they barely cost more, so why not. It's odd to me though that at all the other stores and markets the eggs are not kept cold at all.

On my way to the supermarket I walked by these to very young guys..maybe 18 or 19, they were in black dress pants, white shirts w/ ties, and they were walking into the stopped traffic shaking hands and speaking Chinese to the locals. I had no idea what they were doing until later. I figured they were travelling and asking for directions, or maybe new teachers in town. But here they were Mormons, spreading the word. Our principal says that there are tons of Mormons in Taiwan, and they always dress up, and are very freindly, and travel around doing their thing.

Then on the way back I stopped at our "Buy The Bag" supermarket (a very tiny IGA). We named it that cause if you want a bag for your groceries you have to pay for it, so we just bring our own. So I picked up another jar of peanut butter, the jars are so tiny here, so you go through them quickly. the peanut butter does NOT taste like it does back home. But the freshly roasted peanuts, definitely taste better than back home. So on my way in I noticed another white dude going in ahead of me. So many white poeple in a matter of a few minutes. It was like Christmas or something. But what do you say to a total stranger, hey I'm white your white, we speak the same language let's be friends??? It's kind of an awkward situation. So any way, I gave the ole Canadian "hey" and head nod, he did the same I got my peanut butter and he was gone.

Went home hoping Homei had many more English speaking residents than I had originally thought. Finding out at school, that the young travelling Mormons are often in Homei. Then after school Michelle and I went to the Thursday night market. We needed are usual: noodles, strawberries and cream sauce, and our 4 bottles of fresh orange juice. On the way home, Michelle felt as though the straberries would taste better with strawberry ice-cream...WOW..she was right!!! But while stopping at 7-11, we ran into the same dude from the supermarket, and his girlfreind, and their little dog Stella. So we chatted a bit. They are from the states, and have been here for 6 months, and teach English at the other English school. They seemed really nice, we didn't exchange any contact info, but next time for sure. They asked if we were getting around and finding everything ok, and assured us that it only gets easier as time goes by. It was great to run into them, and I can't wait to hang out with them.

Well that's it for now,
Cheers all!

Jeff