I'm now in Wenchang! Had a very tearful departure day, I was so reluctant to leave the group and familiar surroundings of Haikou. This was made worse when the others, in all their loveliness, presented Zoe and myself - Zoe being my Wenchang companion - with leaving gifts and a handmade card. Eventually our bus arrived an hour late, as we clambered in, the group waved us off from the balcony. Very emotional.

However, after initial tears, the excitement set in, especially as we were told more and more about our new home. First, we were taken to our flat. It's brand new and next to another middle school. Our school had filled it with all the necessities: water filter, hot ring for cooking, rice oven, chairs etc. It's very comfortable, despite squatters, cold showers and wooden boards for beds. Mr Jhang, the 'leader', then took us for a fish feast, to which the entire english department showed up. I swear they swept the sea clean of all creatures in order for us to eat. We moved on to the school, where we were paraded passed classrooms, each filled with 70 students supposedly focused on exams. Our presence of course put a stop to that - white people have never been to this school before.

The past few days have been insane; the school presented us with a fridge for the flat and bought us bikes yesterday, so that we can safely get to and from school. Getting home was interesting; the roads are already a death threat, but when your co-ordinator tries to jump onto the back wheel seat of your bike, things become complicated. After several attempts and many a trying hour, we got back to our flat, ready to learn how to use our rice cooker. Out of politeness, we asked Selina to stay and eat with us, but realised then how little food we had. We served her onion, broccoli and rice co9mplete with watery ketchup. How utterly appetising.

We have observed a few classes, always highly amusing, as students pay more attention to us than their teacher. Also, a request that seems extremely popular out here, is that we sing to them. They often grace us with a performance of Backstreet Boys or Blue. I have been told that I shall teach senior two, who are 17-19 year olds with a good understanding of english. Out here, they teach english in chinese, focusing more on grammar, writing, reading and some listening. Our presence here is to help them with their oral work.

We have decorated our flat with a rather quirky memory line and the names of our group back in Haikou. My sarong makes a great wall hanging and cardboard boxes are fabulous as tables. On Monday, i begin teaching. The prospect of a class of 70 is daunting, although i'm looking forward to it all a great deal.

Those of you from the Haikou gang who may be reading this, we hope you're ok. We're sorry to hear some of your placements aren't going well, but maybe Wenchang could be an option?!?! I'm missing you all LOADS; life's just incomplete without Allen's, butter, late night/early morn facebooking and obviously, Donnie. Come visit soon!

And to those of you at home, i'm missing you too. Hope all's well in England. Thought i'd let you know that the Chinese have learnt about our culture and, in their opinion, we talk about the weather a lot. Well, if it's any consolation, it rained today, although it's swelteringly hot. I might actually melt.

Avoiding meltage or mosquito consumption, i shall communicate soon.

Until then....

TAI gui le! (Which, oddly enough, doesn't mean goodbye...!)