Fenfa!

Today I decided to pass up on our semi-finals soccer game so that I could help out with a volunteer project...

All of the NSC interns were informed of an opportunity to assist in the remodeling of Fenfa Migrant School, a small elementary school just south of Shanghai which is the educational facility of children of many local migrant workers. These students' parents work the jobs that the Chinese people won't take, so many of them are street cleaners, custodians, maids, etc. The students stay at the school from Monday to Friday, and then spend the weekends with their parents. The school is in a very poor community and the buildings aren't in very good shape.

We joined in on a project that has been going on for about a month, cleaning and painting the insides of the classrooms. Our group was assigned to work on a room that was being used as the storage area for all of the desks, chairs, shelves, etc for the school. So our first mission was to clear out a 4 foot perimeter around the stuff inside of the room so that we could have room to clean and paint the walls...

From there, we prepared our paint supplies. We were working with some incredibly thick paint, so I added water to the trays such that our paint would last longer and be easier to spread onto the walls.

Then, we began painting. The walls were all white, so in order to make a more friendly and happy studying environment, we painted them light blue and light green :-)

The weather wasn't exactly in our favor, it never is in Shanghai (it felt like 110 degrees, and the classroom had no a/c), but we worked hard and we finished up the room in a couple of hours. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and it was nice to have an opportunity to give back to the local community.

Hopefully the Lions beat the Turkish team without me!

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I'd like to send a personal shout out to my Uncle Dale, who I recently heard is one of my most loyal readers :-) Uncle Dale, thank you for enjoying this experience with me!! I appreciate your support and interest in my adventures over here on the other side of the world. This experience has been an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that I will never forget. It's often very comforting knowing that my family is able to read all about what I'm up to over here, and I hope that my stories have been able to put a smile on your face every now and then!! I'm sorry that I haven't been maintaining my daily posts this past week, it's been hectic around here.

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PMM