Hot Springs and Cigarettes

On a day when afternoon classes were canceled, all the volunteers made a trip to the town’s hot springs (Of course, I was FORTUNATE enough to have a night class rather than an afternoon class, so I GOT to teach…yay). In usual camp fashion, the leaders of the camp left us at the school (we weren’t told times that the buses were leaving until it was too late) and then they left us at the springs. We weren’t really given any guidelines, but at this point that wasn’t anything new. Communication at this camp was a little rough.

These springs are set in an area that would remind you of any resort area in the States—very modern, clean, and luxurious. The hot springs were arranged in a tiered fashion up the mountain/hill, so we trekked to find the most comfortable area. Each pool was being fed by a “volcano”…you could have boiled an egg in that water. Of course, this led to many dares to see who could sit in it the longest (you can see Joe getting some). I didn’t win, but was still in long enough to have a mark on my stomach where the water came to, as Cynthia pointed out later. I was very close to pushing Cynthia in, and in hindsight she deserved it, that jerk. Haha. We lounged (Jes found a good spot, as you can see. She wanted to take those rocks and water home with her on the plane for a good ride home), I got buried in the sand, and I helped teach Chelsea, who is one of the volunteers, how to swim freestyle. Chelsea is Chinese and married to Sam (shown in the 3rd pic), who is from Pittsburgh and has been living in China for four years. Chinese people in general only swim the breaststroke…that’s pretty much all Chelsea knew how to do.

We ended up getting back for dinner, and I hadn’t had time to plan my entire lesson, which led to frustrations in class and me eventually going off on the class for the only time all week, which I ended up regretting. They were out of control, I had had enough, and I let them know. I was like the crazy devil from hell, and you could tell they were scared because they shut up and were real shy about talking the rest of the night.

The following day after classes were done, we made a short trip to Hong He Cigarette Company—which is the company that funds the school at which our camp was. We got to see all about their production process, which they said was the most modernized in the world for a cigarette company. Cartons of cigarettes moved like trains on a track overhead near the ceiling. We got to see all the duds, which was, for example, two cigarettes fused together for an ultra cigarette, or ones that only had filter and no tobacco. I had a little fun with these, as you can see. And, in the end, I left wanting a cigarette.