Goodbye to All That

The box has arrived!

Irena's Korg keyboard

It’s arrived. The big black box, the one with the metal bits along the edges and at the corners. The one for my dear Irisha’s electronic keyboard. Maybe we will line it with a bit more foam rubber. We bought her Korg keyboard when we were in Romania and it is rather a nice one, so it came with us to Qatar and now it is here in China. Irena rather likes it and so this means that she does not to leave it behind when we leave in the middle of June. That is just over two months from now until 18th June. It is all a bit scary. This black box is a sign of the end, a bit like a coffin for our time in China.

What will we be saying our goodbyes to? Well, one thing that we will be very glad to say farewells to is the awful aperture, the horrible hole, the Black Hole of Shenzhen. It is next to the washing machine and from out of this opening come forth the most dreadful smells, whiffs, pongs and stenches.

The very smelly hole beside the washing machine!

And while we are on the subject of airborne pollution, the very dry weather that we have had recently seems to have pushed up the levels of muck in the atmosphere. Well, we will probably start getting some heavy rain at the end of April, so that will improve the air quality.

Please do not get me started on the subject of cockroaches! I hate those little b*****s. They say that squishing them really does not help and in fact you are distributing their babies every time you squelch one. Anyway, nine times out of ten they are too blooming fast. By the time I have taken off my slipper to whack it, the roach concerned has usually scuttled off into hiding.

Oh yes and then there are the delightful little Chinese children in the apartment(s) above ours who simply must do their piano or violin practice at 11.30pm. Sleep? Who needs that? Only foolish laowai teachers need some sleep.

It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when I think of thee…

Yet another dinner with B & J

The most difficult part of our departure will be saying goodbye to our dear Chinese friends, Bill and Julia. We got to know them soon after we arrived in SZ and indeed it would be almost impossible to imagine Shenzhen without them. We used to see them more often, but recently Julia has been working full-time and so we have not met up quite so frequently. Julia and Bill have helped us in so many ways. When we went together to Guilin and Yangshuo, this trip would have been so much more difficult without their direct help, as they were constantly acting as our guides and interpreters. Sometimes Bill and Julia do not do much, but just knowing that they are there or at the other end of a phone call is reassuring.

Miss Yanee is my wonderful TP (Teaching Partner) at Green Oasis School and she has been a great colleague to work with. Dragging herself into school, when she was meant to be off sick, is just typical of this very dedicated and hard-working young lady. Her patient kindness with all of the students, both girls and boys, is really good. If Miss Yanee has a fault, then it is that she is too nice. (Sometimes the boys need a firm hand and just talking gently to them is a waste of time.) I am sure that I am not an easy person to work with, but Miss Yanee just does her job really well and sometimes she has to be reminded to go home at 4pm.