Volunteer Vacations RSS
- Father, Son Volunteer Vacation to China
- Father Takes Son on Volunteer Vacation to China
- A Father’s Volunteer Vacation to China with his son
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- A father and son volunteer vacation in China
- A father and son volunteer vacation in China
- A father and son volunteer vacation in China
- A father and son volunteer vacation in China
- A father and son volunteer vacation in China
- Intimate recollections of a volunteer vacation in India
Spring 2013 David Cohen took his 11 year old son Andrew to on a Vacation to China for 10 days. Inspired by Mark Solon, and organized through Globe Aware, David and Andrew worked in a school for the children of migrant workers who have no government services. David’s goal was for his son to experience more of the world and to learn how many others are not as fortunate as they are. “Mission accomplished,” relates David.
Globe Aware is pleased to share their daily observations, impressions and experiences while on their volunteer vacation in China:
Day 9
Go!
friday. our sleep is now normal (of course) and we wake up at 645a for school. we are packed and checking out of the dumpy hotel. i decided mid week that we needed one night in the airport hotel before our flight on saturday. marcus comes to get us at 730a for our final day at the school.
we learn the chinese game GO from the older dude with the abacus. another english class. more basketball. lunch, this time andrew just skips it completely. usually he eats a little rice. time for the farewell party. this is very touching. everyone has to perform. the chinese kids read english tongue twisters for us. she sells sea shells, peter piper, we all scream for ice cream. andrew leads the room in his dance one last time. i juggle for the kids. then the kids sing us songs. tears are welling up at this point since this is goodbye. then they play a 3 minute video that marcus has made of me and andrew at the school and sightseeing. i have it but only on a cd. we get handwritten english notes from the kids thanking us for coming, and a special pillow to keep us more comfortable on our journey home. now it’s time for photos in the front yard with the kids. this seems to be their favorite part. they take our camera and start taking a billion photos. us with them, us posing silly poses, group photos of our class, the kids are very excited to have control of the camera. there are lots of cutouts that have randomly been placed on the playground, so we are all taking photos of us with our heads in characters like rabbits, etc. everyone is clowning, arms around each other (us and them). pretty awesome.
Class 1 says goodbye
only one thing left before we go. a home visit. marcus, andrew and i go to one of the students homes. remember they are at the school all week and only see family on the weekend. the little girl is really excited to go home. she’s 13. home is just a mile or so away. we get there, there are 7 people in the family including her, across 3 generations. they all live here. it’s two rooms, more like one normal sized room with a divider in the middle. cold stone concrete. i thought it was a garage, in fact maybe it used to be. but it’s their home. one bed. they must take turns sleeping. the family moved here 7 years ago for work. the father fixes cars for a living. the family is very nice and you can tell they’ve tried to clean up a bit. the bed is made, toys are put away. they do have a computer with internet, which surprised me. the second room without the bed is really a panty of sorts. they have some eggs and water, etc there. the neighborhood is the typical war zone feel. i’m not sure where they go to the bathroom, there is not one in the house. andrew sits on the bed and i can tell he’s in shock. this hit home for him – and me too honestly.
back into the car and we drop marcus back at school and say our goodbyes. he is a very nice kid – just 23, and does a good job. our driver takes us to the airport. its 2 hours in nightmare traffic, but finally we arrive. the contrast is stark. our hotel room is 5 times larger than that home, and 1000x nicer. that family has never seen anything like this. we order room service, pizza! it tastes like the most amazing thing ever. andrew has a sprite. we talk about that family, the school, and how lucky we are and how it’s important to try to think of and help others. i feel like he got it.
he falls asleep at 8. i make it until 9, barely. in a weird way, we miss those kids already.
This spring, David Cohen took his 11 year old son Andrew to on a Vacation to China for 10 days. Inspired by Mark Solon, and organized through Globe Aware, David and Andrew worked in a school for the children of migrant workers who have no government services. David’s goal was for his son to experience more of the world and to learn how many others are not as fortunate as they are. “Mission accomplished,” relates David.
Globe Aware is pleased to share their daily observations, impressions and experiences while on their volunteer vacation in China:
Day 8
Looking out at 20 million people.
it’s thursday, and its a tour day. marcus is coming to get us at 9, so we can sleep in. good thing, because andrew sleeps until 8. yep, 12 hours! i guess he was exhausted. i was up at 530 with the hallway screamers, but fell back asleep until 7. it’s so strange, there’s like a 530 hotel rush hour followed by another quiet hour. every day.
anyway, marcus came at 915, and we were off to the forbidden city. we stopped at the ‘cookie shop’ for bread/lunch stuff, which i kept in my backpack. bus, subway, jam packed, etc – the usual drill. this city is constantly moving. 20 million people and i swear half of them are on busses at any given time. face pressed to the side of the bus sometimes. it’s just how it is here. sometimes you have to wait 2 or 3 busses to even fit on. so everything takes forever to go do. it was 2 hours to get to the forbidden city, including the walk from the subway. marcus lives cheaply, it’s the way of life here. you don’t take a bus if you can walk 2 or bus stops, you walk. so we passed on the bus alot. the forbidden city is a huge walk too, and not much in it for andrew. he had seen enough chinese buildings pretty quickly. he was a sport, just said he was tired of walking.
A long way from home.
not my favorite stop either, but interesting to be in such a historic place. we entered view tienanmen square so saw that too.
exiting the forbidden city, holy crap, a billion people waiting on busses. taxis rip you off here, marcus says. so we wait and wait. then jam onto the most crowded bus yet. inhale, and climb onto your neighbors back. that’s the plan. so tight you can’t even wear the backpack, it has to go down on the ground by your legs where ther
e is more room. 4 stops to the subway station and you can exhale. except it’s a 10 block walk to the subway, actually. luckily this is fine because it’s downtown, the shopping district. very touristy, but cool to see. feels like Chinese 5th avenue. we stop at kfc for chicken nuggets (yay!) which are good. this time i have them too. marcus grins and bears it by ordering kfc chinese food. fried chicken and rice.
subway to cctv tower, the tallest building in beijing. except a 2 mile walk after you get off the subway – yep, right past all the bus stops. andrew is really tired, i’m guessing we’ve walked 10 miles now today. he hangs in there. my legs are literally started to hurt. backpack hurting my back. we arrive at the tower, go up to the top.
Doing the weather.
amazing view of the city, and ring of mountains. but lots of smog. i get andrew an ice cream bar, he’s earned that. down to the basement of the tower, there is an aquarium which is actually pretty great. shark tunnel, etc.
now 4pm, we head home to the hotel. i tell marcus no dinner for us tonight, we’ll eat what’s in my backpack and be fine. we get to the hotel around 530pm, we’re both beat. we watch field of dreams on the ipad, our first tv or movie since we got here. 730 now, andrew is reading as i write this. he’s read a ton on his kindle on this trip.
in the morning, we will pack up and leave the dumpy hotel. i decided that we deserve a night at the hilton at the airport. before our flight saturday. so we are packing up in the morning and will take our bags to school for the day. we are done at 3pm and marcus will put us into a taxi to the airport hotel. it has a pool, i may see if andrew can go swimming. i’m looking forward to a strong shower.
last day at the school tomorrow. i wonder if that will be my favorite part too.
i’m thinking about big things on this trip. i finished the book ‘how will you measure your life?’ last night.
This spring, David Cohen took his 11 year old son Andrew to on a Vacation to China for 10 days. Inspired by Mark Solon, and organized through Globe Aware, David and Andrew worked in a school for the children of migrant workers who have no government services. David’s goal was for his son to experience more of the world and to learn how many others are not as fortunate as they are. “Mission accomplished,” relates David.
Globe Aware is pleased to share their daily observations, impressions and experiences while on their volunteer vacation in China:
Day 7
up at 530 again – when the ruckus started.
Just outside the school gates.
at school by 7am. at 7 andrew and i helped students with morning reading (english) and then had a great abacus lesson. it’s really interesting how it works. the abacus teacher was a cool old man. he said they used to have to learn it in school, but now the kids learn it just as tradition. he spoke no english, but marcus translated. everything takes five times as long this way.
next we had to teach the kids a dance or a song. andrew had a dance he wanted to teach. it was fun, i even did it. i wasn’t good, of course. he was. the kids got it in about 20 minutes. then they taught us a dance too. lots of video.
at lunch, andrew had rice only and i was able to pick out a few vegetables to identify and eat. i didn’t eat the meat, which i think was supposed to be pork. random parts.
Andrew teaching “popcorn” dance.
next up was english class. andrew loves this part. he taught the class, and we both helped with pronunciation. he gave out more pencils. i think he will remember english class as his favorite thing from this trip.
then lots of basketball with the kids. an extended pe/recess. it was good to do sporty stuff with andrew and the other kids. i could tell he was getting better as basketball as the day went on. it’s really fun to play with the kids – reminded me of qamea in fiji with volleyball. just good simple fun, nobody trying to dog anyone, just sharing the ball and being happy for each other making shots. no competition, no drama, just fun.
Learning the abacus.
there was a 2 hour basketball game, where they called different students to play against each other, co-ed. the whole school watching their friends and cheering for the almost made baskets and occasionally even made ones. super fun and funny to watch.
dinner at a chinese restaurant. that’s all they have here, pretty much. marcus took us and the chow mein was good again. andrew was even able to eat a little. also chicken kung pow was very good. and spicy green beans. no health issues so far, knock wood.
andrew fell asleep by 8. the day at the school was very long.
