Reflection makes sense

Life has changed, again. When I last posted on this blog, I had just arrived home from my trip to Ghana which you can read more about here at Larabanga Life Project. Now, I have been living in China for one month and three weeks. I came to China with the intention of being able to make a comparison between teaching here and teaching in Ghana. I will definitely have achieved this goal before I leave in summer, I have made lots of observations of the different aspects of education here, from learning styles to daily routines at school. You can read more about my teaching experiences here in China on my I-to-I blog. I want this particular blog to be completely open, I want to be able to write about everything that is going on in my life and not have to categorise each experience because I am experiencing so much each day and I think I need to have somewhere I can write freely.
Starting from today. I had a really powerful realisation whilst I was on my break at school, all of the other teachers had gone to sleep of course. I was searching through some pictures from Ghana, I came across a picture of me and a little girl that I had carried around the village on my back for days on end the time I changed my flight to go back to Larabanga with Madi, I really felt a connection to her but then I didn't see her, I didn't know what had happened. I then came across a picture on my phone from the trip just gone. The
picture was of a young child called Auntie, when I was outside in the village, she would stand and just look at me in a really curious way and I would say hello and wave, after a couple of days of this, she began to come over to me and look really innocently into my eyes. Of course, all of the children were curious about me because I was the only foreigner there but she was acting differently and now it makes sense. She is the little girl I was carrying around the last time I was in Larabanga, she had recognised me after almost a year. It's really strange that I have only just realised now but better late than never. It really hit me today actually, that I have made an impact on at least a couple of lives through the work I have been doing. I hope I have directly or indirectly made a positive impact on many but it is just as incredible making an impact on just one.
Something else that I found really powerful recently... I went to Xiangjiang River in my city of Changsha with Frederikke and Sophie, my flat mate and my new Chinese friend. We decided to buy Chinese lanterns and set them of together, we tried to do it but the wind was too strong so two of them didn't work and actually ended up in the river. So we moved a little further down to do mine, a really lovely Chinese guy helped us to set it off and it worked!! I was absolutely over the moon, I guess it's the little things that mean the most to me. I had wrote a special message on it so I was very so happy as I watched it float of into the distance. Chinese lanterns in China... Tick that one of the bucket list haaaha.
Sophie is such a lovely person, I met her whilst on a school trip. I teach at her younger brothers school and her mum had organised a tree planting trip. She is currently studying for her TOEFL exam, so I am helping her to improve her English although I personally think she is already at a very high level. Chinese students never seem to be happy with themselves, they always want to go one step further.