Volunteer's Story: Nancy, Holland   

Last April I started my journey, first I went to Thailand and my final destination was China. I was a volunteer at Xu Bo Art & Culture Exchange and started with the introduction. They showed me a lot of Shanghai which was very interesting. Shanghai is a chaotic city but the location of the office is excellent. It was quite easy to get around by subway and the volunteer flat was close to the subway station. After a week in Shanghai, I went with Jessie to Zheng Zhou.

In Zheng Zhou I taught 2 weeks of English at Zheng Zhou Middle School No. 3, which was a great experience. It was a big school with classes up to 70 students. In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to get used to it. It’s hard to come up with an interactive lesson if there are so many students. It was a challenge and you need to show a lot of initiative by yourself. After two weeks of teaching I changed my project because of the school holidays. I taught 2 hours a day at the Day Care center. This was another challenge because I had to fill 2 full hours every day with exercises which could help the students to improve there level of English.

The classes were small, about 10 to 15 students. These were the sweetest students in the whole world if you ask me! In every way I have been treated very well. I had a beautiful apartment in Zheng Zhou all for myself, and the schools really took care of me. Every day they invited me to lunch and dinner. They showed me the city and the Chinese culture. The school took me on excursions and to shopping malls. Everybody was like a family to me. I have seen the real way Chinese people lived and I will never forget this experience or the amazing people.

Go to Zheng Zhou and meet all these great people!