The 14th of august in the morning we went to the marina where we went to a room where all the kids were waiting for the other kids and us. When everybody was there, even Vicky.The leaders of the marina started with their speaches. They thanked every one and after having given the certificates, we makes some pictures with the leaders and we went to a restaurant where we had a diner with our Chinese sponsors. Then we took a taxi and started our trip to Qingdao where we met Dancker and Wieke.
The second day was a normal workday for the others but for me, it was my last work day in China. In the afternoon we visited some ars and clubs and then we went to the apartment where we get to sleep.
At 5:30 in the morning I woke up and dressed me. Then I Wait for a Taxi and go the airport. When I arrived 2 hours later in Beijing I waited for about 5 hours in the airport and when I could finally step on the plane, they started the engines but stood at the same place for 20 minutes when they finaly told us that the plane have a little mechanic problem that put us for 2 houres on the ground. I arrived at 21 30(European time ) in Amsterdam.
I want to thank the RBSC, the NOCSP, CYBP and the sponsors for the opportunity they gave me to participate to this marvelous project in China. I am also gratefull to everyone that helped me during my staying in Rizhao and Qingdao and mostly the translators who helped me to give the lessons to the children. This was for me a fantastic experience that I certainly wish to renew.
Mathieu
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Teaching is over, the race is comming
Last week we have been teaching 8 kids in the morning and 14 in the afternoon. However, from Tuesday on 10 extra kids came “experiencing the Rizhao marina” for 6 whole days. They came from some other province, that was far away, but do not ask me the name of that province. Mathieu took the new students, and I continued with the morning and afternoon group. The original planning contained a lot of swimming. Our planning focused on sailing with some swimming, if time was available. Sometimes it was difficult to find feasible plans, as we only had one motorboat most of the time.
Finally, I had my first official Chinese meal with Miss Joe and some representatives from that far away province. Off course, we got all the special dishes…I heard a lot about them but never had seen one on my table. Sea cucumber, jellyfish, some insects… now I’ve tried all of them, but the most ugly one tasted the best: the Big Bee…sadly enough there are no pictures of that animal, but it looks like a huge “hommel”. And apparently you also have to gambe during work.
The last days it was raining continuously. Big parts of the city were flooded. Reading the blogs of our colleagues in the Shandong province (Weihai and Qingdao) we see that we are not alone. This limited off course the time on the water, but it also damaged the hot water supply of our hotel. Already 3 days without a warm shower…Friday we wanted to check out the only decent club in town (the Baby Feeling Bar) but we stranded 500meters of it, as the water was to deep to cross the streets.
Today we did a trip in a yacht around the harbor, and we went out on the sea for 10 minutes. At first, it seamed a bit strange to me but the kids really enjoyed it. Probably for them it was the first time on the see and the first time in a big motorboat. The afternoon we spend in the bamboo forest with Lucy and Sky.
As Pia and Thomas, we will organize a race this Monday (tomorrow). Since there efforts two weeks ago, every camp has to end with a race. No complaints as this will mean that we will have an afternoon off.
Jan
Finally, I had my first official Chinese meal with Miss Joe and some representatives from that far away province. Off course, we got all the special dishes…I heard a lot about them but never had seen one on my table. Sea cucumber, jellyfish, some insects… now I’ve tried all of them, but the most ugly one tasted the best: the Big Bee…sadly enough there are no pictures of that animal, but it looks like a huge “hommel”. And apparently you also have to gambe during work.
The last days it was raining continuously. Big parts of the city were flooded. Reading the blogs of our colleagues in the Shandong province (Weihai and Qingdao) we see that we are not alone. This limited off course the time on the water, but it also damaged the hot water supply of our hotel. Already 3 days without a warm shower…Friday we wanted to check out the only decent club in town (the Baby Feeling Bar) but we stranded 500meters of it, as the water was to deep to cross the streets.
Today we did a trip in a yacht around the harbor, and we went out on the sea for 10 minutes. At first, it seamed a bit strange to me but the kids really enjoyed it. Probably for them it was the first time on the see and the first time in a big motorboat. The afternoon we spend in the bamboo forest with Lucy and Sky.
As Pia and Thomas, we will organize a race this Monday (tomorrow). Since there efforts two weeks ago, every camp has to end with a race. No complaints as this will mean that we will have an afternoon off.
Jan
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
07/08/07 Arrived of new students from another province of China
Today we get ten new students that will be in the morning and in the afternoon. In the morning only two of our regular students were there because it was lightning and raining so the other student prefer to stay at home. The mother of one the child wanted to take her boy back home because she thought that we could not learn them something new...
In the morning we told them how to rig and unrig the boats, they got a tour in the marina and after that, we learned them some knots wich they will use on the boat.
In the afternoon all the children were their and we had to splits the group in two parts: one group was for Jan with the old students and another group was for me with the ten new children. Because we don't have enough lifejackets for everyone of them, I first go swimming with the new children during Jan was giving the other group theory lessons. After one houre we switched, but because their was a risk of lightning Jan went not on the water for sailing with his group, so he continue his theory lessons for a some time. A half an houre before the end of the sailing course he went with the children on the water and let them swimm. I give on my turn theory lessons to my group: where they have to sit in the boat, how they have to hold the mainsheet how they have to sheet in andagain doing a few knots to see if they are remember them the knots
In the morning we told them how to rig and unrig the boats, they got a tour in the marina and after that, we learned them some knots wich they will use on the boat.
In the afternoon all the children were their and we had to splits the group in two parts: one group was for Jan with the old students and another group was for me with the ten new children. Because we don't have enough lifejackets for everyone of them, I first go swimming with the new children during Jan was giving the other group theory lessons. After one houre we switched, but because their was a risk of lightning Jan went not on the water for sailing with his group, so he continue his theory lessons for a some time. A half an houre before the end of the sailing course he went with the children on the water and let them swimm. I give on my turn theory lessons to my group: where they have to sit in the boat, how they have to hold the mainsheet how they have to sheet in andagain doing a few knots to see if they are remember them the knots
Monday, August 6, 2007
Cleaning the boats
Our biggest achievement so far is the cleaning of the boats. The water in Rizhao contains a kind of slib...
Today I was introduced to miss Joe and the kids.
Some motorboat problems during the last week caused a small delay in the training of the kids. Apparently, some days the trainers had no motorboat to their disposition. Therefore, they only could send a few kids on the water. However, today we had one motorboat and we could send all kids on the water as the wind was not too strong and the risk of capsizing was minimal.
From tomorrow on, we might even get a second motorboat, but this is because we have to train 10 extra kids. For the moment, it is not clear how we will handle 24 kids in the afternoon with only 13 boats.
This marina is quite impressive. Most impressive are the surfboards, they are very nice (a kind of formula race boards with modern sails) and they have them in huge numbers.
This is it for the moment!
Today I was introduced to miss Joe and the kids.
Some motorboat problems during the last week caused a small delay in the training of the kids. Apparently, some days the trainers had no motorboat to their disposition. Therefore, they only could send a few kids on the water. However, today we had one motorboat and we could send all kids on the water as the wind was not too strong and the risk of capsizing was minimal.
From tomorrow on, we might even get a second motorboat, but this is because we have to train 10 extra kids. For the moment, it is not clear how we will handle 24 kids in the afternoon with only 13 boats.
This marina is quite impressive. Most impressive are the surfboards, they are very nice (a kind of formula race boards with modern sails) and they have them in huge numbers.
This is it for the moment!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Bye Bye Rizhao
Dear friends and family,
Yes yes tomorrow is our last day here in Rizhao. Friday we will be replaced by Taco and Matthieu. For tomorrow we have organized a little regatta for the children as a closing ceremony. This has taken a lot of energy from us to organise something like this here in China (everything goes very slow and changes all the time). All of the kids will take part of this regatta wich will be held in the morning. We've decided to make four groups of 10 children each. So there will be no more then 10 boats on the water at the same time. We've also invited the local press and all the parents. The only thing we still need for tomorrow is some wind and good weather!!
Today we had finally again a beautiful day. We've decided that we let the children sail the same course as they will sail tomorrow. The kids didn't know it of course. We've noticed that there is a big difference between the morning group and the afternoon group. However the morning group sailed more than the afternoon group.
We also had our first television debute today. We had to do an interview with the local Rizhao television channel. They came quite unexpected so it was really difficult because we had to watch the kids and gave an interview at the same time
Before the regatta starts we still have a LOT of work to do so we will get up very early in the morning! (7.00 am)
Pray for some good weather for us tomorrow!!
Greetings
Pia and Thomas
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
DHL number one in logistics??? We don't think so!!
Dear friends and family,
Our day started with something that didn't surprise us. Yep the rib wasn't repared. We didn't bother and started our sailing lessons with our morning group.
Because we only had one rib Thomas went on the water with an OP. We've placed the course in such a way the kids had to beat to get to the buoy that was the farest from the coast. In the beginning they struggled a lot but once they could follow Thomas everything went great.
Untill we saw a huge storm heading towards us. The moment that we noticed that, we decided to go back. Afterwards was this the right decission because only two minutes after all the kids arrived at the slibway the hell broke loose. We de-rigged the boats as quick as we could and get them as fast as we could inside.
In the noon Pia's DHL package finally arrived after exact three weeks. So you could imagine how excited Pia was when she saw her beloved chocolate and Thomas with his genuine "duck tape". Because we did had to the hotel to get the package we didn't had any time left to fix the rib. So we started our sailing lessons ( storm was over) with our afternoon group and sailed the same course with Thomas again in an OP.
After finishing our sailing class we "repared" the rib. We also adjusted the turning circle together with the local employees of the marina. Hopefully our reparations will hold untill the end of the week.
Then we went to the local supermarket again where we bought our new addiction "OREO'S" (cookies) and all the different kinds of flavours of chips (ex. prawns, cucumber, drumstick, italian meat in tomato sauce, spare ribs). Believe us they were all grose but funny.
Greetings
Pia and Thomas
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Just another day in China
Dear friends and family,
Today our weather here was "susu" (chinese for not good, not bad). In the morning there was a lack of wind. We revised the sailing directions, the knots and the priority rules. If tomorrow is again a bad day we have no more inspiration what we could do with our kids. So if anyone has some fun ideas to keep the kids busy during the bad weather, don't hesitate to mail us!!
In the afternoon the sky "cleared" up because of the upcoming sea breeze. So we put the kids immediatly on the water and yes yes we have some pictures of it. We placed two bouys in the water (because we only have two) and let them sail beam reach around the track for start. Later we wanted to change the bouys in such kind of way so that they had to beat to get to the other bouy and sail back broad reach. But we didn't had to replace the bouys because the weather gods were so kind to us to turn the wind from south to south - east so we didn't had to replace the bouys. (that is the most exciting thing that happened this day).
In the evening Thomas found a gigantic hole in the kiel of his rib. Wich gaved us the explanation of all our troubles with this rib of course. We've reported it to Miss Joe and she said that it will be repaired in the morning. We really wonder how they will fix that by tomorrow?? Anyway we shall see.
Greetings,
Pia and Thomas
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