Week Two of Preparation

Hi All,
Ni hao, ma? Hun hao.
Actually, we can say and understand much more than that, or at least we think we can. We have been working with the Rosetta Stone computer program now for several weeks. We hope to be understood (with patience) saying I, you, walking, sitting, reading, eating, drinking, running, jumping, kicking, swimming, flying, some colors, numbers to 99, and a few nouns. There are a lot of words which indicate units of items (We have to figure out what that means). Chinese words do not grow like English words through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. A Chinese sentence involves a long string of one syllable words. Quite a challenge to keep them straight. In addition to the computer program, we have had a couple of native speakers work on our pronunciation of these words and encourage us. Please pray that our work will be beneficial when we get to China.
We have been able to contact another member of our team from the Virgin Islands who has also been a teacher and is now off for adventure in China. Two current Peace Corps volunteers have shared what they are doing and have given us some advice on what to bring with us. I (Rich) mostly wanted to know about the packing list which did not include anything formal, but my experience in China has been that there are formal occasions all of the time.
In preparation, we are trying to finish up activities at home. My semester at West Chester has two weeks left with the pressure of all the ending paperwork. The Chester Ridley Crum Watersheds Creek Clean Up is next Saturday. It will be the last one I need to organize - we hope that we will go over the five hundred volunteer mark for our 44 sites this year. Then there is insurance - I think we have a plan for how to cover that while we are away. We think we have sitters for our house, one car is sold as of May 14, the orchestra tickets are gone as of April 25 - only the Taurus remains in need of a loving owner as of June 28.
Work in the garden is done, at least as far as we will go this season. Gardening is an activity that I will miss over the next two years. We hope to have some lettuce by the end of June, but the other fruit will be for someone else.
I (Renee) have started to investigate drawers and closets. Of course, I am finding interesting things that I had forgotten, but also a great surplus of items that we do not need. The linen closet resembled one of those clown cars in the circus; the towels just kept coming and coming and coming. Tomorrow begins a new week with new lists and hopefully new accomplishments.