A Scavenger Hunt Through Dayao

When I first heard that today's activity was a scavenger hunt in the town of Dayao (大姚), I admit I was skeptical. But it was a really wonderful day (especially after yesterday, which involved listening to people talk for a very long time and feeling overwhelmed by the number of people here...about 40 foreign fellows, 200 Chinese fellows, staff, and volunteers). We were put into teams of six fellows two foreign fellows and four Chinese fellows, so we switched between English and Chinese a fair bit, mangling both languages but learning as we went. We had a variety of tasks: interviewing locals about their lives and families, asking people what their hopes for the children of Dayao are, drawing a map of Dayao including all the places we stopped for the scavenger hunt and other prominent landmarks, swapping objects (starting with just a binder clip) until we obtained something that represented Dayao, and collecting seven "dragon ball fragments" from staff members who were stationed throughout town. We had five and a half hours to complete all the tasks (and walk to and from our middle school and everywhere in between). Not only did I learn my way around town a bit, I also got a good work out, made new friends, and started to feel more comfortable speaking Chinese again! Here are just a few highlights of the day.

The whole team in front of one of the local primary schools after we received our first dragon ball fragment.

One of my teammates bought custard tarts (蛋挞, dan4ta4) for everyone in the group. Yum.

First we traded the binder clip for some Chinese olive oil, then we traded the oil for a stalk of lillies

The last dragon ball fragment was to be given at the top of these stairs leading to the White Pagoda Tower (白塔).

Preparing to climb...

We made it!

Having completed the climb up and down we bought some iced treats. (Hawthorne fruit makes a very good popsicle!)
This boy attends the middle school that we are staying at for Summer Institute. Unfortunately, he won't be attending the three-week summer camp that we will be teaching because he said he needs to help earn money for the family.