I am getting over jet lag and reading all the thank you letters that the students gave me while I was in China. I was able to give out tuitions to most of our 476 students including the college students who came home for Chinese New Year.Nina Ottinger from the Founding Family Charitable Foundation and I traveled for two weeks to four presentation ceremonies and got to meet many of the students. They all wanted to give us drawings, letters, and little homemade gifts. You can see some of them in the photo. I went with a suitcase full of gifts to share with them and came back with more gifts than I took. They are so appreciative that sometimes we felt like movie stars.
We visited about 10 schools and celebrated Chinese New Year with dumplings and fireworks. We were entertained with music, dancing, and student and administrator’s speeches. We even got to make some speeches of our own and taught two groups the Hokey Pokey.
We gave out about $2,300 in education grants, dispersed books sent from America, inspected FFCF construction projects at two primary schools, and got to see many of our students. Nina met my Chinese friends and plans to return to Qinzhou this summer to conduct an eyeglass clinic as we did in Yangshuo last summer.
