For the last time, Karamay played weekend host to Kieran and Calum (at the same time). This week’s classes involved a marathon of Hot Seat: the game where the class knows a word, but one kid (standing up) can’t see it and has to have the word described to him by his classmates. Taboo is the opposite; the one kid knows the word and has to describe it to his class. No new content, but their exams are coming up so this was a chance to practice existing knowledge of English. I let the class choose their own words, too, which led to one kid in ‘Hot Seat’ trying to guess the word ‘god’. Someone in the front row pointed to the guy next to him and said ‘him’ and instantly, I kid you not, he got the answer correct. I don’t know either.

I had a mixed few days before the weekend; a difficult class on Thursday (impossible to motivate – my presence seems to remove their will to work) followed immediately by someone insisting on paying for my Pollo. On Friday I woke up feeling dizzy and sick to the extent that teaching was a bad idea, so I had to spend the day sleeping and staying horizontal until I felt better, but after Calum arrived on the last bus from Ürümqi we watched Family Guy until Kieran got here on the train.

Saturday was a leisurely start, followed by Pollo from a place just up the road from us. Very good it was too, and only ¥12 (about £1.50). The rest of the afternoon was spent visiting the station to pick up tickets for Summer Travelling and editing photos from Winter Travelling until we went to Essen with Paris to meet some of the others (Tyler, Danny, Basil and Shantel among them) and stayed late, eventually chatting to some inebriated Uighurs who invited us to their wedding (I don’t think they remember inviting us, or meeting us at all, so we didn’t pursue the matter, which was a pity). I think we went home at 5am.

As a direct result of Saturday, Sunday was an even more leisurely start, to the extent that the first thing of note was meeting Rosie and Doris for dinner at a Uighur restaurant by the bus station where we’d previously eaten with the other foreigners. After this we walked to Han Bo, the popular shopping centre by the river which contains Essen and MiniSo, so Kieran could buy a doughnut. To his disappointment they were out of Oreo doughnuts; we also realised this was the last time we’d all be together, but any chance of a meaningful goodbye disappeared when Kieran said, ‘See you again! Or not…’ then walked off. Wow, Kieran. Just. Wow.

Monday was my sister’s birthday, so we Skyped, of course, first thing in the morning for her (after lunch for me). In my lesson, one student gave me a page of calligraphy (‘I don’t need it’). I’d love to be good enough at calligraphy that a beautifully transcribed page, a Confucian poem, can be so meaningless to me that I’m prepared to give it away… I also ordered a bag for travelling around Xinjiang in the Summer (we’ll leave our suitcases for the plane home at Bagang then pick them up before we leave) and got to taste homemade Pollo, courtesy of a nice English teacher Tom met.

—TJC

Featured image: Karamay pals outside Essen; LTR: Calum, Paris, Kieran, Tom & I.