Marie and Kirk with The Danxia Landform, a World Heritage site, in the background.
(Photo provided)

Back in the Peace Corps, teaching at a China university

(Longtime Watkins Glen High School teacher Marie Fitzsimmons and her husband, Kirk Peters, have returned to Peace Corps service. Where years ago they served in Africa, this time they are in China. Marie reports from there.)

By Marie Fitzsimmons

ZHANGYE,, China, Nov. 3, 2014 -- In December of 1981, on my 23rd birthday, my husband, Kirk Peters and I left for Lesotho, Africa for a two-year volunteer assignment with the United State Peace Corps. Only five months into our marriage, it can be said that the Peace Corps shaped our marriage, indeed our lives.

Living high in the Maluti Mountains in a dung hut in a starkly beautiful region of Lesotho, Africa, I rode my horse daily to area schools to assist student teachers as they learned their craft in the most rural of schools -- no electricity or plumbing, no desks, no equipment ... just beautiful, barefoot children, sheltered by blankets, eager to learn. Once a month I would hold inservice workshops and 30 teachers would trek over the mountains by foot or by horse to share ideas and develop classroom skills.

What an honor it was to work with the elders who had received little formal schooling and strove to excel at the most pressing occupation, that of teaching the next generation.Twice a year, I would head to the lowlands where I would teach at the National Teacher Training College for three-week courses in English and Education. Teachers and teachers in training would come from all over the country to improve teaching methodology and communication skills.

Kirk taught at the local high school, where his assigned position of science teacher blossomed into that of science, math, English teacher and soccer coach. In our harsher mountain climate, access to vegetables was limited and Kirk took on a secondary project to build a school greenhouse. We heard from later PCVs that the greenhouse was such a success and helped improve nutrition for the students. Kirk also built the first outhouse in our village -- greatly appreciated by our community and me!

What excitement the school felt as Kirk and his co-teachers took the students on adventures --particularly to the lowlands, where they experienced such wonders as stores, traffic, elevators, and such. That was a thrill but for the students. For us, it was the sights, the sounds, the smells of our rural mountain home that made us happy. And it was our students who made us happiest of all. We loved being Peace Corps Volunteers.

Since those days, so many dreams have been answered. Kirk went on to become a veterinarian and I continued my teaching career where the thrill of working with my students has sustained me for over 30 years. We became the parents of Jores, Jared, and Sophie and basked in the rollicking years of their youth and the unequivocal joy of raising a family. Somewhere along the line,it dawned on us that our children were living on their own and launching their own grownup lives and that, perhaps, our deeply satisfying lives in our remarkable community would await us if we dared to venture out in the world again.

And so we have. We are currently serving with Peace Corps for a short-term volunteer assignment at Hexi University in Zhangye (Gansu Province), China.

Living in northwest China is fascinating! Zhangye sits on the former Silk Road, and in the City Square a statue of Marco Polo commemorates his time in Kublai Khan's Yuan Empire. The Danxia Landform, a world heritage site, is an hour bus ride, and Matisi, the breathtaking site of hand crafted grottoes, just two hours away. Zhangye reasonates with busy street markets where fresh vegetables and fruits abound, and street food is sold on every corner. Hundreds of tiny shops line the streets where one can get a bicycle tire patched, a zipper sewn, a soft wool mat for one's bed, or a most delicious bowl of noodles cooked in an almost magical broth. The food is heavenly.

Kirk and I are each teaching 21 classes of College English, with our smallest class at 59 and our largest at 71. The students are eager to learn English and we have such lovely classes -- our compassion for their developing skills deepened by our own nubile Chinese skills. Role playing, singing, repetition, partner work, pictures, powerpoints, games, and dialogues are all utilized to offer speaking practice while our Chinese counterparts teach listening, reading, and writing. The students are so kind -- generous in their attention that is piqued by deep curiosity.

Just last night Kirk and I were struggling with our order in a restaurant when a table of students quickly drew us to them, assisted in our order , and enchanted us with their company. As is the custom, we shared every dish, taking small amounts into our rice bowl and developing a new dexterity with our chopsticks. Time and time again, the sweet generosity of strangers has moved a potentially difficult situation into a delightful encounter. Our meager attempts at Chinese are deeply appreciated and our many mistakes forgiven.

We run every morning and exercise on the circuit outside our apartment building and ride our bicycles every evening. No dung hut and no horseback rides to school. No outhouse, and more vegetables and fruits than one could ever desire. Cellphones and bicycles. Peace Corps China in the year 2014 is so very different than Peace Corps Lesotho in 1981.

But we can see the mountains from our window and the afternoon sun feels lovely -- just like in Lesotho. And the students -- like our students in Africa and our students in America -- oh, how happy they make us.

Photos in text, from top: Marie Fitzsimmons on the Hexi University campus; one of her classes; Kirk Peters at Matisi; a view of a Matisi rock wall. (Photos provided)