Mmmmm....beanachino

Dun dun dun dun! We now have our headquarters! But it wasn't without danger. We weren't sure if it was at the Friendship Center where we had our potluck with our billets or across the street from them. We bought a lot of food yesterday and didn't want to wait a half hour amongst homeless people to find out. It would have been really awkward to decline so many when we have so much food, right there, in bags! But when everyone arrived, we moved into our new building! It was like a hidden sort of office with lots of desks and shelves and a small business room. There was quite a bit of junk, leftover projects, small tools, and such. But there was also 3 punching bags, a pool table, 2 couches and a dismantled fooseball table! After circle time, where we told everyone about our first weekend with our host family (everyone had a good story) we spent all morning cleaning up our new space, moving furniture and making it our own. It's like a club house now! Most of the Chinese participants helped prepare and cook food, as October 1st is a celebration of the day China became a nation. After we set up furniture, we moved the food into the Friendship center and cooked more food, set up tables and after what seemed like a long time of waiting, we ate delicious chinese food, about 10 different dishes! It was very good, but we would have eaten anything at that point. It was our supper actually! Afterwards, most of us walked down town, grabbed some beanachinos and walked down to the waterfront. It was a great time, just laughing, being ourselves. It was different then before, so to speak. We were a much more relaxed group, and I think just over the weekend, the Chinese participants have improved their English very much. They understand almost everything we say, slang and jokes and all. We caught the buses, learning more about where everything is, how the buses run, what times. Just learning where we are and where we're going.