Farewelling Friends

Our Wuxi ambassadors have been having a great time hanging out with their American friends and host families.
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear with both American and Chinese students coming to the Lee/ISA/STEM campus to play some ice breaker games and learn about each other’s schools. We dropped by Musical Bridges to see some exciting art connections between San Antonio and Wuxi, and then took them to the exciting world of American shopping malls at La Cantera. Since the building friendships between our students is the whole point of this exercise, then we turned the Chinese students loose on their host families, and let them spend some time hanging out and getting to know each other better.
Day four opened back at the Lee campus, where the students played The Great Game, representing countries and trying to bargain and fight their way to stability. A few students got poisoned, a table got conquered, and a great time was had by all. After lunch, we headed out to natural bridge caverns to see some of the geology that makes Texas’ rugged landscape so unique. We said our farewells (and happy birthday to one of the Chinese teachers) at dinner that night, and were left with the lingering realization that building these relationships between our cities was tiring, important, wonderfully fun work.
We left China a year ago, better for having been there. Our Chinese friends left us yesterday, and we can only hope they left feeling better as well. I know we are better for their coming, and I know our world is too.