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I came back from shooting some footage with the documentary crew one day to find that Shi Lifeng, Liu Dan, and Shu Caili, my three best English students, had left a message for me. They had lined up the desks in the classroom and using leaves had spelled out "Teacher Paul, we love you." They also used leaves to draw a heart on the floor. Shu CaiLi wanted a picture of herself sitting in the middle of it. She was a very good student but would get such a nervous laugh when asked a direct question that she could barely catch her breath and hardly speak. I could hardly speak when I saw these leaves.

I've bought a tape player and four sets of English courses that I'm going to send to the village for these three. The tape player is specially designed for language learning (I got one for myself when I was in China and all I can say is I wish I'd had it sooner). This should keep them occupied for a while and make up for my not being there. After that, I don't know.