Luguhu
(Gosh, where to begin?) The bus ride was decidedly unpleasant - the seat was hard; I
had one bag on my lap and the other at my feet; the road was bumpy and in places
could not even have been called a road. Next to me was a middle aged man who smoked
the entire journey - several hours - and asked me difficult to understand questions
in heavily accented Sichuanese. Moreover, I was filled with vague apprehension - what if there had been a misunderstanding and I was not expected at the school? What if they were on vacation? What would it be like? What if I couldn't understand anything they said? A captain with seven children - what's so fearsome about that?

When we arrived at Luguhu, two young women in what I later learned was Mosuo ethnic costume - heavy braided turbans, long, white pleated skirts, and silk Mandarin blouses with woven belts boarded the bus to collect our entry fees. Someone - possibly the driver - had explained to them that I didn't need to pay, since I was there as a teacher. One of the Mosuo women called the school, received confirmation that they were expecting a laowai, and informed me that as there was no time to pick me up, I would have to walk. It was about this time that the spirit of adventure set in. I was ready for anything. I took my bags, clambered down from the bus, and, not looking back, began to walk.

Imagine, now, a long, dusty road. There are mountains in the distance, and here and there a ramshackle shop or guesthouse. Mostly there are fields, for Luguhu is real rural China. I pass chickens and pigs, men leading mules, but mostly what I notice is the women. They are Mosuo, which I am told is the last remaining matriarchal society on Earth. There is no marriage, and women are free to take as many lovers as they want throughout their lives. Older Mosuo women wear dark colored turbans and baggy gowns. Generally they have scarves over their heads and all I can see is their eyes, which seem to follow me - not hostile, exactly, but apprehensive. They have large baskets on their backs, containing babies or vegetables. Some carry water in a
double-bucket arrangement over their shoulders.

I passed a group of young people who greeted me with shouts of "Hello!" as Chinese people invariably do. They asked where I was going and I told them Dazucun. They were surprised to hear me speak Chinese. They pointed me in the right direction and I walked on. Presently a small white van came up from behind me and stopped a few yards ahead. Anxious, I kept walking and did not look at the windows. A man leaned out and asked where I was going. I hesitated, then told them Dazucun Elementary School. They said they were going too and I should get in. I resisted, but eventually, when they told me the name of my contact at the school, I gave in. I spent the brief drive praying to the Virgin Mary that they not be kidnappers, and as
it turns out they were not, merely visiting teachers, same as me. Wu laoshi, one of the men, still laughs about this incident.

The school is very lovely. There are three main buildings: one for the two classrooms and the office, one for the kitchen and meeting room, and one for the teachers' dorm. The buildings are a nice-smelling golden wood, very rustic, with stomped down dirt floors, but glass in the windows, which is fancy. Also there is a proper flushing toilet and shower facilities which are generally very cold. When we arrived, we were given a special sort of Naxi tea (Naxi is the ethnicity of most of the villagers; Mosuo is not an official ethnicity athough they have their own language - they are counted as Naxi) and introduced to some of the teachers, then told that we could have dinner at one of the nearby Naxi houses. This, I think, is one of the coolest experiences of my life.

Outside the house were about twenty or so people of all ages, many of whom wore the traditional Naxi vest as well as scarves over their heads - men as well as women. We were led inside to a fairly large, dark room at the back of which was a raised platform where a pot was cooking over a small fire. I was told to sit down by the fire, next to an old Naxi woman who smiled and nodded congenially as she smoked her cigarette. We were given sunflower seeds and a truly horrible corn-based liquor which I could barely sip. After this extraordinary cocktail hour we were taken back outside and went to the house next door, where we ate dinner with a bunch of Naxi men who toasted us continuously and called me Ou laoshi (Teacher Ou), which pleased
me. Eating dinner in this small, dark house with these cordial, enthusiastic people,
I decided that no matter what else might happen, it was going to have been worth it.
And such has proved to be the case.

Over the past week I have gotten to know the other teachers, most of whom are fairly young. There is Fang laoshi, a Guangdong man in his late twenties, who has taken it upon himself to educate me in Classical Chinese and who, despite some pompousness, one cannot help but like. There is Hou laoshi, a "Sichuanese hot pepper girl," whose nickname, Houzi, means "monkey," who wears boys' clothing, scoffs at notions of traditional Chinese femininity, and who is at any moment prepared to fly into a temper or make a terrific joke. There is Zheng Xiaoxue, a Chengdu girl my age who has taken me under her wing and invited me to stay at her house when we're through teaching at the school. There is Li laoshi, an older Taiwanese woman who makes me think of a cross between Oprah and an Italian grandmother - she never sees me but
she gives me things: instant coffee, hard boiled eggs, black bananas, chocolate candy - she is extraordinarily generous with everyone. There are Luo Wei and Wang Cheng, who are the two most fun and best-looking Chinese boys I have ever met - so I find it pleasingly symmetrical that they are dating one another. Wang Cheng, who is Naxi, shouts more than he speaks and sings as much as either. He is small and dark, with very wild hair and a wonderful shouting laugh. Luo Wei, a college student from Chengdu, is quieter - beautifully mellow, but with a wicked sense of humor. They are so clearly fond of each other and sweet to everybody and good with the children that it would be impossible not to love them.

There are about fifty students altogether, divided into kindergarden and first grade. They range in age from about six to perhaps twelve, because before Old Li Laoshi came and started this school the children had to travel two hours each way to school