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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Bob

We have a new friend. He didn’t have an English name, so we named him Bob. Not the most profound name, perhaps, but it works, and it’s easy to say. For us, at least; Bob kind of struggles with it... Bob didn’t really have a place of his own, so we offered to let him crash in our living room for awhile. He’s kind of rough around the edges; maybe not the type a lot of people would choose to take in, but really, if he put a pirate patch over that eye that doesn’t work, he wouldn’t look too bad... Anyway, after realizing that he couldn’t use a western style toilet (neither can some of our students; yikes!), we told him he really needed to find a new hangout. It was kind of sad, though, because Bob was one of the coolest friends we’ve made yet. He said he might drop in on one of my lessons though, because his new home is really close to one of my classes, so hopefully I’ll get to see him again soon. Oh yeah, did I forget to tell you? Bob is a Bihu.




P.S. “Bihu” is the Chinese word for “gecko.” My students in one of my classes presented me with one that they had caught in the windowsill, and I brought him home to show Ryan. We wanted to keep him, and actually let him hang out on our windowsill for a couple hours (he needed to warm up; he was VERY cold and lethargic, which is how they were able to catch him), but then we realized he would poop, and so we took him back to the classroom and put him up on top of the projector screen. After using him to scare one of my students, of course. I must say, though,Ilike this windowsill-found gift better than the last one; the last one was cool and all, but a spider the size of my palm is not something I want for a pet. They did present it in a water bottle, however, which made it less intimidating, but also made me think of those ship-in-a-bottle things.

5 comments:

  1. How common are gecko's in China? I had associated them with really jungle climates like Panama.

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  2. Here in southern China they're apparently pretty common; one of my classrooms has two that live above the speaker box, and then there's Bob of course, and the students don't seem surprised to see them. My mom said when she was in Taiwan they had them in all their apartments.

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  3. So how big is a gecko in China? In other words, how bad was the poo?
    Any pictures of it?
    Oh, and you had me going for a sec. bringing in a homeless guy?! LOL!
    Do you ever get to see sunshine?

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  4. 1st, we didn't wait for the poo. We just realized....

    Geckos are like 5 inches. (Ours was, so our sampling is small)

    2nd, Sunshine? Yeah, we do see it occasionally. I (Ryan) see it in your daughter's face. She's a good kid.

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  5. tag. See my blog. You guys are crazy

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