I can honestly say that nothing has tested my patience more than playing volleyball once ( and sometimes twice) a week with theses wonderful people for the past few months. Every volleyball coach that I have ever had engrained in me how important communication is to succeed in this sport. But what if you are the only one that speaks English and sadly you are not well versed in Chinese…. After the first few weeks I learned some Chinese words that could help me when playing like: mine, in, out, good job, ball. But that was obviously much less than I was used to talking when I play. But probably the most frustrating part was that all these people playing were a lot of fun and liked to joke around with each other. It was definitely difficult when I would hear someone say something and all I could understand was my name being said … And then everyone would laugh. I would try and ask what was said but all that could be communicated to me in English was “ is a joke”. Yea, I got that but I wish I could be in on it and laugh too!! Many nights I came home extremely frustrated but I always went back the next week. This amazing group of people took me into their volleyball group and also helped me grow more as a person that I thought I ever could. Thank you.
