America 1982

Theodore Joshua Airport on St. Vincent Island has only one runway. Tommy Hawke walked out of the airport carrying a travel bag, flanked by Ottilia, Dennis and Pam.

"I didn't expect that with a ticket price of 125 yuan, I could actually enjoy charter flight service, but the service attitude was a bit poor and the aircraft was too old." Ottilia said as she walked.

To be able to make her, who has an excellent personality, complain loudly shows how bad the service on such a low-cost flight is.

Tommy Hawke looked at the capital of the country in front of him, his voice was a little weak: "I'm afraid that no matter how old the model is, it is much newer than the capital in front of us. I once thought it was small, but obviously my imagination is still insufficient. "

The camera that was originally raised in Pam's hand slowly put it down as she saw the scene in front of her clearly, and said to Tommy Hawke: "I think it's best not to take pictures of the distant views of the country's capital for publicity. This city is less than half the size of Warwick. If we put long-range photos on it, people will think we are taking pictures in the countryside of Warwick."

"The tourist brochure I have says that Kingston has a population of only 12,000. If I remember correctly, Warwick, which is ridiculed by Boston as a rural city, has a population of 80,000." Dennis looked at Kingston in front of him. Atsushi said with a somewhat erratic voice: "I feel like the parks I went to for outing last time were bigger than here."

"You remember correctly, the country's population is less than 90,000." Tommy Hawke said: "But this is the only official country recognized by the United Nations that we have found that is willing to communicate with our culture at a low cost. If If we don’t choose here, we will have to go to Africa.”

The airport is right next to Kingston, and the capital of St. Vincent and Grenada appears directly in front of the four people. It looks like a small town surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea. The town is an English-style building with alternating red bricks and white stones. Buildings, fishing boats and cargo ships float on the blue sea.

This white city or town is surrounded by lush forests. From a distance, it looks like a pearl left on the seashore.

"Excuse me, are you Miss Otelia Farrell, Mr. Tommy Hawke, Mr. Dennis Herbs, Mr. Pam Marvel?" A black man in his twenties or seventeen years old The woman walked over from the parking lot far away and asked in standard fluent English.

Otilia nodded, reached out to the other party, and responded with a friendly smile: "Hello, I am Otilia Farrell, the instructor of the CSLS project at Lincoln High School in Warwick, USA."

"I am Susan Ryan, the principal of Thomas Sanders Middle School and the chief education officer of the City of Kingston." The black woman named Susan smiled and shook hands with Otilia and introduced herself: "We passed Telephone, Miss Farrell.”

"Hello, Ms. Susan Ryan, Tommy Hawke, the sponsor of the CSLS project." Tommy Hawke took the initiative to introduce himself to the other party.

"I'm very happy to see that students from other countries are willing to come to St. Vincent for exchange and study. This plan is very good, Mr. Tommy Hawke." Susan shook hands with Tommy.

After shaking hands with the four people and introducing each other, Susan took the four people to the parking lot. There were only a few old British or American cars parked in the empty parking lot. Susan opened a bright blue old JEEP car. Signaling the four people to get in the car.

"This country has just been independent for three years, and many people are not used to it yet, so development is a bit slow. In addition, at the time of independence, the British vacated many positions that the locals had no access to before. They left without any guidance, and we were left alone. I started to work gropingly. For example, I was a university student in the UK three years ago, and was suddenly called back to become the principal of the only middle school in the country, the chief education officer of the city, and a teacher of many courses. In fact, I was more We like to study, but we have no choice. The country needs us. There are less than thirty people in this country who have studied abroad and have gone to university." Susan started the car while introducing the situation in this country.

"Ms. Ryan, approximately how many students are there at Thomas Sanders Middle School?" Tommy Hawke asked directly about the school without caring about the country.

Susan thought for a while: "If I remember correctly, the total number of students in the school is one hundred and thirteen."

"Write it down in your notebook, Dennis." Tommy reminded Dennis quietly from the back seat, and then continued to ask: "What are the sports activities that students at your school are good at?"

"Cricket, English cricket is very popular in the Caribbean, and there are also track and field, such as sprinting and middle-distance running. You American students can compete with them." Susan said to Tommy Hawke with a smile: "Due to the venue and current situation, the school is currently unable to encourage students to participate in other sports with too complicated rules."

Tommy continued to whisper to Dennis, who was writing rapidly: "OK, write it down, Dennis, these competitive sports should not be included in the summer camp activities, replace them with others, such as table tennis, fencing, etc."

Otilia, who was sitting in the passenger seat and heard Tommy speak, turned her head, gave Tommy a dissatisfied frown, and reminded in a low voice: "Tommy? Your words are very rude."

Tommy Hawke made an apologetic expression and continued to ask: "Is chess activities popular here? Principal Ryan?"

"There is a serious shortage of teachers here, so of course there is no time to develop other interests." Susan said with a smile as if she didn't hear the whispered exchange between Tommy and Dennis in the back seat.

"In addition, American students are good at chess, checkers, flight chess and other competitions, ensuring that they can get good rankings." Tommy Hawke reminded Dennis with bright eyes.

“However, the country strives to provide the best resources to schools, because we know that knowledge and young people can make this country a better place. We now provide clean and tidy campuses, provide school uniforms for children, and provide clean drinking water... Here we are, That's our campus. If it weren't for showing respect, you can actually reach the school from the airport in fifteen minutes' walk." Susan Ryan turned her head and gestured to a few people about the building on the left.

The people in the car looked around and saw a three-story building that stood out among the single-story buildings.

Parking the car in the parking space on the side of the road, Susan led a few people into this middle school. Not to mention compared with Lincoln High School, the environment here is even much smaller than Sinclair Elementary School where Tommy's aunt Melonie works. .

A piece of simply leveled land is the sports ground, a row of bungalows is the principal's office, and all the other classrooms and activity rooms are concentrated in that three-story building.

At this time, a group of black high school students with happy faces were happily playing a cricket match on the dusty sports ground. When they saw the few white people who appeared at this time, they all showed surprised expressions and stopped. , but did not approach the crowd rudely, but stood there and responded with polite smiles to several people.

Susan Ryan accompanied Otilia and continued walking towards her office, but Tommy and the other three stayed where they were and observed the middle school.

"I don't think anyone wants to come to a place like this for summer camp, Tommy, it's terrible here." Pam said, holding the camera that she hadn't used once since landing.

Tommy Hawke took a deep breath: "Those paying high school students need glossy information on paper. In order to be admitted to prestigious schools and to have a dazzling resume, they must accept this reality. I guarantee that the entire American university has not listened. If you've been through this country, you wouldn't have known that high schools in this country could be so bad, so just stick to the plan, Dennis, and go to this village... Go to the capital of the country to find the best hotels and find out what's available if you stay in a group. Preferential price, Pam, take some beautiful photos of this country to use as promotional materials. I will go to the campus here to check the chess and sports equipment that need to be prepared. Then, after making statistics, I will call back to Lincoln High School to see if I can Borrow it for free for a period of time to speed up the process. We only have two days here. After understanding the general situation, we need to go back and do a lot of preparation work."

"The American news has been saying that armed riots often occur in black countries. Are you sure it won't happen here?" Dennis looked at this mini-city that looked peaceful and full of black people, swallowed, and said nervously: "Honestly It was my first time to appear in a place with so many black people, and it didn’t feel good to be surrounded by so many black people.”

Tommy nodded: "Of course, I guarantee that it is safe here. The crime rate in St. Vincent is many times lower than that of the former sovereign country, the United Kingdom. This is not a famine-stricken Africa, let alone the United States with poor public security. This country has no army and is the most powerful in the country. The armed force consists of 170 police officers and 200 reserve militiamen who can only be mobilized when the country encounters a major crisis. Let's put it this way, if our summer camp takes place, we only need to carry weapons and ammunition from any gun shop in the United States to St. Vincent. Can easily take over this country.”