“That was perhaps the longest week and a half I spent in
China. It was like seeing a reflection
of my entire first year, cut and spliced and crammed into ten days – all of the
fear, the annoyances, the fascination, the wonder of the city; everything hit
my father in the space of little more than a week. And I found that it was difficult to predict
what would bother him, because I had been in Fuling for so long that I no
longer saw it with a true outsider’s eye.
A slow boat that might seem perfectly fine to me was terrifying to him,
while other things that I had worried about, like the spiciness of the food,
didn’t pose the slightest problem. Like
many Peace Corps volunteers all over the world, I found that the parent visit
was a kind of revelation: suddenly I saw how much I had learned and how much I
had forgotten.”
River
Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler
I had a wonderful visit with my Mom the other week. At one point I asked her what her favorite
blog post was, you know, so I would have an idea of what she likes so I can write to
my audience. Do you know what she
said? The woman that birthed me, raised
me, and calls me her own?! “The one your friends wrote.” Don’t worry, Mom, I
didn’t take it too personally. She said,
“I like to know what you do on a normal day.”
So this one’s for you, Mom!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
7:30am – I slept in!
But that’s the joy of a flexible schedule, no alarm clocks
required. Made breakfast – tea and
oatmeal with cinnamon, peanut butter, and an apple.
8:00am – I’m enjoying said breakfast in my hammock,
listening to a This American Life podcast when 4-year-old Dayana walks in and
stands next to my hammock. I give her a
bite of my food so she can stop wondering what it tastes like and play. Her younger sister Chenin walks in and
brightly says “Good morning” followed by “give me some.” I do.
We talk about what's in it and they go play.
9:00am - I head over to the Health Post (next door) to
install a weather station. I realize
that the mango tree is going to be an issue.
9:10am - I ask Natividad for permission to cut down one
branch. He says yes and gifts me 11
bananas – guineo chino, the BIG ones!
9:15am - Reyes climbs the tree like a spider monkey and
quickly drops the first branch with his machete. He then chops down 3 more under the counsel
of Anabel and Natividad – just to be sure.
9:30am - We clean up the mess – split the branches, separate
the firewood, and move the green fallen mangoes to a more convenient spot to
rot.
10:30am - I helped remove PVC tubs from their (at least 8
month) intertwined grass prison to a new storage spot.
11:30am - Installed weather station.
Whenever I’m in my house – Kids (on a week-long vacation)
ask to borrow a puzzle or a book or the singing cow or the crayons or the
dominoes! My house is pretty much the
coolest hangout on the block!
12:00pm - Ate bananas for lunch and read a little bit.
1:30pm – Hiked about 30 minutes to the lower part of my town
where I visited the 10 houses to collect a water survey - How much water do you
use every day? Made small talk. Baby Isabel showed me her new trick – giving
kisses. Modesta gifted me 5 eggs, each
marked with the date laid and the chicken responsible.
4:00pm – Hiked back up the hill. Sweat a LOT.
Stopped in at Rosa’s to see if I could collect baby food jars that she
had and I wanted to make mango jam in.
4:30pm – Started to rain just as I got home. Showered (in the rain), washed laundry and
dishes.
5:30pm – Cooked dinner – TVP (textured vegetable protein)
tacos with black beans, fried onion and cabbage, shredded carrot and asiago
cheese.
6:00pm – Ate dinner over another podcast. Then wrote in my journal, wrote this blog,
read for a while, and did some yoga.
8:30pm – Went to bed!
Tomorrow’s another day. :)
Hello, your day sounds great. I'm going to come visit soon when I'm not a sicky sick. Love Katy
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