ER???

Rick had a fight with his bike, and the bike won. For unknown reasons, yesterday the tires locked up going over a speed bump and stopped the bike, but not Rick. He landed hard. There was lots of blood and people were insisting on him going to the ER, but he refused and walked the half mile home. (I have no idea what people around him were thinking seeing him trudge home with blood flowing down his face.) He did not know how bad it looked, until I had him look in the mirror. He did not want to go to the ER, but finally agreed. Our team leaders went with us and we started at the PKU hospital, them walking and me riding my bike. The doctor there, said she could not handle it and we needed to go to a neighboring, larger hospital.   We went out to flag down a taxi but were not very successful. It was rush hour. I had just bought a new phone so did not have the Didi (Uber) app yet. I just grabbed a group of students walking by and asked them to phone for a taxi. (They even paid for it.) Al

Phone???

Just bought a new cell phone. For more than a year our old one has sent us nastygrams about being too full and nothing I deleted seemed to help. Buying a new phone is the same bumps and bruises as it always is to try to get a new electronic device….but times 7 being in another language and culture. We have been through this before here and went back to the man who found us our laptop. We call him “the little man”. (He is short.) I am not really sure what his little kiosk sells, maybe computer mice, and pads. That is what I see setting out at his place. He was introduced to us by another foreign teacher here at BeiDa, as an honest man. He ran around and found us our laptops a year ago when mine gave out. He stuck with us through all the hassles involved in changing it to English, and then Windows failing on us a year later, etc. etc. He has moved his kiosk a few times since then, and it took a bit to find him this spring, but now we have it. Involves a half mile bike ride, through som

Heat??

The government turned off the heat for the country on March 15. At least that is what my friends have said. Somehow PKU kept the heat on for another week, both in our apartment and also in the classroom. Well, that is now over. It is in the 30’s in the morning, so it is not terribly comfortable really. (Not 30’s in the house, but outside.) But it has been warming up during the day. Even some days are up to 70’s. We have an electric space heater which helps vaguely, but only vaguely and I am aware to be careful with it. Rick started with a cold last night and is more than uncomfortable with a fever and huddling in bed. Not a good scene. We just need to hang on. Being too hot is probably on the way. Just life. haha

Study??

Sooo, tonight we are having our first evening study of the new term. We have been advised by our organization, as well as some local situations that perhaps it is not a good idea to have a study at this time. We have complied with those suggestions, reluctantly, painfully, with a heart full of pain. I But on Wednesday one of the students contacted us. We obliquely communicated and decided we would meet Friday night with our previous young friends, just to talk through some things. The previous location, which was quite nice, has closed. (Common occurrence here. Many times your favorite venue is gone overnight. No idea why, but I assume straight economics is the main reason.) The student suggested the café right outside our apartment door. We said, “no”. Just too close and too observable. (Although I started back up with my Celebrate Recovery group at that locale this week.) We will travel to the other side of campus to a well-known active coffee shop. Maybe too public, I don’t know.

Eating Out Habits Here

I have no idea how I raised 4 children to maturity. During those years, I did not cook. And I mean I did NOT cook. They learned how to care for their food needs at very young ages. I thought the boys would marry for food as much as love, but neither of their wives really enjoy cooking all that much. (I guess it must have been for love, huh?) Anyway, that changed about 8 years ago when we moved to Panama. I am not completely sure why. Maybe it was that with the kids gone I actually had more time to cook? (Counterintuitive). Or maybe it was because finally I had some cooking aids like a machine that chops my onions and carrots, and some better knives. Or maybe it was that I was in a country that had things like Cream of Mushroom soup, and cheese. (Previously, although I might bring some of these kinds of things back after furlough, I would horde them so thoroughly that they would go bad, or else still be on my shelf when it came time to take another furlough.) But in Panama I could buy

"Standing Out"

Have you ever felt like you were sticking out like a sore thumb? I think of certain times in my life when this was true. Once many years ago in Zambia, I was quite sick and was waiting for a procedure in   a hospital. I was lying, naked, on a gurney with one small sheet over me. The gurney was lined up in a hallway along with about 7 or 8 other gurneys, all full of other people in the same situation as I was. The problem was that I was the only white person in sight. It seemed like every nurse, doctor, visitor, relative that came down the hallway stopped and talked or stopped and stared at me. I was quite an anomaly. It would have helped if I had had clothes on, but only slightly. I find myself in a somewhat similar situation now. I am rather used to being the only Caucasian around. In Taian, a town of 4 million where we lived for 4 months, 2 years ago, there were only about 300 expatriates. Our picture was taken pretty much every day, sometimes by request, and sometimes surrepti

Toilet Seats.....Again

Any of you that have followed the blog for a while know that we had a long string of toilet seat mishaps in Taian when we first moved to China. I posted on FB (March 14, 2017) then and repeated it to the blog on March 16, 2018. (Look it up for a laugh.) Well, I am going to quote an exchange from WeChat, Asian social media, I just had with a friend newly moved to Taian. Friend: Funny story as we speak...We asked to have some plumbing problems looked at as well as a new toilet seat. The one we have disintegrated, literally. We have the manager and a plumber here, and the manager is worried about leaving us with no toilet seat. Having a challenging time. Convincing him it is OK to take the broken one is a challenge. Me: Too funny. During our 4 months in Taian we broke our toilet seat 3 times. Truth. What is it with Taian and toilet seats? I think back in my blog somewhere I reprint our toilet seat woes. Strange. Friend: It was cracked when we first arrived and then Chris slipped on

New Post

I have not posted much lately. Part of the reason is that our connectivity has been spotty. This Is not uncommon when there are big congresses, etc. happening here. I don’t completely understand the reasons for this, but I know that it happens. It is hard to express what it feels like when I cannot connect as normal. For many (most) of us overseas social media, email, news, etc. is such a lifeline. We often feel very far from home and so much of the internet helps with that. Being cut off from it feels like prison or a drought or something. I do remind myself of all those years where I would wait and wait for snail mail letters. At one point in Zambia, it took 3 weeks for a letter to arrive. Now I can talk to my children a couple times a day on fb messenger. I am so so thankful, but it feels even worse when it is taken away from you.   It seems to be straightening out, though. I have also not posted because I have so little encouragement to report about my hip. I keep thinking th