Well, now that we’re here there’s barely enough time to do everything planned let alone write about it, but this is worth a little sleep loss. Yesterday mourning our group visited an orphanage in a nearby city. I could say all the cliché stuff that people are wont to say after something like this (which is mostly true judging from my experience), but I think I’ll just sketch a little bit of the scene instead. (Figuratively speaking, of course, I’m not in the habit of drawing much.) The afore mentioned orphanage is specifically for special needs children, although there are some children without special needs and some adults with special needs there as well. The disabilities of the children/adults there vary quite a bit from a repaired cleft lip to some severe mental and physical disabilities. While we were there we threw around some balls and frisbees and did our best to interact despite the language barrier, which worked pretty well in most cases. I guess if my writing in this area is a bit stiff and even worse than my other writing it’s because I’m still somewhat over-whelmed by the entire experience more than 30 hours later. The combination of laughter and play with seeing people in wheel chairs tied to the wall made for a rather confusing and difficult experience.
After that excursion we returned to the school to play some frisbee until dinner. My particular group of four accompanied our host family to a local restaurant where I was finally forced to use chop sticks or starve (which I was able to do with some success, as I certainly did not starve by any means). I personally had pulled noodles, which we were able to see pulled outside the restaurant, submerged in a tasty broth. After that we took a little stroll and enjoyed the unusually dry weather. (In Chengdu, if you can tell for sure where the sun is, it’s a clear day. We were able to see Venus and Jupiter relatively clearly during the night.) After that we returned home and finished Dolphin Tail with our host families little girls and watched the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring with their boys after the girls went to bed. Sunday mourning we were able to fellowship at the international school and sang some songs for and with the gathering. (I personally accompanied on my host families violin along with some other students who played drums, piano, and guitar.) After that, one of my room mates and I played soccer with some kids, including our host families boys. Finally, this evening we went to the night market in Xiepoo (I’m not sure if that is an accepted pinyon spelling, but it’s pronounced she-poo). Probably the coolest things I ate there were cuttlefish and duck intestine, both of which were grilled on a stick.
The duck intestine in particular tasted a lot like bacon, due to the seasoning, and the cuttlefish was quite tasty. Another interesting food item we had was sugar cane, which tasted . . . sugary. The vendor selling it simply lopped off the ends of the cane and the outer shell and hacked it into a number of pieces. Then we simply bit off a piece, extracted the juice, and spat the fibers out on the street. (People spit and throw all kinds of things all over the place in addition to having their children relieve themselves on street. No I didn’t get any pictures of that.) Anyhow, my “host dad” tells me that “a Christian on his way to heaven goes to bed before eleven”. Fortunately it’s actually 23:08, but I think I should still go to bed rather than risk my immortal soul. Bonne nuit.
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