hi's and lo's

umm... so by request i'm posting a recent email here. i hope to make some introductions, soon, so you can all meet some of the people i'm living and working with!

and: post-script to "rice of life": last week in church we did communion with, you guessed it, bowls of rice!

**************

Many things have made me laugh in the last week, and some things have made me cry, too. I'll start with the funny stuff...

-signs posted in the first class lounge bathroom in beijing, reading something like:

SINK PLANK TOILET STOOL
WALL FACE URINE POND
LOOKING GLASS

USE YELLOW CLOTH USE RED CLOTH

...so, when in need of a handy cloth, don't grab the red one!

-the amazing service i had flying first class, including the last leg of the flight when i got 2 personal attendants to serve me caviar etc. i actually felt pretty weird...

-thai taxi drivers, and their jokes, e.g. an elderly driver dolefully saying, "ah, but my wife... she is my truly master..." (meaning she wears the pants in the marriage, i guess!)

-the fact that there are kwaai, yes, that means water buffalo, grazing not far from my posh suburban apartment.

-coworker Pat and i nearly falling off her rickety old motorbike going over a speed bump!

-saying yes to a lumpy-looking "sauce" for my noodle soup and realizing that it was blood when my server dumped it in and it "cooked" into clumps.


i've been a strange combination of overwhelmingly busy with adjusting to the office work at Project LIFE, and achingly lonely when i go home to my apartment -- it's a wonderful place; i've just never lived alone before. however, i can see already that these two things (the busyness and the quiet) will probably end up being a good balance.

Congratulations and bless you if you've made it, reading this far!

onward...

sarah