Now here's a story...

This 17 year old boy on the right was in a motorcycle accident near his village. It was so bad that it broke his tibia (one of the small bones in your lower leg). It broke so bad that it actually came through the skin. The situation was worsened by the fact that he didn't have the money to come to town to go to the hospital, so he sat at home for five days. The family finally got the money and made the trip (the initial cost that they didn't have was less than 70 USD). But of course by then infection had set in, serious infection that could only be removed through surgery, and after surgery it is still serious. We and some others helped him get this surgery (they flew a doc from the provincial capital to do it), and since David could speak his language he went to visit him before and after. In fact David has been to the hospital quite a bit, and this young man's family now sees David as part of theirs. They wanted to meet the whole family so one day I went to the hospital as well. They said I could come live with them when I wanted to learn their language. I'm game.


This is they guy's aunt, and yes, at a whoping 5'4'' I am almost a foot taller!



People visiting him in the hospital (including his Mom and Aunt) really, really wanted to meet Sophia, so they came over one afternoon. Sophia enjoyed the company. The lady to David's right literally showed us her stomach and said Sophia had one like her :). They also brought us all this food that David loves (that I don't know how to use), one in particular is a dipping sauce, literally translated means 'water sour teeth' and that pretty much describes it--super sour!
We love this family and we know this will be a lifelong friendship. The boy is doing well after surgery and will stay in the hospital on strong antibiotics for another few weeks.
As they left our house the Aunt and Mom lagged behind a little and in our stairwell the Aunt started to cry. Tears of thanksgiving. I began to cry too as I thought about the whole ordeal and putting myself in their shoes, we are so thankful for the opportunity to know this family, and David continues to point their family to the One who really made this all possible to whom we all should be thankful.

trip tidbits

To understand this pic see the previous post about our time in Thailand. Here is the mannequin leg with funky hosiery, Sophia just thought it was weird (smart girl)!



mommy and daddy never let me type on their toys...


Sophia loves to get under and in things





This should be a post all by itself. We have a had a local tell us that China is the 'king of fake,' and yes we know that is true. But as we were walking through the airport David nonchalantly said, 'look, that guy has a Mac', he corrected himself and said 'or at least a fake one,' as we got closer to his table, we couldn't believe our eyes. Can you see it? too funny, an apple icon with Dell written in the middle. We shouldn't be surprised at stuff like this anymore, but we are!

check me out

My aunt Bap gave me this outfit. I think i am real cute. I am about to outgrow it. But so many people gave me compliments on it! Thank you Aunt Bap, I miss you!

Back home

Our day started at 5 a.m. and no electricity in the hotel. We opened the door to let the emergency light in so we could see where we were going and finish packing. We woke Sophia and were on our way. We arrived at our house around 6:30 p.m. That is a long day of travel and it wasn't even from another continent. Only four hours in the air, the rest in airports. Sophia did wonderful, just got a little fussy on the last flight, who can blame her!

Exhausted, we went to bed a little early only to be woken up by Sophia at 2:30 a.m (she hasn't woken up in the middle of the night since who knows when). We comforted her, put her down. No problem. More crying..Brought her to lay with us... Then put her back in her bed. More crying. We let her cry. She was in pain. Did I forget to mention that we finally discovered she has two front top teeth coming in? More and More crying. In the end Sophia and I slept in the guest room after an hour of crying. Teething is no fun. But we are excited about her new toothy grin. We are hoping tonight goes better.

Here are a few pics from the beginning of our trip, I will post others later:

David unplugged the phone for Sophia to play with. We have no idea what this conversation entailed, it was jibberish to us, but by her looks and gestures, she probably was saying...

"you don't have fresh milk on tap, what kind of hotel are you running here?"



"You better listen to me, you don't know what kind of fit I can throw when I don't have my milk"




"You will find me some? Now we are gettin' somewhere. Charge it to the room"



"Hey mama, you want anything?"

On September 3rd 2008...

Sophia said her first word in Chinese: GeGe (big brother), we have actually never used the English with her. We were in the provincial capital on our way out to Thailand, sitting in a place frequented by foreigners (us), but there were locals there and one little boy in particular. We said, "Sophia, say nihao gege" and she said "gege" and she kept saying it, to him, not randomly. In our apartment complex, most of the kids are little boys, older than her of course, so they are all her geges, she has heard it a lot. Out of her twenty word vocabulary (inteligible), one word is Chinese. We were amazed.

After a two hour delay we boarded the plane for Thailand. Sophia had no afternoon nap and we also had a layover in Bangkok, we had to run through the airport to make the connection and we arrived at our hotel by about 8:30 Thai time which is 9:30 China time. Sophia was so tired! She slept well that night. On the flights we got bulk head seating and she loved sitting at our feet and playing with her toys.

We have struggled a little today. The room is quite bright and so Sophia just stayed in her crib for her morning nap, but she didn't sleep. She laid there for a while, then finally I gave her some toys, trying to keep her in there for about 45 minutes total. This place is not real conducive for kids. For lunch she ate watermelon and cheerios, while I ate a scoop of Mocha chip icecream, this because the Thai dish served (which looked and smelled delicious), had shrimp in it, to which I am very allergic. The food was not near soft enough for Sophia and her two teeth. This afternoon she slept for an hour and a half, then David skipped out of some meetings to run some errands and we all went to the mall. Sophia did wonderful, staying in her stroller most of the time. We ate pizza, Sophia ate a little spinach lasagna. We went to the grocery store in the basement and I got strawberries, grapes, and other goodies to be better prepared for tomorrow.

Of course we couldn't get out of the mall without some dessert, and so much to choose from, it was a real dilemma, Auntie Annes, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, etc. We chose coffee oreo blizzards and some donuts for later. While sitting there enjoying our blizzards, some ladies from a hosiery store right in front of the bench we were on came out to play with Sophia, they were just talking away to her and unbeknownst to us, they unbuckled her, and proceeded to take her out (we were caught off guard, but started to pay attention) and then whisked her away into their store. We had to laugh, because neither one of us knew that was happening. They were very friendly, and we could see her the whole time. She took off with their calculator and then one lady started taking a mannequin leg (with funky hosiery on it), and moving it towards Sophia, this was all so surreal. It was like a TV show or something, making the leg dance, watching Sophia's reaction. There were about 8 women surrounding her. Anyway, all we can say is, what a day. What will tomorrow bring. We may try the scary looking swimming pool... I'll let ya know.

conversing?

Sophia is talking in complete sentences now. We of course cannot understand a word of it, but on and on she goes. Our friend's son, however, does understand her, and though he can speak intelligible words (he is 3), he has talked back to her in her language on occasion. They just happen to live four floors below us, so Sophia will hear him playing outside, run over to the window and start jabbering to him. Two days ago when she did this, she said: "awasdahd babba aahhcccc," to which Caleb replied (telling his father): "she wants to go to the pool." Hilarious. When he was up at our house recently he was leaving and he on his own said he had to give Sophia a hug and a kiss and he did, it was incredibly sweet (i had to ask for one, but he complied). She will miss her gege (big brother) when they leave for a month.

Friends

Some friends from out of town came to visit, and Sophia had such a blast with them as you can tell:





Sophia loved this man (below) upon first meeting. He walked in the door and she went straight to him, which is rare. This is our helper's dad.
They have a cousin, thirty-something, with a wife and two year old. The man was just diagnosed with AIDS and they brought the slips over for us to read just to be sure and to find out what to do. They were told by the doctors not to tell anyone else. We are trying to get him to come into town and get some medicine. We will see if he does. A very sad situation, one that is becoming all too common in these parts.



We leave for Thailand tomorrow so we are busy packing. I have never stayed in a hotel for a week with a very active one year old. Needing much grace. Then we do it all again, but for a month in October, wow. At least Dairy Queen and Starbucks will be involved.