Silence

After saying goodbye to John in Beijing I depressingly put myself on a plane and flew up to Hailar. My intentions were to go help at Shamineau again. They run a two week winter camp for kids during their winter break. Turns out Inner Mongolia... way cold. Who knew!? So the first week I was there I prepared all the activities for the camp that later we discovered, would not be happening due to lack of campers. I stayed in Hailar for three weeks anyway. A majority of the time I spent at Jessy's where I watched TV online, emailed Rufio crazy long emails, IMed Wally, and talked to John on the phone. Busy Busy Busy! However in the process of all that business I learned to cook some Chinese dishes, learned to crochet, attempted and failed at making my own skirt, and took a short trip out to the camp. The trip to camp was amazing. It is beautiful out there as always. I have never seen a place that looked so vastly different by the season it was in. As different as this place seemed this trip around it was still just as breathtakingly beautiful as it had been before. This sense of smallness, that always overtakes me when I'm at this place was overwhelming this time. Seeing the earth blanketed in gleaming white snow creating this congruency of newness. What a blessing to witness this first hand. Aside from just being there we all took rides on the camel drawn sleigh. Which was crazy fun and crazy cold! Jessy and I both thought our toes were going to fall off, but what are a few toes when you think about having the experience of a camel sleigh through the grasslands really?!? Priorities people! haha

I came back to Changzhi last week. All the students have gone home for the spring festival. Campus is really quiet and the market is closed so I've been forced to cook everyday at home. Which I'm so great at let me tell you! wait... thats not true at all. I did make some peanut butter cookies that turned out pretty good last week however PB is in short supply here so I probably won't make those too often. 

Chinese new year was this past weekend. I spent it at Hellena's ho

me with her family. I had a great time! It was very similar to our Christmas. I learned to play Mai Jong and we shot off fireworks at midnight.. along with 1.3 billion other people. The next day we went to her sisters home where we ate a nice lunch with her whole family and I spent the afternoon w/ her nephew Jackie who speaks fluent English. He's very kind just like Hellena so I was happy to be in their presence. 

Today I went shopping with Sue, her boyfriend, and his friend Ken who are all from Kenya. We got suckered into singing Karaoke in the middle of this huge shopping center. You can't get the true China experience w/o KTV haha We sang "Right here waiting". Good times, then I got yelled at by a worker for trying to carry my shopping bag into the grocery store. Less good times. We walked home together because it wasn't so cold and they taught me some Swahili which turns out is much easier than Chinese. Bring it on Kenya! Here I come;-) haha 

All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing. 

- Isaiah 14:7