Last Few Hours Before Gracie

Nancy is playing with Frannie while I am writing this and I can't help but wax philosophical, spiritual, emotional....

Yesterday when we left our hotel in Shanghai to head to the airport, the driver coincidentally drove around the back of the hotel where we saw an old lady picking through the huge piles of garbage and Nancy mentioned a minute later that she saw a little boy in there too. I am reminded of two things when I see this: 30 years ago or so my parents went to Bermuda to celebrate their anniversary without the kids and for some reason my Mom brought all her jewelry with her, valuing about $20,000 and it was stolen. She was grieving the loss of these pearls, jade necklaces, etc. when she saw two little kids trying to come into the hotel to beg for money and the bellboy shooed them away. My mom told us when we got older that she needed to see that in order to get over the lost jewelry. She was so grateful to have 5 healthy kids, at home with our aunt, with no wants or needs. As I left Shanghai, I thought about that and how crazy it is for me to grieve over a few articles of clothing, gifts for Gracie's foster family, etc. We have the ability to buy more and this poor old lady digging through OUR garbage behind the hotel has nothing. I was also reminded of the garbage dump in Kingston where many of the disabled kids are found and brought to the orphanages of Mustard Seed and MOP. This garbage dump is HOME to many who have to battle daily with wild pigs in order to find food.

Okay folks, I can't help but philosophize everything, it's the way my brain is wired. Almost the instant I let go of the stupid suitcase and decided to just get over it, the hotel in Chongqing tells me it's on the way -- kinda like God wanted me to learn that lesson before I got the bag back. I needed that.

Frannie is doing remarkably well with all the travel, various rooms, traffic, noise and general hubub. We leave here in about 3 hours for Grace and I will post pics later.

By the way, Nancy was introduced to "General Social Differences Between Americans and Chinese" last night. We went to a local restaurant, attached to a big department store like Chinese fast food. We had to just point to the pictures to order. We sat at a table right next to a sink where, apparently, people will wash up before they eat. We had just gotten our food when a little petite woman walked over the sink and started clearing her throat. I mean, snorting and hockering and blowing her nose into the sink and hockering some more. I thought Nancy might need a barf bag. I'm sorry that this still makes me laugh. Makes me think of a trip I took with Susan M to the Badlands and the sights we saw in the portajohnnies at the rest stop.....