Well...I'm home.

My last week in China was somewhat crazy. My friend Karen ended up coming home from university and we spent a ton of time together. She helped me clean/pack my apartment and I went with her to visit her boyfriend's grandmother in the hospital until 11:30pm almost every day that last week. I got to meet many more people and ate meals in SO many different homes. The grandmother had cancer and had been in the hospital for 3 months already. I spent hours and hours with the lady along with an entire room-full of her family. Brushing her hair, washing her, turning her over etc. etc. There was lots of love in that hospital room!

On Wednesday morning (July 2) I was about to leave the town 'forever' when I got a call from Karen. Grandmother was dying and they wanted me to come. My last 4 hours in my Chinese hometown were spent washing the lady's body, prepping her coffin (removing sawdust and putting glue/tar on the coffin to seal the wood), and spending time with the grieving family. It really was very sad actually - as the body was being prepped the family was burning hell money and incense at the foot of the bed to scare away the ancestral spirits. I did not have my camera on me and even if I did I probably wouldn't have taken any pictures. It was sad and not like anything I'd ever seen before. I ended up leaving town that afternoon - after eating lunch with the family beside the coffin. The death put things in perspective for me - this lady was dead. Never coming back. I was only leaving to go to the other side of the world.

Home.

What somewhat surprised me is that nothing at home in Canada has really changed. When I drive through town I notice that the potholes are still there in the same places etc.
It's good to be back. China seems like something that happened long ago. No jet lag at all, whatsoever. A long to-do list but not really feeling busy. No real plans for the future (that's on my to-do list).

That's 'it'. Weird. I wonder what the next post on this blog will say...