Observing the local life is always the most interesting part of visiting the Temple of Heaven. It drives some of my children crazy...too much going on at one time. These ladies were line dancing to loud, popular Chinese music right next to the group below who were singing communist era songs accompanied by a brass band, and these groups were surrounded by three of four other groups involved in their own artistic expression, all of it loud.
Bethany found a replica of the beaded hat she bought on her first trip to the Great Wall in 2004.
So I 'm a bit behind. Two weeks ago, Tuesday, Mary and I walked with her kindergarten class through the Bai xin zhuang village next to ISB to the Roundabout. They were practicing their map reading skills. Mary's teacher drew up a quite idyllic map to help them find landmarks to guide their way. This brown body of water behind Mary was referred to as "the lake." I felt sad to see the pollution all along the road. We couldn't even let the children peek behind the gates to see "the lake" because they would have had to climb over a pile of litter. For all our American whining about too much government intervention, we should be grateful that our streets are clean, and our children don't have to play in refuse. It made me sad that our ayis who work so hard to help us keep our home clean don't have a clean environment to return to.
So speaking of sorting through and packing up that's all I have to report for myself. I've made it almost through the girls' bedroom, waiting for the daunting puzzles tubs, then I'm on to Bethany's books. We still don't know where Rob will be assigned for next year, but I have felt peace with the idea that the kids and I need to return to the U.S. Hence the packing. It is therapy for this eery anxious feeling that at some point in the summer Rob's job will end and our ex-pat world will fold up like a movie set, even ISB seems to be losing it's strength to me, fading out of what should be our present reality, losing it's pull on the inevitable, without my knowing how to replace it, so I'm just boxing and organizing, so if we should fall out of existence, at least our things would be well-managed.
No comments:
Post a Comment