Wednesday May 23 - Bethel

Matthew and I walked to a nearby bakery for fresh-baked pizza buns and a coffee latte for breakfast.  We got back just in time to catch our bus leaving for the orphanage. It proved to be another day of work and play. Matthew collected eggs from the chickens. I started the clean out of the tool shed. Well, we started with 4 of us, but the job was so dirty that eventually it was just moi. I spoke to the director about getting some nails and a hammer to hang some of the hand tools, but the
 ’t do much to allay the fire from hot peppers. The total cost for the two of us was $31RMB ot C$5.00.
Others painted murals and Disney characters on the walls of the playroom to brighten them up and it was an awesome change of scenery. Just before lunch there was some talk of taking some bicycles and getting some fruit at the street market, a place where we carefully and slowly had wended our way through earlier in the morning. While others talked about doing it and whether or not to call a taxi, Matthew and I mounted the tandem bike with the basket and headed out. We found we could even pass some of the traffic on our 2-horse vehicle. It was a 5 minute ride and we found the marketers packing up, but not before we had purchased some apples, plums, lychee, grapes and dragon fruit. We were almost back at the orphanage when we met the others on bicycles heading for the market. The only ones who beat us were those who had in fact taken a taxi!

We cleaned up and had our lunch then spent some time interacting with the children. Today was actually a sunny day where we could see blue sky. I guess the evening breeze had cleared out some of the smog. In the evening, we decided as a group to walk down the street and find a restaurant. There was a fast-food Chinese restaurant where you could choose from pictures on the wall, either rice with vegetable and meat toppings, or thick noodle soup with the same. Matthew chose a plate of green beans but it was pretty spicy causing numb tongue. Two cans of Coke didn

“farm manager” whose jurisdiction was in this area, didn’t want a lot of change or organization. In the end, not much “junk” was thrown away. I found some sturdy cardboard boxes to put all the shovel heads without handles into. I did rack the hoes up on a horizontal 2x4 (they are always nasty when you step on them and the handle connects with your face). I swept out the dirt floor and put everything back neatly and it looked a lot better than before. There were some clothes tossed in with the mix that were sorted out for washing and some dusty music CD’s that were dusted off and put into clean boxes.