To and from Zhengzhou

It is the middle of the afternoon and I'm sitting in Jodi's apartment with a heating blanket on my lap. Our heater is broken in our apartment and nobody's arrived to fix it. I do have a heater in my bedroom, thankfully.

We left for Zhengzhou on Thursday night. We rode on the hard seats for nearly 11 hours. I didn't fall asleep once. We got to Zhengzhou and met another team which hosted us for the weekend. They were all pretty nice. There was even a girl who is from Hutchinson! So we got to swap a lot of Kansas stories.

I can't remember what all we did. It was okay, though. I didn't ever sleep much I remember. On Saturday we helped out with the team's "fall festival" for 600 students. It was fun interacting with the students, but it lasted from 8 a.m. to 5:30.

On Sunday morning we went to fellowship in downtown Zhengzhou, which is a beautiful, green city of about 7 million people. Then their team took us to a pizza place where I ate a cheese pizza. My stomach was not happy, because I'm not used to pizza or cheese anymore. Then that day I started to feel really feverish and had a sore throat.

We left on the train to Nanchang Sunday night and thankfully I had a soft sleeper, although it was a top bunk. We took the slow train--13 hours. It was the loudest, slowest train ever. It stopped at night about every 20 t0 30 minutes and would shudder and lurch the whole time. At about 6 a.m, my stomach and head felt like it was going to explode. I jumped from the swaying bunk and ran to the squatty potties, but they were all occupied. People love to spend half an hour in the bathroom--I'm serious. There was a woman and a little boy standing at the sinks in the hallway and all of a sudden I threw up right behind them in the trash can. They went about their business as I was sick, probably trying to save me face. I felt rotten.

Our train didn't arrive until about 10:15 a.m., and I hadn't eaten anything for a long time, because I couldn't. Then my fever got worse and my whole body ached. I haven't felt that bad for many years.

This afternoon I managed to eat a little bit, but I slept mostly. Tomorrow is Tuesday and I'm supposed to teach my two morning classes, plus make up the classes we missed on Friday and today. The school's sports meet was supposed to be this weekend, but it was cancelled because of rain. Maybe, just maybe, they might hold it tomorrow throught Friday if it doesn't rain. I hope it doesn't rain, because I don't think I could survive teaching or standing in those cold classrooms.

When I'm feeling better, I'll try to fill you in on the fun parts of our trip. Right now it hurts even just to type. Will you please lift me up? Thanks so much...