Last Shower, Last Laundry, Last Post

So here it is, the 29^th of February, our last full day in Hohhot. At the risk of sounding totally cliche, it’s hard to believe we’re leaving tomorrow. Everything we’ve done this past week has in one way or another completed a full circle back to the first week spent here. We had lunch at the home of our friends’ relatives, where we first went to dinner so many months ago—and felt “at home” in a way we never could have imagined during that first horribly jet-lagged and dislocated week. We rode our bikes up to Manduhai Park, that oasis of trees and lakes that so soothed our culturally shocked selves in the first week. Now we have given our bikes away. Dave is having his “foreign expert” card punched even as I write so he can keep it as a souvenir and so we can remember that really weird experience at the Public Security Bureau. We’ve given up our lovely skates because there just isn’t one ounce of space left in our 8 check-in bags and 7 carry-ons (Ack). It’s all okay though, because if there is one thing we’ve learned here, it’s that you don’t need all the stuff in order to be happy. We thought we already knew that lesson before we came here; now we understand it on a deeper level, I hope. Of course, instead of a bag full of medicine we are bringing back bags full of presents, so we can burden all our friends and family with stuff. Lucky folks.

We’ve also eaten our last meng mian, our last hot pot, our last meal at “Happy Man”. I’ve just hung up my last load of laundry and the kids and I took our last showers, mashed between the radiator, washing machine, and sink (not all of us at once, of course, but just as crowded). True to form, I’m baking cookies this morning because I am sure that we will starve in the airports if we don’t have something on hand. And it’s a convenient way of using up the last of the vanilla, butter, raisins, dried cranberries, and brown sugar. The school kids next door are visiting the school with their parents, presumably taking part in some kind of registration or orientation for the start of the next semester on Monday. It was good to see that traffic jam one last time. And yesterday Dave mentioned that he was sorry that he wouldn’t have a chance to smell Hohhot again in the way it smelled when we first got here. The cold weather has had a wonderful way of neutralizing the smells. Of course, once he said that, all the old familiar smells came back with a vengeance, accompanied this time by our first taste of what the spring winds/dust storms might feel like. We’re glad to miss them—chunks of dirt and dust flung mercilessly into your eyes doesn’t bode well for being out in the warming spring weather.

I have really appreciated having the chance to write regularly about our experiences. It has been a terrific way to make sense of it all; at other times it has been good to give vent to fears, frustrations, and just plain old confusion. Your comments have helped me to feel connected to home at times when I have simply wanted to crawl right through the cords and back to my house. I am also glad to have this record to look back on and realize just how much fun we have had, how much we have all learned and evolved and hopefully grown. It is a good thing to shake life up when you are 40. I think Dave and I will plan something equally adventurous for 50, for despite the homesickness and the clinging to the safe and known that haunted us at first, we now feel at home here, too. So thank you for your support, your love, and for just plain being there.