I Am Coming Apart!

Tuesday, July 10th

Today the team left for their first day in the classroom with their students. As for me and the boys, well I am having a "come apart" day. The last 2 weeks have been rather intense. The only way I can describe it, is that it feels like I am in a pressure cooker. Today I think the reality of being here is starting to take it's toll.

"OK, what am I going to do all day with the boys while our team is gone until 4:00. How do I warm the bottles? How do I keep the boys from rolling around on the dirty floor and jumping on our pillows with their shoes? How do I get my stupid key to work in the door and how do I muster up enough energy to take the boys back down to the ground floor (we are on the 18th floor) when we are all just about to fall out from heat exhaustion or from the bursting of our tears." We have had it! Our playtime with friends today got cancelled. If you can't tell we were banking on that one. I found out to late in the day to try to figure out a new plan. I am pretty desperate for fellowship. Our team is great, they just aren't here. I would love to email or talk to you anyone from home, but I can only get internet in a common room down the hall. The connection is very very slow. By the time I get connected which is about 20 minutes, the boys are jumping off the walls and falling off chairs. Forget about trying to think clearly. Mostly what I want is to find a small little room where I can scream as loudly as possible and then cry until I can't cry anymore.
So I guess you won't be surprised to know that there is something on the bottom of my foot that itches really bad and that we also discovered today that we have bed bugs. Matt went tdown to housing to let them know. He said the ladies looked at him funny and then started talking about him in Cantonese. They said that they would come up and change our sheets. As he left they handed him a bag of dried ginger root (all chopped up) to put under our sheets. It is supposed to repell them. Have you ever tried to sleep on chunks of ginger root? Josh said "Mom there is something in my bed!" I didn't want to tell him that it was to keep the bugs away- I knew if I did, he would end up sleeping with me. So I told him it would keep his bed fresh.
Smiling and crying all at the same time- April