We are finally home!! Well, we are back in our apartment at least after our wild adventure of 46 days. I do not think you can call it a vacation after being that long--it was more like a trek or an insanely long trip. This morning we get to do our own work which is great. I went out to the market and got to visit with the farmers again--they seemed excited to see that we were back (more customers). It will be fun to cook again!! Now comes preparing for classes, sorting through our over 3000 pictures and deleting some and posting some, reconnecting with friends and most importantly relaxing.

During our visits we got to see lots of farming, farmers, and villages and now I understand why China is among the leading producers of rice and corn. It is very different though in our area. The corn fields are super small but there are lots of them. Here is my take on it: in america a square mile has 640 acres farmed by 3-5 farmers, but in China that same area would be spread out among 2-10 thousand farmers and not on flat ground but planted on the mountainsides. The flat area is kept for planting rice. There are larger fields to the north, but it is insane how small the corn fields are but how much work goes into it. We got our chance to harvest corn in a village by Zunyi. We wore our baskets, climbed up the hill, and harvested corn in the muddy slopes. We got nearly 500 ears of corn (maybe more) and then we had to prepare them for drying. We hung them from the roof of the building by their husks, while many families will dry the individual kernels in front of their house on mats or almost anywhere there is flat ground. It is crazy to see almost every house, road, street lined with corn drying with just enough room for people and vehicles to get by. The corn we harvested was not so good with lots of worms, bugs, and mold, but the quality tends to be pretty good generally. The rice fields are getting close to getting ready so maybe I will have a chance to help harvest rice also.

Patty had a "big" blunder with her Chinese while traveling home on the train. We were very tired and a guy came up trying to sell things and asked ZhongGuo (China) hao bu hao?? What do you think of China, good or bad?? Patty said Zhongguo bu hao, meaning China is bad. The guy was super surprised as was I and he asked again and Patty repeated herself again louder and the whole train car kinda turned and he asked where we were from and she said America and then he was like then America is bad also. The thing is that Patty had not comprehended what she just said, so I told her and she was very upset. What she wanted to say was that her Chinese was not very good, not that China was not good. Or maybe her Olympic competitiveness is showing through--just kidding. We have been enjoying watching it though!! Hope you are blessed incredibly.