part 1

I almost wished we had the guide who met us at the airport when we came back from Wuhan. He was a sweet older man who had very poor English and who was holding up a sign smiling at us and waving. The problem was, the name on the sign was something like Pan XuXian. I told him that wasn't our name, but he seemed to know us. He said "7 in party?" and after a brief cell phone check of his text messages, he found one that had our name. We later laughed and wondered if his "7 in party" was a polite way of saying he knew us because he had been warned by his office, "Only white folks on the entire plane with 2 Chinese kids and one Haitian kid...they'll be easy to spot!".

He kept apologizing to me about the wrong name on his sign as if he had committed a most grievous error. I personally couldn't have cared less as long as we had someone there to meet us, but after our experience with Raymond and knowing he couldn't even have the day off when his own mother died, I wondered if this older man feared we would call his boss and complain.

When we got on the bus and our guide wanted to speak to us, Jeff noticed him doing the cutest thing. He would face forward and practice what he needed to say in English, mouthing it silently first, and then turn
and say the words. He told us he would be the one taking us back to the airport as well, but somehow we ended up with Helen instead.

When we got to the embassy, the driver had to stop around the corner and Helen just said "it is over there" and pointed back to the street from which we had come. There was no large sign on the street saying "US Consulate" so it was not easy to locate among all the businesses. We walked up to a bulding that was about 6 stories and asked, and then we saw an American flag inside with a sign pointing to where we needed to go.

continued...