And We're Back

Whew! What a crazy 10 days that was. I think we did/saw/traveled more in those 10 days than most people do in a year. It was amazing, as well as very, very difficult. I'm glad to be home and looking forward to some nice, uneventful, peaceful rest.

Our flight home was delayed until 1:20 a.m. Although Josh fell asleep early on, Zack and Petey played their Gameboys until we boarded the plane. We didn't arrive home to our front step until almost 5 a.m. We were all so exhausted.

I got up at 8 the same morning to let Nanny Zou in. I'd already decided to go grocery shopping because we had nothing. We'd told the student we hired to take care of Josie that she was welcome to eat whatever she wanted, and she took us at our word :) Zou decided to come with me to the store, as there wasn't really anything, besides laundry, for her to do around the house (she'd come while we were away and the house was still very clean.)

I've realized something about myself lately. I've become accostumed to life in China. Events that used to strike me as bizarre or noteworthy now just seem commonplace. For example, at the store yesterday our cart tipped over on the movator (again). We had to scramble to pick up our groceries off the floor while people walked all around us. Another time a woman tried to steal our grocery basket and I had to snatch it back right out of her hands. But neither of these are why I started writing this blog entry. These things didn't even come to mind when I sat down to express my feelings about yesterday.

My main reason for writing this is to vent about another event altogether. After we finished up at the store we had to take a taxi home. When we arrived home, Zou asked the taxi driver for a receipt. I heard her and spoke up and told the driver we didn't need one. Under normal circumstances, the program does not reimburse us for taxi expenses. The driver had already turned off the car and it was going to be a hassle to get the receipt. I didn't want to bother, and we didn't really need it anyway.

Later that day at lunch, I told Chris that we had to take a taxi because the program driver was "unavailable" to bring us home. For various reasons that I won't go into now, this made Chris upset and he declared he was going to submit this taxi expense for reimbursement. He asked me if I had the receipt. I said no and left it at that. I didn't see the point in explaining what had happened with Zou, the taxi driver and I. Well, silly me, I didn't need to tell him because Zou did it for me. What both Chris and Zou don't realize is that although I can't speak it well, my understanding of Chinese is coming along just fine. This is what Zou said to Chris:

"I asked the driver for a receipt, but Teela (she calls me Teela, not Tina) told him no. She said no, we don't need one. I wanted to get one but she said no."

Uh, ok. Thanks, Zou, for tattling on me to my own husband right in front of me. And she kept saying it over and over "Teela said no, we don't want one". It was really quite ridiculous. Of course, Chris doesn't care if I got the receipt or not, he can still submit the expense. While Zou was tattling on me, Chris and I looked at each other and just had to laugh. The whole thing seemed too obsurd.