Probably in response to her prayers, our compassionate service leader felt inspired to call her right after he left for the airport and found out what was going on. She organized volunteers to go help out all week. The poor woman was so sick that she had to check herself into the hospital the day after he left to get rehydrated by IV and to get some medication.
I was assigned to Thursday afternoon. She lives in Taipei County, near the coast, still on the MRT, but off my map of the city. Instead of having to take make two train transfers with Michael, I decided to take a bus to the MRT line that goes up to her house. I'm getting pretty good at reading bus maps now (in English of course).
Michael tried to fall asleep in the bus, but I wouldn't let him. Then in the train, when I wanted him to sleep, he wouldn't - until we were five stops away. Then he fell fast asleep, and I could not wake him up. He was practically sleepwalking getting off the train, and crying, because he didn't want to be on his feet.
I had good directions to her house and I decided to pop in a bakery on the way to get some buns as I hadn't eaten lunch yet. As I was in line to pay, guess who had to go potty? Well, it wasn't like I exactly knew the area, so I when I got to the cashier, I pointed at Michael and said "Niao niao" (pee-pee) which is one of the first words a preschool teacher here learns. I was hoping she would just let him use the staff bathroom or something. But no. She holds up four fingers and points somewhere down the street. Like I'm supposed to know what that means.
I see a Starbucks across the street (yes, they are everywhere here - except for when I need one - and I was sure glad to see one just then) so I rush Michael there and ask for the bathroom. They point upstairs and we run up. When we return downstairs, at a much more leisurely pace, I feel like I have to buy something, so I get Michael some orange juice. It proved to be more expensive than the BBQ pork on rice with three side dishes that I got later on that evening at a food stall, but what can you do?
I wonder if I will ever go a week without having a potty story in my blog. I doubt it.
I had been told to just keep walking up the street until I got there, but silly me decides to actually read the address and try to make some sense out of it. To make a long story short, I went around in a few circles before finding out that it was just up the street. A very long way up the street.
We walk up to find a cheerful mother in a clean apartment. Someone else had come that morning to help her clean the entire place, and after the hospital stay, she was feeling much better. So we just visited for a couple of hours and then I decided to let her rest and take the kids out. Now she had told me earlier that there were no playgrounds around, so I figured we would just wander around and grab supper on the way back. With two three year olds. In a busy part of town with no sidewalks. What was I thinking?
We found a set of stairs to play on...
Then we found a couple of rides outside a convenience store. I saw that they only cost 10NT for a ride, so I gave them each a coin, and regretted it an instant later. As soon as the ride started, this traditional Chinese music started blaring out from each. Different music, different tempos. Lots and lots of noise. The kids didn't seem to mind, although Michael was a little surprised at first.
The little girl's name is Abby. She's about a little over a month older than Michael, but she's definitely much bigger. And very talkative. And blunt. She had no qualms in begging me to buy her anything that caught her fancy the entire time we were out. And I had no qualms about telling her no, so it worked out okay. The hardest part was navigating the streets. So, I took them on the MRT to Danshui, at the very end of the line, because I knew that there was space for them to run around there.
We got off and I gave into Abby's pleas for doughnuts (we got two donut holes each), and then instead of running around in all the space, they sat and watched two excavators move around mud.
Highly exciting, let me tell you. Then I convinced them to run around a large roller ring that other kids were running around in. When I was sure they had run out of energy, I bundled them back on the train to Abby's house, picking up some dumplings and noodles for them on the way.
We left Abby's house after dark, and didn't get home until after 8pm. We were both pretty tired.
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