Eileen St. Louis

I love to eat as most of you know. I had the most delicious sticky rice dumpling with peanuts and coconut inside that I have ever had a few mornings ago. It only cost 1 yen which is equivalent to like 13 cents. My foreign teacher liaison David says that you can easily gain a lot of weight your first few weeks in China as you discover all the good food. I had a sublime meal today with ginger rice, snowpeas (my favorite) bean sprout and baked tofu, lots of garlic, onion and more ginger which I concocted myself. I know its been nearly a week since I arrived in Hainan and I haven't even finished unpacking. Who needs to unpack when we are so busy getting to know the town, the people and tidying the house itself which has been quite a nuisance since two Brit bachelors moved outt. It is strange to "blend" in with the crowd so to speak. It is easy to pick out the other foreign teachers who are blonde and tall and white. I on the other hand am an anomaly only when I speak and...

My body is covered with mosquito bites. I wake up wishing I was not my body. When I dream, it is rapid and intense. Yesterday, when taking a mid-afternoon nap, I dreamt that I found a door to another dimension that had a reality similar to our own, just slightly different. A child got lost in that dimension and I had to help the fam ily find her. Then I became the second wife to some guy and was attending some kind of funeral service. In the dream, I realize I am looking at the future, at me walking three tall dusky gray greyhounds and leading my new family. Very strange. Itch, itch. They could be ticks. Or bed bugs. Or fleas too. I have little and big bites. From my travel photos you can never tell that I am suffering. Those are pictures of how much I am actually enjoying Hainan and its sweet, humble peoples. I have a lovely Canadian housemate whose been all around the world. She's the same age as my mother but feels and acts like a 21 year old. Next door is ...