Te Recuerdo

Off a train and onto a bus. Trying to recall where exactly we are. Where we just came from. So much movement and it all starts to blend together. Four seats left, snagged by us, our bags, and a small old spanish man.  He talks fast, and I try to keep up.  But I'm distracted by his eyes.  I listen.  Respond.  Get lost.  Try to listen some more.  But when you're still learning a language one second of lost concentration can mean a whole conversation down the drain. You have to hang on to every last word.  But boy am I distracted.  And why is it that we are talking in spanish, on an overcrowded bus in the middle of southern China anyway? Lauren carries the conversation forward and I steal as many glances of those eyes as I can.  Little blue circles burried under piles of wrinkles.  Blanketed by thick grey eyebrows.  Wise and tired.

A lull in the conversation as the bus bounces forward.

I know that guy, says I, in the general direction of everyone.  I do too, says Lauren, surprised, towards me.

Give us two hours and we place him.  A couple of years ago somewhere in the Puruvian Amazon, we slept in a row of hammocks in a wooden sort of house like structure.  Lauren, myself, a few others, and this man, snug at the end of the row somewhere near the stairs.  

Two years and our paths have zigzagged around the globe to cross again.  El mundo es bien pequeno.  Traveling is a wonderful way to meet an incredible amount of interesting people in a small amount of time.  To form real connections from only a few days of interaction.  To also live with an ongoing sense of detachment in realizing that, like you, the people you meet you most likely won't see again.  And to discover a form of comfort within this.  You grow used to it.   But then again, this world truly is small.  If an old man you shared hammock space with on a wooden platform in the Amazon jungle can turn up two years later on a bus headed for the small mountain town of Dali, China, anything can happen. And most likely, it will.

Suprise #1

Floating down the Yangzi river on an overcrowded ferry. 3 days and 2 long nights.  Not much left to do but drink beer and try to teach old chinese men a card game from Israel.  They learn fast, across languages barriers, (cards are a brilliant common language spoken in every culture), and as jacks, queens, aces are thrown down hard on the red carpeted boat deck more beers are opened and they try their best to hand you cigarette after cigarette and every so often ask Amelia to stand up and everyone oooohs, aaaahs, claps, laughs, and wow, yes, that is a tall white girl. And outside the fog is thick as a cloud. Rain drips slowly on abandoned plastic chairs saturating old sunflower seeds and cigarette butts until they become small piles of pulp waiting to be washed out to join that fast and wide Yangzi current.

And I can't help but ask myself, how is it that I ended up here?

It all really began in a small dark hallway in the town of Chengdu, China.  Before that it started in a taxi.  A taxi that dropped me off on a Chinese street corner sometime around midnight.  I had written, in a sort of half chinese half english way, an address which I repeated over and over during the drive from the airport, and which the driver seemed to not understand one bit of.  He just smiled, waved, and sang along to the radio.  Yet he must have understood something, because here I was.  Bag on my back, a small crumbled paper in my hand.  After the address I had writen down three numbers, 1, 3, 1101.  Unit 1, Building 3, Apartment 1101.  I studied the paper as best I could in the dark.  Looked up and finally let my eyes focus on what exactly it was that stood in front of me.  An apartment complex as big as my hometown.  My eyes widened.  And I'm pretty sure I laughed.

My best guesswork led me into an elevator, and quickly I was on the 11th floor. I stepped out into a small dark hallway, and tried my best to decipher apartment numbers in that pitch black.  The lights had to be motion, or sound activated, so I jumped, clapped, waved my arms towards the ceiling, but still I remained in the dark.  Turning to face the door I dreaded what I figured would happen after I knocked.  Some old, beautiful, chinese woman would appear and see a confused little white girl with a back pack standing in the dark.  And I would do some sort of awkward smile/wave and back away slowly, return to the outside and try my luck again. It could be a very long night.

But, as it all goes, it went quite differently.

After one last try to get those lights on, I surrendered to knocking in the dark. And waited. A lifetime. Until slowly the door opened and with a sigh of releif revealed a very familar face. Lauren. Smiling. And another, in the kitchen, washing socks, turning to look at me. Amelia. In an instant socks fall to the floor, and with arms covered to the elbows in bubbling soap she screams, (hall lights flash on!) jumps, wiggles, hugs, kisses, stands back, shock written across her face, another scream and more hugs. And I shed my bag and fall on a matress in laughter and realize just how great of an idea it was to fly all the way around the world to suprise a friend.

A week later and we are floating along.  Heading towards the unknown.  Towards more suprises. Towards the Great Wall and some checks off a lifetime of a list.