The Annimal-Drawn Carriage

We finished lunch, said goodbye to our hosts, and carried on with our

newfound friend. Ann chatted with him, and I asked him a few questions through her. He left the Dongguan the day before we left Zhongshan. Tired of the rat race, he quit his factory job and decided to start walking. His family told him he’s crazy. We think he’s awesome. We only walked about 400 yards with him before Gordon’s  driver found us. Gordon Styles, Ann’s husband’s boss and our good friend, purchased a walking trailer for Ann in hopes of making her load easier to carry. He ordered it from Holland and we’ve been tracking it for the past week. Finally it was here. Gordon hired a driver to find us on the road to deliver the trailer. It was like Christmas! The driver pulled up in his white van with a huge grin on his face. The four of us spent ten minutes assembling the trailer and transferring Ann’s belongings to it. Soon enough, we were going again.

‘Wow!’ Ann gasped. ‘I feel no weight on my back at all!’ We sent Gordon a message of many thanks.

‘Thanks you Gordon!’ Ann started. ‘It’s amazing! I can walk faster than Darrah now!’

A few hours later we came to a shop where we stopped to use the bathroom ad rest. We took off our packs and talked to the family who runs the shop. There were two children who wouldn’t come near me. Their mom was trying to get them to speak to me to practice their English, but the boys weren’t having it. I went over to a fish tank and crouched down as the younger boy, about 7 years old, watched me.

‘Is this your fish?’ I asked him in English. He nodded his head and buried his face in his mom’s leg. I looked up to see his brother playing with a badminton racquet and birdie. ‘Can I play? I asked the younger boy in Chinese. He ran to a big box of toys and pulled out two more racquets and a birdie. I coaxed the younger boy into the driveway and started playing with him. The older boy popped his head out to watch. Then he decided to join us. Soon we were all playing together. ‘Dengyixia’ I said. Wait a moment. I went to

my bag and grabbed by quickstart tennis ball that I packed in hopes of a moment like this. I introduced the boys to the ball and soon we had a game of quickstart tennis going in the parking lot. The boys LOVED it….almost as much as I did. We played while the adults took pictures. I got to be a tennis pro again for 15 minutes. It was magic. 

We said goodbye to my new best friends and kept walking. An hour and a half later it was 5:30pm and we were exhausted. Ann suggested that we catch a bus to meet the people who were waiting on us, as it was getting late. We sat at the bus stop and waited for the #5 to Qingyuan. Ann exchanged a few words with a group of old men who were sitting on a short brick wall in a courtyard. Ten minutes later we watched the #5 bus blow past us without stopping. Great. We eventually stopped a car and hired the driver to take us the rest of the way. Ann couldn’t walk anymore and we were late. My ego struggled with this. In the moment, I was exhausted, hungry and grumpy. I had to have the patience with myself

to calm down and realize that getting into the van was disappointing but necessary in the moment. We didn’t have any other options. When we made it to Qingyuan we met a few leaders and volunteers from their city volunteer organzation. They treated us to a great meal and set up a hotel for us. I tried my best to be pleasant even though I was beyond exhausted and grumpy. After a 10 minute struggle to get Ann’s cart into the trunk of a car, we got to our hotel, got showered, and went to bed.  Day 7- Done.