Chinese Wedding

I went to Lanzhou for four days to celebrate two PCV's birthdays and to say goodbye to a transfer from Benin whose close of service date is coming up after summer project. We were not the only ones celebrating. Here is a wedding procession with a bride hidden from view being carried to her husband's home.

The highlights of Lanzhou were

• food: tacos, brownies with melted Andes on top, peach pie, chocolate chip cookies, beef noodles, BBQ sandwich, and gazpacho
• seven hour bus ride movies: an extremely dramatic movie about the Sichuan earthquake and the heroes who rescued people, 2012 dubbed in Chinese, Chinese comedies where demons possess people and kill others, where a Tibetan monk goes to Hong Kong to find a Buddhist artifact to save the world, and a couple romantic comedies.
• chilling

During the first year of living in Gansu, it was a pretty isolating year because there were only four of us volunteers and we were very far from each other. It was difficult to take a trip to see each other with only two days of weekend leave. Now though, with more than twenty volunteers in Gansu, it feels more like a Peace Corps region like in Africa where volunteers would get together and socialize. It is nice. I like it.