A warm and smoky welcome on my return to Sias

After 30+ hours of travel, I arrived back in China on Saturday morning, ready to begin my 5 week stint as a Facilitator with the World Academy for the Future of Women. Leaving the US at nighttime made for a surreal travel experience (I usually take morning flights when I’m traveling to this part of the world), as it was dark outside for almost the entire journey. The day before I left I’d started coming down with one of those achy joints / sore throat / raspy voice sort of colds, so the changes in air pressure made things challenging.

When I got to Zhengzhou, three of the Academy members were waiting to meet me, and while we waited at the airport for Jerrie Uberle (the Founder of the Women’s Academy) to return from Shangai, we started to catch up on all that they have been doing since I was here in May. Even though I was very tired and feeling sick, I couldn’thelp feeling energized when Jerrie arrived and started to update me on all of the progress that has been made, and the new ideas and opportunities that she’s working on.

I’d been hoping that the air quality would be better at this time of year, but as we drove back to campus, i found my eyes and throat burning. It turns out that it is because that now the harvest is in, the famers are burning off the old corn and peanut plants. I’ve been assured that it will be getting better soon, but for now, I’m going to stay away from running. Although the air quality is bad right now, being here at harvest time does give you a glimpse into ancient China, as everywhere you drive, you see farmer’s crops spread out on the road to dry and whole families laboring to sort the wheat from the chaff.

P.S. Just to show you how smoky it is here, take a look at the picture from the alarm program on my iPad. Normally, this looks up the weather for the local area, but as you can see, what it found for XinZheng was ‘SMOKE’.