Pilgrims' Progress

Brasov, Romania

“I liked Malaysia for the food and iced lemon tea. I liked Mongolia for the ranch, for riding horses and milking cows and herding goats. I liked England for the food like Cornish pasties and vinegar on chips. I liked Italy for the pizzas. And I loved the fresh crispy apples off the tree in Bulgaria.”

Here is a boy, who experiences life through his stomach!
To prevent his memories being solely related to food, we proposed another question: what have you learnt this last year or so? He almost got stuck on a foodie train of thought (“Other countries have open air markets”), but managed to digress…”At Angkor Wat when a new group of people took over the temples they would change the carvings to make them into their own gods, or sometimes they even just put a shawl around the statue’s shoulders and that made them new.”

“Before we went away I didn’t know a capital I meant an information centre.”

He was on a roll….
”When Chinese people take a photo they make their fingers into a V.”

“I’d like to go back to Poland in the snow, because it would be interesting to see the differences.”
Plus, we all know how much he loved the kremowka (special cream cake) and sernik (cheese cake) and paczki (doughnuts) and kielbasa (sausages) and pierogi (dumplings) and zapiekanki (pizza breads)….. 😉

 

 

Brasov, Romania

 

“Before we left I saw a movie about war in China and so I didn’t want to go to China. But when we got there I liked it.  I loved going for bike rides, especially the really long one on the tandem with Mama. I liked the food, especially spicy noodle soup. And the people were very friendly. But I didn’t like it that they wanted to take our picture all the time. Though it WAS funny. I also liked England for the English Heritage sites and Mongolia for the ranch.”

What parent would show their six-year-old child a movie about war in China? Not this one! Well, not the usual images associated with “war movie” anyway…what Mboy6 saw was an old black-n-white documentary about Gladys Aylward. Yes, it did end with her rescuing children, crossing the mountains on foot with them, because soldiers were coming, but the *war* aspect was largely missing from the screen. It was not, however, missing from our little imaginer’s mind. For the four months before we arrived in China, Mboy6’s conversations centred on “could world war three start today and where would we go and how would we get food and what if I get separated from you and will you know if there’s war and could there be war in Thailand and could there be war in Laos and could there be war in Cambodia and what about Viet Nam and is it still safe in China and and and????”
ERgirl2, on the other hand, had it in her head that when we got to China it was going to be cold and so the moment we crossed the border she asked, “Are we in China? Is it cold?” Less concerning than whether we were about to enter a war zone or not!!

Most probably visiting war sites in Cambodia, taking a hike through land not completely cleared of UXOs, requiring us to stay on a narrow specially marked track and seeing the effects of UXOs every day, did little to reduce his anxiety.

But after China, the war talk stopped. And Mboy6/7 got on with enjoying the trip.

 

every time Mboy opened his mouth, the fish did too!!!!
~for five full minutes~

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Brasov, Romania written by Jgirl15 

 

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