It's great to be back home! Our 28 hour journey went extremely smooth and we arrived back in Shiyan just in time for the first sunny day with no rain the city has had in 12 days. We're enjoying catching up with dear friends and making new ones. The overwhelming feeling we all have is that this truly feels like home- and for that we are thankful.
A new family has moved into the Pritchard's old apartment. They have a 12 year old boy and 8 year old girl. Although we're missing the Pritchards a great deal, it's been good getting to know this wonderful family. We're so thankful the boys have some friends to roam the campus with.
During our 10 weeks in America Sheldon grew 1 1/4 inches. The little guy is thriving in every way! However, something totally unexpected and shocking has happened. Sheldon forgot how to speak Chinese....completely! At first he had a hard time even understanding what people were saying- which shocked and appalled those whom he had spoken with regularly last semester. They would speak to him and he would look confused and say, "I'm sorry, I don't understand." It seems that after a couple of days of hearing it he can understand most things that people say now but he only replies in English. We even had a student tell him basic vocabulary such as hand, foot, hair, eyes, etc., and asked him to repeat it. He sounded like me speaking Chinese! His pronunciation and tone was completely off. You'd think it would jar his memory and he'd access that part of his brain again but so far it's as though he's never spoken Chinese prior to this. This is sad for us. We really wanted him to retain his native language. We're going to be very deliberate and determined to keep up his "Chinese lessons" once we return from getting Pierce.
Our train leaves in 6 hours! We will have him in our arms Sunday evening American time.
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