morning reports

It used to be that half the conversations amongst our group was about
bathrooms, specifically whether they were squat toilets at a
particular location and if so, what condition they were in (clean or
not, flush or not, hot water, soap, toilet paper). In the last few
days conversation at breakfast has shifted to health reports. Since
arriving in Guangzhou, group members have been felled by various
ailments, mostly stomach related. Every morning there are questions
about how someone is doing and often new reports of how someone else
has fallen ill. Offers of medication are made and taken up (or not).
Apparently the Chinese go to the hospital for anything, so one person
(not Canadian) has already had one IV drip and might have another
today. To be fair, he also seems to be in pretty bad shape. The
health conversations then often shift to why people are getting sick
(the snake dinner we had the other night, travel stress, not getting
enough sleep, the heat here, where the temperature has risen as high
as 36C).

When we first arrived in China, my uncle gave each of the four
younger travellers (me, my sister, my two cousins) a journal to
chronicle the trip—what we saw and did. I don't think this is what he
had in mind.