"May your exercise come easily, aunt!"

There's a nice little park fairly close to our house, and I went there with Abby and Annie this morning. It has a walking track (I'm guessing 16 laps would be a mile) and some weather-resistant exercise equipment. The exercise equipment has no resistance on it, but you'll find them in most parks in this city. I'll take some pictures sometime because it's quite interesting. There's also some playground equipment and a basketball court on the inside of the walking track, so I can keep a good eye on the kids if they're with me.

The playgrounds here have equipment that's been outlawed in the states. Remember the "wheel of death" on our childhood playgrounds that was later outlawed? We'd spin til we were sick and then we'd keep spinning. They have that at this park, so the girls played on it most of the time. How can they do that and not get sick???

As the girls were spinning, I was walking/jogging around the track. There were 2 boys on the swings. Everytime I passed the swings, they would sing songs loudly to be silly and to get my attention. The fourth time I passed them, one yelled, "May it come easily, Aunt!" (referring to my exercise). I loved it! I spoke to them, and then every time I passed they would try the few English words they knew. The next lap was "hello." The next lap was the Happy Birthday song. They were cute boys.

I love how in this culture I am addressed as "aunt" or "big sister". Children on the street will call me "aunt". When I go to the bazaar and a vendor wants to get my attention, he'll yell, "big sister". I think it's an endearing quality of the culture.