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There's always fresh fruit nearby in Simao. These days we just need to step outside the back gate of the College to find this lady selling bananas and oranges from her tricycle. We were even forced to sample some before buying. It's the orange season but since our friendly orange farmer went to live in Shenzhen with his daughter we don't know anyone with an orange grove. We visited him for four years but were shocked last November when we discovered his small farmhouse overgrown and the orange grove taken over by weeds.

We're still in T-shirts and sandals these days, yet had to splash out on some fur-lined boots for Freda. The reason? I'm taking her to Beijing to see a paediatrician, following yet another week off school with the same old symptoms - diarrhoea, tiredness, mood swings. It's been 3 months now and we're beginning to feel very stressed at being unable to solve the health mystery. We seemed to have exhausted the local health service and VSO London are expressing concern. I'm glad. We need help now. 

One thing I'd like to look into is whether she has some kind of food allergy. She was very sick a few nights ago, following a couscous meal. Another coincidence is that this term has been particularly bad and the main difference in our lifestyle has been the oven. How ironic if all those lovely pizzas, cakes, loaves of bread, flans, etc could have led to her physical demise. When a friend brought up gluten intolerance as a possibility so many other things came to mind - how Freda is always ill when we go on holiday. Going on holiday always involves passing through Kunming, where we have a sudden increase in wheat products - bread, buns, pizza. We only used to have a loaf of bread about once a month, which was about how often Freda used to be ill. We always put it down to poor hygiene. The cause of the last 3 months of ill health may not be a food allergy, but we're going to look into it, among other things. We leave on Sunday with all our winter woollens.
Paul
11/11/2009 08:37:40 pm

Really hope the Beijing doctors can sort it out. Poor Freda. Frustrating.

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