It had been 9 days since a signal on my phone and I had just completed a trek onto the plateau and was without food and water for 36 hours. This was a safe place to be, a “xiaomaibu”, which is basically a convenient store. The owner, and her father, told me to stay the night there. After the most delicious bowl of instant noodles and some water this little girl and I were playing non-stop for a few hours. We sat outside on a pile of dirt with her teddy bears having “tea time”. She climbed on top of massive bushes for me where I then had to clean the prickly things out of her shoes. I got countless hugs and snuggles and even a couple of kisses. In the morning she taught me how to eat my Tibetan fried dough in the tea, correctly.
Her father kept telling her I didn’t understand what she said, but the two of us made do and I had a glorious evening with an angel that dwells on the roof of the world.
