We're back!

There is a sweet and rich familiarity; a thrilling wonderfulness of being back.
The chaos and filth are just as we remembered it. The language has not softened. The jackhammers have not ceased. And yet there is the delightful pleasure seeing a thoroughly padded toddler in sweaters and quilted split pants playing contentedly outside his parents kiosk. There are grandmas line dancing together at dusk to a battered cassette player in a local park. The trees in the capital are on the fringe of budding. Forsythia are spilling out adding contrast to an otherwise grey landscape ... Grey sidewalks, grey skies, grey concrete buildings, cars covered I grey dust.
Yet out of this grey is the vibrancy and tenacity we remember. And we are thrilled.
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