Capers With Carroll

I met Wang Mu (in the red shirt, between his wife and son) in 2004, at a tourist stop in Yunnan, and we began corresponding. He lives in Chengdu, where he works at a bank. He was the first person I emailed when I heard about the quake. I have assumed the communication lines were overburdened, and that I might not hear for a while, but today I received a short note. He writes, "In this horrible earthquake all of my family members are safe, but our house was broken. Now we have to live in wiqwam." I suspect his wigwam may look like this, and that his family is sharing it with some of the five million others who are homeless.

Wang Mu, I am relieved to hear you are safe! I pray that you will quickly be able to put your lives back together and rebuild Chengdu.