Extra Blog 3: Upon Finally Meeting My Mayflower Resident

I had a really interesting time at the Mayflower this week; I finally had a chance to meet my resident, Sylvia Reaves! Alexis and I had a chance to meet her husband the initial week, but only for about 10 minutes because they had been late due the helping out their children by doing some dogsitting for them. Needless to say, we were excited to actually spend time with both of them this week. Alexis and I are working on this project together because Shelby and Sylvia Reaves have decided to create one book or project between the two of them. They think that since they have spent so much of their lives together that it just does not make sense to try to create two separate books. I think this is very interesting because a friend of mine in our class (Jenny) said that her fellow, Bernie, said that he wanted to make a separate book for the very reason that he and his wife did everything else together. It is funny to see the different sort of responses we are getting to these projects.
Shelby and Sylvia have decided they want to do some kind of travel log with their project because they have traversed so much of the world; upon arriving at the Mayflower last week, Shelby handed us a copy of a detailed list of his travels and their dates. It is very impressive - he has been to a great plethora of countries, both of them have. They lived in Hong Kong for ten years and happened to raise their children there. Two of their sons graduated high school in Hong Kong. Their passion for travel is very obvious when seeing their quarters in the Mayflower. They were able to show us around last week and their room is absolutely amazing. Never have I ever seen so many different artifacts from different countries in a living space. And it is not just trinkets that they have lying around on top of their furniture, they have completely adopted the culture of living from Hong Kong - all of their furniture is actually from the country, and when I asked Sylvia if they had adopted the culture when living there, here reply was an emphatic, "yes!" I thought all of the apartment was absolutely beautiful, but one of the most interesting artifacts was the "pee lamp." Yes you heard me. I'm not sure exactly what happens, Shelby explained it well but the exact science is now eluding me. But basically they put something on it in a particular design, bury it in the ground, and pee on it every day for some months, and the nitrogen in the urine cuts away and creates a design on the metal, leaving an interesting green color and a really good story. I also loved Sylvia's collection of owls and elephants from many different countries. It is because of this impact of traveling on their lives that they have decided to depict the many places they have visited in their book and sort of tell the story of their lives in pictures for the project we are doing together. Their history is so interesting that I am really excited to actually get working on this project!