I am so sorry for the lack of blog or contact, especially because I know many of you have been very worried in light of the recent earthquake that just took place. Unfortunately, my computer fell and broke (embarrassing truth: it happened the day before the earthquake in a tripped-over-cord incident) and internet access is difficult to come by in Longdongbao, so the few times I have been able to access a computer, I've been lucky to have even 15 minutes to read my email and sign off. I assure you all, if you haven't already heard, that I and everyone I know is safe and well.
The day of the earthquake was quite a strange experience. Because my computer broke and I had some important papers I needed to print, I was in desperate search of a computer on campus. During the school's lunch break, I went to the 6th floor of our school library, where the teacher's resource room is located. The room was locked and there was no one around (it turns out it closed for good since the last time I visited), so I assumed it was simply closed so that the person working could get a quick lunch. I waited around in the vacant hallway for about 20 minutes, looking out the 6th floor's window and admiring Longdongbao's mountains in the distance. Suddenly, I felt very dizzy and nauseous, the room began to spin, and I felt almost like I was carsick. Worried that I would throw up or pass out, I closed my eyes and leaned up against the window (so foolish in retrospect!) to sturdy myself, afraid that someone would enter the hall and see me in this strange state. I couldn't understand why I had so suddenly gotten sick, since I had been feeling fine up until that point. I'm not sure how long this went on, but when I finally felt the room stop moving and felt like I had gotten my "stomach calm", my phone rang. It was Ricky, who, knowing I was in the library, frantically yelled something so quickly I couldn't understand him. When I finally was able to get him to speak slower, he said "Fei Fei! Get out of the library now! We had an earthquake, you need to get outside right away!" I then looked out the window again and realized that people from buildings all over campus were running out of buildings and congregating in the center just underneath me. I ran down the stairs, glad to know that I wasn't sick, and actually thinking this was quite exciting. I ran to where Ricky told me to meet him, happy to have gotten to experience my first earthquake, and expecting him to join me in the excitement. Pushing through crowds of students, some nervously laughing, excited like me, others looking very worried, none of us yet aware of the magnitude of what just happened.
When I saw Ricky, he did not look anywhere near excited. I was going to tease him for his unnecessary concern, but before I had the chance he told me his dad called him from Chongqing (Chongqing is a municipality that used to be a part of Sichuan, so is very close to where the majority of the disaster happened, and had many people die, we later discovered) in the middle of the earthquake, hysterical and afraid (their apartment is on the 7th floor of an old building), and then his dad's phone hung up abruptly. Ricky had been trying to call both of his parents' cell phones ever since, then his cousins', his aunts', his uncles', but no one answered. For hours, Ricky tried to reach his family, worried that something terrible happened. As time went by, word of the magnitude of this hurricane spread all over campus and suddenly none of us were excited any longer. We still were unaware that people died, but we heard rumors that buildings were falling all over Sichuan, Chongqing and our other neighboring provinces.
By evening, the school put out an announcement that we were expected to have another earthquake between the hours of 7-9 pm, and that everyone must stay outside. All of us, every student, foreign teacher, and faculty member unfortunate enough to not make it home yet, congregated outside. Thousands of people in a tiny area. We had nowhere to go, the grass was completely occupied, and so for two hours many of us just pushed throw crowds, walked around in circles around campus, wondering what would come. Fortunately, nothing did, but all night long (we get locked into our buildings at 10:30) students would frantically yell out their windows, begging to be let out, afraid that they just felt their building quiver.
Last night, at about 1 am, a student in my building received a text message from another school informing her that another earthquake was expected to hit. The girl then sent messages to her friends in other dormitories, and within minutes the entire campus was alive. Almost all of the boys in the boys' dormitory across from me started throwing glass bottles out their windows, screaming to be let out, the girls screamed similar pleas, one girl in my building packed a suitcase and went to the gate hysterically screaming "Let me out! Let me out! Right now! This is murder! Let me out! I'm leaving! You're going to kill us!" The gatekeeper finally relented and opened the gate, letting the girls out. I'm not sure how long the girls waited outside (it was pouring rain), but the earthquake didn't come last night.
Similar stories are taking place all around. At other universities in the city (and other cities) students are sleeping out in the lawn, afraid to go to class, afraid to enter their dorms to even change their clothes. Ricky and many of my students who come from Sichuan (just in case you didn't know, Sichuan is just north of Guizhou; it is where I trained and lived with a host family for 2 months before moving down here) still have family members or friends that they cannot reach or have not heard from. I ask that you please keep them, and everyone else effected, in your prayers.
As sad as these times are for China, trying to search out the good, it does bring me a lot of pride to say that in spite of all that is happening to this country as of late, beautiful things are taking place as a result. For one thing, many people are pulling together peacefully to help one another. Where the Tibet protests united this country in anger, this disaster is now putting their hearts at a more humbled, loving state, and at just about any corner in the city (and even on my campus) there are booths raising money for the victims in shelters. Today, I saw a group of Guiyang's poorest laborers approach a booth and gather money from each other, putting it into the fund. What a beautiful, selfless act. I pray that, from this disaster, many of the Chinese people who, without a sense of any spirituality whatsoever, now find themselves asking the purpose of life, wondering and reflecting, opening their eyes, ears and hearts. I pray for any good to come out of such a sad time.
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