Well, it’s been a terribly long time between posts.
Sorry about that.
There isn’t much time for this one either, so I’ll try to keep it short.
Summer holiday…
Well, I spent the first week of it in Longzhou, just hanging out while Kyle gave his final exams. That was pleasant and relaxing. (for me, not him)
Then, the next few weeks were spent in Yizhou. It was incredibly hot and humid, as expected, so most days were spent indoors and in the evenings we went out and explored more of the city. I saw bits I’ve never seen before…that was fantastic.
While we were there, a few teachers came from America for a summer course. I had heard from students who had taken a similar summer course, actually, from my understanding, they were from the exact same organization, so I knew what it was about. Kyle and I tried to invite them to do things with us- we were happy to have other Americans and other Christians around and we were hoping that they wouldn’t mind spending time with us. Unfortunately, it turned out that they were willing to take us up on our offers, but they never reciprocated. We heard afterwards from my friends at the school about parties and all of the fun they were having. Honestly, that wasn’t really the most annoying part. The frustrating thing was how open we were with them and how they most certainly lied to us. It seems like an entirely unchristian thing to do. On top of that, they actually took people to the river to do something that’s illegal in China. That maybe makes sense in some places, but in Yizhou there is a great church community and a way to go about all of that without doing anything illegal. I personally don’t see why you would do that kind of thing outside of a community of believers when the option is there. Since they were only there for three weeks, I hope that they remain in contact with the Chinese that they took to the river because there are going to be questions…
They were really nice people, these Americans, so I wish them well, I just wish that as Christians they would have been willing to work with us, rather than so obviously trying to work separately and almost against us.
Anyway, after that, Kyle and I headed to Guilin. Kyle headed on to Hong Kong from there so that he could meet his parents and two youngest siblings. I stayed in Guilin to wait six days for them to come into China. I planned to stay in a nearby village with a friend who is a student at my school, Jane, then I would stay in a hotel in the city and hang out with Lizzy, a friend who is a chemistry student.
Jane’s family was absolutely wonderful to stay with. While I was there, I actually ended up going to the hospital for was basically a type of food poisoning. It was horrific. I’ve never felt so much pain in all my life. I actually wasn’t sure what was going on. I ended up having an ultrasound (to check for stones), a painful blood test (really unsanitary too….there were drips of bloods from others before me scattered across the counter!), a shot in my butt, and an iv for three hours. I don’t know what the shot was for, what was in the iv, or what any of the four medicines I had to take afterwards were.
The whole experience was stressful, and I don’t want to even start on how this hospital would never, ever, ever be up to standards in the States.
I survived though, and I did get better, so I guess that means they knew what they were doing.
After talking to a nurse at home through my mother, I found out that I had probably eaten something with bacteria in it a week or so before going to the hospital, but I had been taking stomach meds, and that was just covering up the symptoms, not curing anything, so it just got worse and worse.
Well, that’s mostly over with, but I’ve had stomachaches off and on since then, but they said it’ll be a couple of weeks until I’m completely back to normal. I’m not going to lie, I tried to be brave, but it’s tough being in pain and not knowing what’s going on.
Other than that, things have been good. Jane and I got a chance to go to Merryland, an amusement park in Guiln. Then I went to Lizzy’s cousin’s wedding, then Kyle’s family arrived.
Since then, we’ve been traveling….spent some time in Guilin, then the rice terraces in longji (my 4th time there), Yizhou, now Longzhou. Tomorrow we leave for Nanning and we’ll fly from there to Shenzhen and then we’ll go to Hong Kong. Kyle’s family flies out on the night of the 13th and on the 14th, Kyle and I will go to Nanchang to visit Lucretia (the awesome woman that we had our training with to come to China), then four days in Beijing, and then we head to the Amity conference in Nanjing.
Then it’s time for a second year of teaching in China!
I haven’t updated photos lately, but hopefully I’ll have a chance at some point. I’ll try to be better at posting on here and responding to emails during the rest of the summer holiday.