Some Thoughts *written April 25*

Written April 25

Everybody studies abroad for an experience incomparable to anything they have ever had before. They want to see a new part of the world, make a new set of friends, have new adventures that they can tell their friends and family back home, and they want to take a step away from whatever it is they know as normal. For some it might be a smaller step and others a giant lunge, but it is my belief that everyone who goes, no matter where that is, still has one foot grounding them back home.

Since I’ve been in China, I’ve missed home. I’ll see things I never have before like a little child pulling down their pants to take a poop in the middle of a busy street while their parents just watch a few feet back, or the lack of cleanliness that stretches far beyond the polluted air with garbage just thrown out anywhere as if the city has no idea what a trash can is, or the immense amount of traffic, or the fact that wikipedia and several news sites were blocked for the first few months we were here due to the Chinese internet firewall. And then the language barrier. Simple errands like picking up some groceries or toilet paper, or getting something minor fixed on my bike or just getting some quick fast food at McDonalds can all be so difficult. I enjoy running errands back home, I like the feeling of accomplishment as I check off items on my to do list, but here, running errands can often feel more like a failure than an accomplishment. For example, this past week I went to bring my coat from the accident to be dry-cleaned. It was covered in dirt and they wanted to know why it was so dirty. While I understood their question, my small amount of Chinese and gestures didn’t help them understand my answer. I could have called up a Chinese friend and had them talk to the people, but I hate doing that because I want to feel like I can do small errands for myself. So I stood at the counter for a good ten minutes and with a mixture of random words, drawings, and them just not caring anymore, my coat was accepted to be cleaned.

We have a phrase for moments like this. “T.I.C.” “This is China.”

So here I am, in Cina. 13 hours ahead of the world I left behind and so different from everything I knew hand loved back home. On the hard days when I miss home the most, the time change and distance just magnify and I’ll feel lonely when I think too hard about it. I know great people here, we have good laughs and I’m constantly busy, but it’s still not home.

When the bus accident happened, home felt further from anywhere in the world at that moment. After climbing out of the bus, I stood on the top (or the side of it that was now the top) and just cried until my friend got out a different way, saw me, and helped me down. As everyone checked on each other to see that we all were generally ok, I thought it was a good idea to get my huge pack of wet wipes out and pass them out for people to clean their wounds or hands or whatever. It was the only thing I thought to do. Once my pack was empty, I walked to the top of the hill we had rolled down, and I stood at the side of the road. I was so scared. I had no idea where we were or when we’d get home. All these townspeople had stopped to see what happened. On either side of me were ten or more Chinese men just staring at me. They were less than two feet from me but nobody said or did anything to me. They just looked at this white, American girl crying, sometimes a huge sob, just shaking, mumbling in a foreign language, clearly helpless.

Within an hour after the accident, we were at the hospital in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. We had most of our things since some guys were able to stand on the bus and get all the luggage floating inside and throw it to the ground. We were dirty and wet, but alive. I had lost my ipod and phone in the lake, and my camera was completely broken from water damage, but I was alive. We took over the hospital. Anyone who needed x-rays got them, I had a CT scan done because I had a big bump on my head from hitting something in the tumble. One friend had a spot on his head shaved where he had been cut. Once it was cleaned he had to wear a skullcap to keep the bandage on it all day. Others had their cuts cleaned and taken care of. And Nicole was being wheeled on a stretcher around the hospital as they tried to figure out how bad her injuries were.

Once we realized everything would be ok in the end, we had to figure out what to do to get everyone either back to Beijing or safe there for a few days while Nicole got better. The travel agency was immediately worried about how much this would cost them as all of us made it very clear that this would be coming out of their pocket and not our own. We got hotel rooms at a place across the street that was only about 20 US dollars a night, but still they wanted to put us at a cheaper place much further away or even have some of us take a train to the next part of our intended tour where we already had a reservation. (that was how absurd this day felt). A couple of us went to an internet place around the corner from the hospital to try and touch base with home on some level. Little did we know internet places in China are just huge, dark rooms completely packed with people playing online video games. So after being denied a computer, we went to different people and asked to pay them to use theirs for a few minutes. Finally, this guy let us and we each wrote to a friend in some way to tell them what had happened, because we needed someone from home to be thinking of us. In those moments, I felt so completely helpless. The majority of my family and friends back home were most likely sleeping peacefully while I was experiencing the worst shock of my life. So to be able to tell at least one person from home that we had a bad accident but we would be alright was the best way for me to know that everything would be ok eventually. Just to know at that moment that someone was thinking of me and my friends, it helped.

So little by little, we all made our way back to Beijing. I came on the first flight, four others a couple days later, and two more once Nicole’s father and nurse came from the Philippines to take care of her there. Being back in Beijing was good to be in a familiar place, but the accident still traumatized me for days after.

Unless you have been through something similar, I have heard it is very hard for someone to understand what it feels like to be in a bad accident. I was so restless and nervous. My adrenaline was running on an extreme. I would go to workout and run longer than I have ever been able to just trying to level out all the energy I had built up. I also felt really tense. All my reactions were heightened. Driving in cars was the worst, quite understandably. A driver would drive a little too fast, hit the breaks unexpectedly, or I’d hear a horn honk too long and I would flashback to the moment I knew the bus was going to roll over. I felt like I had no control and that at any minute, I would be in another accident. Of course it didn’t make the whole thing any easier when the taxi would start to chuckle at my occasional yelling about the speed, or when my poor friends had no idea what to do or say when they’d notice me actually tearing up during ten minute cab rides that one of the above mentioned events had occurred. To say it nicely, I was a mess. I couldn’t even go to class without feeling nervous. My head was so distracted that I wasn’t able to focus on much besides what had happened, especially not the Chinese language. So during the first day I went back to class, and my teacher asked me a question, I stared with a blank face. She proceeded to reiterate the question after I said I didn’t know the answer. I looked at my friend next to me for help, and in that moment I teared up and had to leave the classroom before I embarrassed myself any further. After that, I took a few more days off class.

I hated those days. Feeling so unstable and on edge. I’ve always thought of myself as such a strong person, up for anything, adaptable to most situations and people. I have so many good friends that I know I can turn to, but generally, I would consider myself a pretty independent person. I tend to overanalyze many situations that are important to me, but I would say I am otherwise a level-headed person.

(journal entry ends)

Update on accident:
My friends Ryan, Philippe, and I went to visit Nic in Baotou a couple weeks after the accident. She had been hanging out with her grandma and great aunt who had flown from the Philippines to take care of her. She seemed to be getting a little bored with the same company and her DVD player, so we surprised her for a weekend. Having not showered in two weeks, her first reaction was a little embarrassed by her appearance, but after we convinced her she still looked great, we had a really fun weekend just hanging out. We made a point to decorate her room with tons of bright signs and pictures. She's got a great attitude and even wants to take the semester over in Beijing next fall. Anytime I talk to her, she is so looking forward to getting out of the hospital and eating good food, going dancing, traveling more, etc. She's got a great perspective on everything.

Medically, it's not really sure what the best move in. Her mom has finally gotten her visa approved and will be in China indefinitely until Nic's back on her feet again. The doctors now have said it may be 6-8 weeks total before she's out of the hospital. That means she has 2-4 weeks left. We're obviously hoping she's better as soon as possible. Her birthday is May 18...

Feels like forever ago that we were in Inner Mongolia, but it's crazy how ever since, every day has been different because of it.

To borrow a favorite quote of my friend Emily, "Everything's ok in the end. If it isn't ok, then it isn't the end."

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