Transition

For some reason, moving from Chengdu to Chongqing is proving more
difficult than moving from the US to China was. Perhaps the reason is
that I haven't had to do dishes, cook for myself, or take out the
trash for the past two months. Or maybe because we had been preparing
for our departure for China for over a year, while we didn't really
anticipate our departure for Chongqing to be very climactic. Let me
illustrate the last week of our lives:

Monday, August 23: Last day of classes at SNU. We were anxious about
getting our LPI results, getting ready to say goodbye to host families
and starting to feel nostalgic about our Sichuan Normal University
campus and training group. I came down with the head cold that was
going around. We said goodbye to our teachers and spent the afternoon
wandering around Wenshu temple. When we arrived home to go out to our
last dinner with the host family, I turned the key in the lock just as
someone inside seemed to turn the handle. The lock stopped turning and
we found ourselves unable to get in while our host family found
themselves unable to get out. Since the apartment is on the 4th floor,
I am not sure how they would escape in case of an emergency. A
locksmith was called. Dinner reservations were missed. Richy and I
waited in the stairwell for about an hour. Heated argument ensued
between Jiejie and the locksmith who tried to charge her more than the
price quoted on the phone. I spent the evening post-lockout helping
Yao Ying with an English newspaper project.

Tuesday, August 24: Departure for the fancy four star hotel. We
realized our baggage grew since arriving in China, mostly with
teaching books and Peace Corps issued medical supplies (not including
those we were yet to receive at the hotel). Gege was in a rush to get
to work, so we arrived an hour early to catch the bus so we could wait
in the rain with all our luggage. Luckily another early, enterprising,
host family member found us all shelter in the campus police station.
We were impressed by a huge panda-themed fountain when we pulled into
the hotel parking lot, proximity to the city center (just blocks away)
and an outdoor pool. We found out our LPI scores: Richy and I both
achieved Intermediate-Mid. We were hoping for high, and considering
that two of our similarly skilled classmates ended up with
Intermediate-High led us to believe that inter-rater reliability might
be a factor. Nonetheless, we surpassed the requirement of
Intermediate-Low and can retake the LPI later if we feel like it. We
spent the rest of the evening enjoying the company of our SNU buddies.

Wednesday, August 25: The complimentary breakfast buffet at the hotel
was knockout amazing. Refills of real coffee, bacon, fresh omlettes
and orange juice. Toast, real butter, and fruit trays. Not to mention
a huge selection of Chinese and Japanese breakfast choices (which we
ignored, with the exception of a purple sweet potato for myself). It
motivated me to promise to get up earlier the next day for more coffee
refills. The rest of the day was a long block of orientation
activities and finishing up our training. Again, we spent the evening
enjoying the company of the SNU folks.

Thursday, August 26: The counterparts, liaisons and/or admins from our
Chinese Universities showed up and we spent the morning trying to get
more useful information out of them. We were graciously taken to lunch
by our waiban-liaison-soon-to-be-counterpart, William. The highlights
of the afternoon session were practicing our oath of service, getting
our flu shots and our settlement allowance cash. Being our last night
with the SNU buddies, things got a little rowdy, people previously
not-coupled became coupled, and merriment was had all around.

Friday, August 27th: The day began with another lovely breakfast,
after which, we rushed to dress up in our Zhongguo yifu and get our
butts into seats for swearing in. Since the US Ambassador to China was
out of the country we were sworn "to defend the constitution against
enemies foreign and domestic" by the Charge d'Affaires of the Beijing
Embassy, Robert Goldberg. He was accompanied by the Ambassador to the
Shanghai Expo, and the Consul General of the Chengdu US Consulate.
We got some fancy Shanghai Expo pins and proceeded to take lots of
photos with lots of people. We then went to a luncheon in our honor
where there were speeches to be heard about the importance of the
Peace Corps mission in China. Then we ate, but we were still full from
breakfast. After eating, we rushed back up to our room to change out
of the Zhongguo yifu and finish packing, then to get back downstairs
to check out, say our goodbyes and find a taxi. Since there were 88 of
us trying to find transportation, taxis were hard to come by, so
William found us an unlicensed van to take us to the train station.
Unfortunately since the van was unlicensed, he feared getting ticketed
near the train station, and therefore dropped us off about a mile
away. So we then got to carry our luggage all the way to the train
station. Of course all the Chongqing volunteers were put on the same
train car so space to stow our luggage was scarce and things didn't
get settled until well after the train departed. Upon finally arriving
in our 5th floor apartment (no elevator) at about 7pm with all our
bags, reality hit us: although all we want to do is crawl into bed and
sleep off the events of the day, we have no clean sheets. So we went
on a 3 hour adventure trying to find appropriate sheets, after which
we had to actually put them on the bed, then we both passed out.

Today, Saturday, August 28th: I woke in a panic to the dust, grime,
mold, lack of a teaching schedule, lack of hot water, and lack of food
in our new situation. After an hour spent cleaning just the microwave
I was convinced that the apartment would never be clean, never feel
like home, etc. At which point Richy reminded me that "this is our hut
in Africa." These are our "conditions of hardship" which we have
committed to serve under if necessary. Indeed, with time I'm sure
things will come together and after our second trip to the store I'm
feeling much more confident about how this will turn out. Many Chinese
people deal with much worse. It's also comforting hearing from my SNU
friends today and hearing that they are going through similar
scenarios. Although I did have a little momentary setback this evening
when the first giant cockroach crawled across my hand as I switched on
the bathroom light. I guess we're really in it now.