Scott's Team

Olympic Fever!!!

Ok, here it is, all you want to know about Scott, Sylvia, and the Olympics! I'll do my best. Sometime last Fall we applied to volunteer. We had interviews in March, heard in May that we were accepted, and then got trickles of emails here and there. Scott is assigned to the Olympic Common Domain, doing Spectator Services. Basically, he stands inside the Olympic park (south end, between the Bird's Nest and Water Cube) and helps foreign spectators with any problems they have. The biggest problem he encounters is that people get dropped off by taxi, or enter the wrong gate. Then they have to walk 500m the other direction. Because of security you can only go into the park at certain spots. There's just a lot of walking involved. Even for us, the bus drops us off one place, we have to walk up to the security gate, then walk back down to check-in, then back up again to your location. Chinese people are used to it, but foreigners generally get pretty fed-up with all the walking :) So that's Scott. His managers are really great, they contacted him right away when we were back from camp, he was working before the olympics even started. He basically is required to work everyday, but it's kinda flexible. He usually works 4 then takes 1 off. The chinese are pretty thrilled about the Olympics. They don't take days off!

As for me, I had never been contacted by my manager. I called an Inspector for my site, and he said that they had problems with the manager, he wasn't answering his phone. Finally, 3 days after the Olympics had begun, I was called to go pick up my ID badge. I went to the south end of the city to get that, then had to go to my venue at the opposite end of town. I am also on the Olympic Green (park where most of the venues are), but in the northern end, about a 15min. bus ride from Scott's location. I am at the Tennis, Archery, and Field Hockey venues. As I found out on Monday, I'm in the office for the Volunteer Assistant staff. This office is in charge of checking in and out of all the volunteers for the tennis venue, getting uniforms for them, some statistics about the volunteers, numbers for catering, and writing a newspaper for the volunteers. So the question was at first, what would I do?? They didn't really have anything set for me to do, so I suggested maybe something in English in the newspaper, because there are other foreign volunteers. So I'll be interviewing foreign volunteers, and writing some short articles for the newspaper that gets put out every other day. It's been pretty laid-back though. We have a TV in our office, where we can watch all the Olympics we want. And today I helped make some paper flowers! My job is much easier than Scott's, but a bit more boring.

Our office is located underneath one of the tennis courts. Our security clearance doesn't allow us to go INTO the actual venue, but we can get pretty close, and peak inside. Yesterday I peeked at the match between a famous chinese girl and a spanish girl. Also, we went into Center Court when there was no game going on. But I'm pretty sure it was a William's sister that was practicing there. Tall, black, USA uniform. Pretty cool. And yesterday I saw some of the field hockey action between the UK and Argentina. We receive free breakfast, lunch, and all the drinks we want. The food isn't that great. Actually, lunch is pretty bad. But at least the drinks are good! The Olympics are totally sponsored by Coke.

One of the best things about doing this is meeting other chinese people. Most of our colleagues are university students. They are all excited to have foreigners working with them. I was paraded around to other offices to meet them, but it kinda felt like they were showing me off. It was kinda awkward.

We went to 2 women's soccer games last night. Brazil vs. Nigeria and Canada vs. Sweden! Good times. And on Friday we're going to see Handball. Looks like fun. We're also hosting 2 delegates from Niger right now, so our French is coming in handy! We're all going out to dinner now so I've gotta go! Thanks for all your comments!!!!

Anybody reading this?

Not sure how many people actually read this anymore, besides our parents. If you're not able to comment here, you can email me your comments :) Funny thing, there was a magazine article that named some things to do before you leave Beijing. One of them was "Start writing a blog. Stop writing a blog when you realize everyone is writing one."

In any case, it's at least a good way for me to process things. We returned a few days ago from 2 weeks in Nanchang, which is a 12hour train ride south. We went down with a friend, to meet up with his fiance and our friends who are part of an organization that runs camps for orphans. It's difficult to paint a picture for you of all the things that happen at this camp, but I'll try. This year, the camp is using a hotel that is semi-abandoned. They still seemed to have some guests, but they don't provide many things (like change of sheets, towels, etc.) There was a big open courtyard at the center that we used for assemblies and playing with the kids. So, this organization has established relationships with state and private orphanages. Up to 40 children are sent to the camp for 5 days. Each child is paired up with a Foreign buddy (american, canadian, australian) and a chinese college student who acts as the translator, and also is like an older brother/sister to the child. The children sleep in the same room as the translators, and we're called family groups. With these groups we eat all our meals together, swim together, do crafts, and spend almost every waking moment together! The point is to show the children love, and that no matter what they do, we will always love them, because they are valuable! We will not abandon them like their parents did.

On Thursday we write letters to each other, and we also spend part of the evening doing a life chart. In this exercise, we encourage the children to discuss each year of his/her life and rate it on a scale of happiness. For some, it's easy to talk about. For others, they don't know how to talk about it, or even express their emotions. If a child does open up, it's very powerful for everyone in the family group. The child has the opportunity to share their emotions in a safe environment, and the foreigner and the translator are made aware of the tragic stories that happen over and over again here. It's really heart-breaking. Thursday nights are quite emotional. The foreign volunteers have a meeting each evening, and that night is always the most touching and powerful. Fridays are also difficult. We have a goodbye ceremony where the translator reads the letters we've written to our child, and the child to their buddy. There are always tears, as many of the children express their gratitude for experiencing love and acceptance for the first time. For many, it's the highlight of the year. After lunch we say goodbye, and it's so sad as they all get into the van crying. They drive away and we are all left there on the steps of the hotel sobbing....wishing we could each take our buddy home.....trying not to think about the place they are going back to.....wondering if there is hope for them. We stand there and doubt for a moment, but thankfully most of us are able to lay them back in the hands of their Father who loves them more than we do, and trust that he has a plan for them.

I'll tell you now a little about the girls that I had. The first week we had 2 buddies each. I had two girls, one 14, the other 18. They often look much younger though. Sometimes it's because no one knows their real birthdays. Often they are malnourished and emotionally immature as well. Both of the girls have lived at the orphanage their whole lives. They don't remember anything else. For them, their ups and downs involve school, and acceptance by other peers. One of the girls lives in a foster home, but they are quite poor. The other girl lives at the orphanage, but she has a "love mother and father" that she doesn't like. She said she also takes care of about 6 younger children. I encouraged them to keep studying hard. If they do well in school they do have some hope for a better future independently. If not, they fall into the welfare system. For the second week I had a 14 yr old girl who was visually impaired. It was her first year at camp. She really seemed to come out of her shell and made other friends, had a good time. She was quite afraid of the water at the pool and the first day wouldn't even cross the fence into the pool area. Eventually she did, once she saw the others swimming happily, but just sat on the side. By the 3rd day she wanted to try swimming, but unfortunately it was raining all day and we couldn't go. All week she had been sharing her story with the translator and I, but when we did the life chart she went into more detail. Because of her visual impairment she never went to school until this past year! And she's 14! I guess the orphanage finally had some money to send her. She goes to a boarding school for the visually impaired. She said the hardest part was that parents were allowed to stay for 3 days with the new students, and she felt very lonely because she had none. She told us that her greatest wish is to have parents. I wish I could fulfill that. What's tragic is that in this country, once your turn 14 you are no longer adoptable. The children don't know this. Breaks my heart, the memory of her with tears in her eyes as they drove away.......



On a more positive note, the translators are also deeply moved. Many regular folk don't know about what goes on with orphans. These ones start to ask questions, like why perfectly healthy, beautiful girls are abandoned? For most, they are moved to tears. On the last evening they did a huge fireworks display for us all. One translator was sobbing. When asked why, she said "I want my country to do this for its orphans, not just americans that come in." And that is exactly what we want! We want them to take care of them, to see the problem and find a way to solve it, to raise up a generation that thinks differently. Most of the college students live close to the orphanages that they plan to visit them. Some of them are mentors, who visit the children every weekend. This is the hopeful and exciting part.

We'll post some pictures on facebook. Needless to say, it was a great time. Email me if you want information about the organization, and if you're interested in coming next year!

Olympic updates will be another post later this week :)