After picking my font, it’s hard to know where to start. Fortunately, I always choose Book Antiqua size eleven when I have the option.
Right now I am laying on my bed on the seventeenth floor of an apartment building in Haikou, the capital city of Hainan. I set the fan up to blow straight on me but I am still sweating. Part of the reason is probably that I climbed the stairs all the way up here – I’m not too keen on elevators, especially in China. Going up seventeen flights of stairs with the lights flicking on and off, alternately watching myself rise above the city lights outside, stepping around trash and rubble, past any residents out in their hallways for a melancholy gaze out the window or a smoke, made me feel a little sad. Just a little sad, like a foreign movie, and I guess if my life was a movie right now it would be a foreign one.
I miss the village; the boys at the tea shop playing American music for Mandy and I, the adorable hyper little boy at the rice restaurant and his kind parents, my fried ice girl who called out to me when they finally hand mangoes, the boat ride out to the hospital, and mostly the turtles. Every sea turtle has a distinct face, shell, character, and behavior. Our smallest turtle is the size of my hand, our largest nearly five feet long. They surface with little puffing sounds, their faces and dark eyes rising out up, their shells glistening just under the water, before they sink or paddle back down.
I also miss having the chance to awkwardly run into one of my students from the week-long middle school course I helped teach. I’ve never been on the other side of that dynamic before. You know, the oh-no-it’s-my-teacher-and-this-is-weird-but-I-will-say-hi kinda thing. It must be good that I miss all these things, after only about a month in 新村 I got to do so much…
At the hospital, I learned the common procedures for taking care of and rehabilitating the turtles. Khallisi, a hawksbill, and George (a beautiful Green with an opalescent shell, so named George because he came to the hospital the same day Lonesome George died) had just started eating when I moved up here. I was so happy! Weeks of patient dangling squid in front of their nares and trailing it across their beaks, plus fluids and vitamin stimulants and antibiotics, finally paid off. I think Neptune, or “Bubbles” as I nicknamed him for always blowing bubbles when we put him back in his tub, has started eating too, but it’s hard to be sure because my reports are coming from Xiao, who is unclear at best.
Our week-long program at the middle school ended up a success too. I designed all the slides for the English class, and taught most of it as well. I had completely forgotten how much fun “Simon Says” and “Bingo” can be! I also helped with activities for the sea turtle biology class, like review games and outdoor activities. On the first day of English class, the students were too uncomfortable to volunteer and speak up, but their change in attitude throughout the week was unbelievable. By the end of the week students were running up, to the applause of their classmates, to introduce themselves in English into the mike in front of the class.
I know that they learned the seven species of sea turtles throughout the week, but more importantly, I feel hopeful that they began to understand the environmental consequences of their actions, and recognize how valuable the natural world is. That is the kind of idea that needs to be taught here. There is absolutely no environmental education, and what should be a tropical paradise has been covered in litter without a second glance. Working with the kids gave me hope, but the task of saving our oceans and forests seems bigger and bigger the more I learn about the situation here. It has also motivated me to go home and do work back in the states: sometimes I forget that not all of the US is like the Pacific Northwest! And we really need help back home, too.
The last afternoon of class was supposed to be a field trip to the Sea Turtle Hospital, done in three shifts, with a beach clean-up for the students not at the hospital at any given time. It ended up turning into a sea turtle release, with the media invited, and something of a hot mess. After a long, stressful afternoon of herding cats, and all the pomp and circumstance of a turtle release being executed in the best-looking way possible, Frederick finally placed one turtle down, and then the next. As each turtle’s flippers hit the sand, it dug its nose into the sandy surf before pulling itself forward into each sunset-lit ripple with great effort, a slow struggle until the larger waves began to lift it up and give it strength to swim out into the darkening bay.
That night, Mandy and I went back out to the hospital after dark to fix things up. Fireworks rose above the village in the distance with pops and showers of sparkling color. “Happy China!” has become our refrain when we don’t know why people are setting off fireworks. And the ride back through the lantern-lit floating homes exudes tranquility, no matter how stressful your day has been.
I came up to Haikou Sunday afternoon, to start doing some work at Hainan Normal University and on different kinds of projects. I’m not really settled into my schedule here yet though, and I think it will take some time for me to get the ball rolling in a new place. I did leave most of my stuff in Xincun though, so I’m guaranteed to go back for at least a little before the end of my internship!
I’m hoping I’ll be working more with Green, a devout Buddhist Chinese volunteer, on a project relating Buddhist beliefs to their practice of releasing animals. I got to experience of these releases – everyone piling onto a boat happily chanting away (as Frederick and I struggle to pit-tag the turtles while we have the chance) on their way out into the bay and then [un] ceremoniously dumping bags of shellfish and three turtles into the water. I don’t really know what to say about it, but hopefully I’ll be learning much more and writing an article in the future.
Green is really cool though. She came down to Xincun to help teach the class, and when I was setting up her bed I apologized for not having an extra mattress, but only a thick blanket to lie on. “No matter,” she said “as long as my heart is content!” The next morning Clarissa found her sleeping on the bare wood with a book for a pillow. I asked her how she slept. “Great!” she responded, “and this morning I meditated on the balcony. Is my first time to meditate by the sea!” I’m hoping for a meditation lesson soon…. I could use it!
Photo credit Mandy Tippet, me and Logan seeing eye-to-eye
Sunset view from the hospital.
Boatride home at night.
View from the window just outside the Haikou apartment.
