#we pay more than anyone I know and we get the shittiest service lol

[ayakashibackstreet]

I love how mum considers me (23yo, autistic, perpetually anxious) necessary whenever taking care of things that include contracts and/or legal speech.

[hhemeraa-a]

Update / Haitus

I’ve been a ghost the last two weeks and I know that my last post was very succinct - which I had to delete because apparently porn blogs started reblogging it for some reason????????? And I’m just?? not in the place to deal with that.

I really hope to get back into a place where I can be here again, I know before I said I was on discord but I’ve had zero (zero) time to do literally anything else other than deal with my current situation so I’m barely even there. I do read all of your messages and I’m really sorry I haven’t responded. 

A lot of people had or have questions and wanted to know how I am, etc etc so under the cut will be a quick explanation of my absence and everything that’s happened within the last few weeks.

As some of you know, I am a Peace Corps volunteer servicing in China. I had been serving as a university English teacher for the last near 2 years. This was a very very very important and huge opportunity for me. 

Years ago when I was in college, my Mom was taking student loans out in my name while I was living with her. I went from having $54k in student debt (which is a lot already) to having about $108k in student debt in private loans. She shirked all responsibility on me, I had to graduate college early with a degree in something that I had credits in (International Studies with a focus on Chinese language and history), I was homeless for a while working random jobs, trying to join the Marine Officer program, etc etc -- needless to say, things were really really messy for a few years there. I ended up getting a really nice job for a logistics company getting paid about 2200 a month, but I was paying about 1600 a month in student loans. I had a lot of support from a friend who let me live with her and to this day I literally cannot thank her enough for everything she provided to me while I was suffering through all of this. 

After working that soul sucking job for nearly 4 years, I took a chance and applied for Peace Corps because it was an opportunity to finally make it to China. I was supposed to study abroad in college, but when my mother maxed out my debt, it was no longer feasible. I never thought I was going to get in because I had been out of school for years at that point, I had never taught English before besides 1-on-1s during college and I kind of thought I was too old???  

BUT LOW AND BEHOLD I GOT IN.  This shit meant everything to me. I was finally going to study abroad, I was finally going to have a chance to use my degree, I was finally going to have the chance to learn a language, I had an opportunity to have a complete career change. 

It was so incredibly hard though. I worked my ass off during training, I worked really really hard to integrate into my site, but if anyone has ever heard any of my horror stories of being the only foreigner in the middle of south east China, you’ll understand that it’s not always fun 😅 I even had a whole mental break down and had to be sent back to the States for 45 days so I could stop stressing, but I got my ass right back on that plane and came to finish the job I started. The low were low, but the highs were so incredibly high that it made up for every bad moment.

This program meant everything to me.  My first semester sucked ass, it was harder than I ever thought it would be. My second semester was so much better, my third semester I was over loaded with about 450+ students and 8 classes, but I was finally getting the hang of the language, the school, the people, and I had gotten the ‘ok’ from my school to work there as a full time teacher once my Peace Corps contract was finished. This?? Was such an opportunity?? I literally had started making the moves to start a life here -- at least temporarily. Work at my school as contracted teacher for a year, pass the HSK Chinese language test above a 4, use the money to find a better job in Taiwan -- there was a whole plan. 

Every year, Peace Corps meets for 1-2 weeks for In Service Training. We met from Jan. 12 - 17. Usually it’s just to reconnect and make sure all the volunteers are doing their jobs, medical check ups, etc etc etc. It’s a good time to see how other volunteers are doing. 

Jan. 17th we were formally told that the Peace Corps China program was being closed. After 2020, there would no longer be any new volunteers and that we needed to start preparing our schools for the transition. They called it a graduation, but we all knew it was a political move. For five hours, a room of 200 people ripped into the US PC HQ staff as to why they were “”graduating”” the program. They said it was because the budget didn’t call for it and that China no longer needed volunteers in their schools. Which is a lie. Tensions were already really really high, the answers kept gettin more vague, and we finally flat out asked if this was a political decision to remove Peace Corps from China. 

We didn’t get an answer. 

Needless to say, all the volunteers are livid. The information spread like wild fire to all of the schools and volunteers were faced with having to be the representative of a shitty political decision. It was extremely difficult to have to face students and try to explain that Americans don’t hate them when the political system there does. 

Chinese New Year was from Jan 25th - Jan 27th this year. I lived in Chongqing city in the Chongqing province/municipality, a city that has about 32 million people in it. During this time, the city becomes a ghost town due to the holiday being similar to Christmas/Thanksgiving where everyone goes back to their hometowns to be with family. All the shops close and for foreigners it can be difficult to find food because everything isn’t open lol. 

However on Jan. 25th was when news about the corona virus started getting around. It wasn’t very big, but the news was starting to spread. The Hubei province touches Chongqing province, so whispers were starting to come through and most information volunteers got were through foreign sources, but even my Chinese friends were telling me that I shouldn’t go out or if I do, I need to be sure to wear a mask. 

Sunday Jan. 26th, notices are starting to go up on store fronts saying that they are required by law to be closed, but I managed to find a place that was still open. News about the virus is starting to gain traction and more and more information about what is happening in Wuhan is starting to spread. My friend who is staying with me who lives in a small town near the border of Hubei (where Wuhan is placed) gets a call from his school telling him that it is safer for him to not come back to site. We are starting to hear that small towns are shutting down travel in and out, bus systems are starting to shut down and certain areas in the city are no longer allowing taxi or Didi (Chinese Uber)  services. 

Monday Jan. 27th, my friend leaves because all train and bus tickets out of the city were being canceled. My city was slowly starting to quarantine everyone. I live on campus, and when I tried to return after walking my friend to the metro, security took my temperature (with those neat little temp guns) and then wouldn’t let me in because they thought I was too warm. After arguing with them in my broken Chinese and convinced them that I lived there, they finally let me back on campus. They told me that no cars or people are allowed to go in and out anymore. 

I lived near city center and it was obvious that the government was slowly locking everyone away to try and prevent the spread, but it was so eerie and apocalyptic. We had been receiving emails from the PCChina director giving us daily updates that were inching towards the idea that all volunteers were going to be ‘consolidated’, so everyone just needed to be prepared. 

Tuesday Jan. 28th, the notice went out that the volunteers were being ‘consolidated’ to Thailand because China made it illegal for any group of 4 or more people to be together. We were only allowed 1 check in bag and we weren’t sure if we were ever going to be allowed to come back into country. People who were not at their sites were not allowed to go back to their sites. Wherever a volunteer was in that moment that we got the notice was required to get their ticket to Bangkok and leave immediately. I had to pack 2 years of my life up into a single suitcase not knowing if I was ever going to come back. 

Wednesday Jan 29th, I was on a plane and landed in Bangkok. I am a safety warden of my province and the first warden to arrive so I was in charge of all safety until staff arrived. 

But after that, things were very much in the air. We had no idea what was going to happen and every day things just got weirder and more serious and we didn’t know if at all we were going to be able to go back. We speculated a lot, as the news got worse and worse and worse. By Friday, all USA government employees were told to evacuate. No gov employee is allowed to enter China until the travel restrictions were let up, which meant that many PCChina staff - if they were to leave, would be allowed back in until China decided that it was safe enough or... if they wanted them back. 

Sunday, Feb. 2nd, all the volunteers who were at the hotel had a skype meeting with the head of the PCChina program and were told that due to the severity of the situation, all currently serving China volunteers would be forced to COS (Close of Service) by Thursday. The program was ending and we would all be sent back to our respective homes between Wednesday and Thursday. 

When I say it was the shittiest delivery of news imaginable, I cannot even put it into words. After we were all told that we could no longer return to China, we had lost our jobs, and couldn’t even say goodbye to anyone; HQ Staff had the balls to tell us that in order to get our final service allowance, we were still required to fill out paperwork and that we shouldn’t be sad. We should be happy we served at all. 

They gave no time for mourning, many of us put two years of our lives on hold to do this program, some of us don’t even have homes to go back too and they want us to make decisions in 4 days. After Thursday, they will no longer provide any assistance with travel, we do not get health insurance, the moment we COS, PC shrugs off complete responsibility of over 100+ volunteers. 

I have been so busy filling out paperwork and I have been so incredibly angry and sad and resentful that the only person I’ve told is my Dad. Returning to the USA isn’t really an option and the plan I had set into motion is now nonexistent because I’m no longer allowed in the country I gave two years of my life to until they decide that this virus has been resolved. 

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I’m going to live, what job I’m going to have, how I can get a cellphone plan, where I can go because I’m being quarantined for having been in China within the last 14 days, how to manage the money I’m getting -- everything has been changing so rapidly that I still don’t know where I’m going to be by Friday since Peace Corps is only paying for the hotel up until then. 

I promise I’m not ignoring any of you, I really really want to be in a place where I can RP and chat with y’all, but life for me right now is moving so fucking fast and I have to make so many decisions that will affect my future that I literally have not stopped going since Sunday night. 

I still stand by my last message: I really appreciate all the messages you guys have been sending me. I do read them. I just don’t want to talk. I don’t have the emotional capacity to and I haven’t even been given time to just... process and be mad. 

I promise I’ll be back, just give me some time.