Fever and Flood

     I wish I could claim that my three week absence from blogging was entirely due to being caught up in an amazing adventure, too immersed in the real world to stop for the virtual one. As it were, though, of the last twenty-one days, ten of them I spent being horrendously, dreadfully ill, in pajamas for days on end trying to remember what health felt like. After developing enormous lymph nodes, a very high fever and body aches, I went to an international clinic, where the doctor diagnosed me with a cold. After a week of bedrest and constant hydration, I wasn't anywhere close to being better, and so went back to the clinic, only to discover that I actually had strep throat. While I enjoyed a movie and TV marathon, being sick away from home, especially in a foreign country, was a really long, miserable, and lonely experience which I do not recommend and do not want to repeat. It was also especially disappointing to spend days on end feeling that the world was going by without me--I missed out on going to work and gallivanting in Beijing with my roommates Sha, Ricky, and Calvin (who have all since left).

With Sha, his dad, and Ricky

Walking around the Olympic facilities at night

Water Cube

With members of the Wellesley Club of Beijing

     I'm back on my feet now, though, and have been doing a host of fun things like touring the US Embassy with the Wellesley Club of Beijing, going to see Brave, eating out-of-this-world ramen, attending a solo swing dance class with Clare, gorging myself on Russian food with Wurihan, and of course staying busy keeping up with the news.

  This last weekend's news was fairly monumental, though as everything unfolded I had no idea of the scale. I had planned to spend last Saturday finally having a "treat yourself" day, complete with souvenir-shopping, delicious food, a much-needed massage and pedicure. Thus, that morning I was very disheartened to look out the window and see--nothing. A thick haze had engulfed the city, making it impossible to see past one block. I checked the air quality index--in the 370's ("Hazardous", according to the monitor)."Not in my lungs," I thought, and with that my self-indulgent day out on the town turned into a much less thrilling day cooped up in the apartment. I was glad to when rain started falling that afternoon, hopeful that it would clear up the air.

Remember this photo from last post?

Same view, this time with heavy pollution

      Little did I know that as I sulked at home, Beijing was facing its heaviest rains since 1951. While my neighborhood was relatively fine, some areas of the city were desecrated by the flooding. There have been a stream of pictures and videos of collapsed roads, cars barely visible above the waters, houses turned to rubble. The aftermath of the rains has caused an uproar online; microbloggers are bemoaning the antiquated city sewer systems, which are to blame for much of the flooding, and also expressing doubts that the government is being honest about the death toll (officially reported to be 37 people dead). Many are angry that a government which has spent billions on glamorous projects like the Olympic facilities would neglect something so fundamental as infrastructure. 

     ABC visited one of the villages that was hit the hardest, and I wrote an article about the scene: In Beijing, Doubt Grows as Thousands Struggle to Rebuild After Floods. Wading through piles of muck, we spoke with locals who saw their homes and livelihoods swept away before their eyes. Looking at the destruction, I had no idea how one could even imagine the rebuilding process--there seemed to be neither beginning nor end to the mess. When asked if the government was doing enough to help them, all of the residents we spoke with immediately said no. They'll be sleeping on cots in tents in a schoolyard until they have a place to call home again, and it's really impossible to know when that will be.

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