Civil Duties

So today I voted. I shan't tell you who I voted for. But my vote is in the mail, and it is to be in Iowa within a week. If I'm lucky. 

There's been a lot of frustrations. I'd like to talk about them. 

Some states allow you to vote by e-mail if you are out of the country. Iowa and TN are not part of that group. 

Ballots are sent to you as if they will arrive within 3-5 days. Chinese mail is even slower this year. My parents sent me a ballot express mail through UPS and it still arrived after 2 weeks. Some mail takes as long as a month. Callie's ballot hasn't arrived because the group sent it as if it would arrive in 3-5 days, so she had to e-mail them and get the forms. 

We could have gone to Beijing to get the national forms, but it we wouldn't have been voting in local elections. And it is also a trip to Beijing which is expensive and takes time, and I do not have time this semester. 

Because the mail takes so long, it takes us a while to get it and to send it. There's no way sending mail normally would allow us the time needed to vote- our votes would arrive far too late. The nearest UPS/FedEx/DHL place is Zhengzhou, and we don't have the time to go. So we're hoping that the EMS mail service will be fast enough to turn in our votes. But there is a very real chance my vote won't be counted, because I live too far away from the embassy and in a foreign country. 

Just because I live in a foreign country doesn't mean I've given up my right to vote. If anything, I want to vote. Some of the foreign policies by a couple of the candidates scare me. It's as if they have never been to another country, or certainly the country they're talking about. I absolutely want to vote for a policy that will aid not only me while I teach abroad, but have a realistic view of other countries. 

I want to have a say in my government. Especially given that my students cannot. They're so interested in the US election, and they've asked that I show them the presidential debates! So I'm going to show them the most recent one. 

But the lack of time allotted for ballots, the need to mail them in is very frustrating and tense- I'd gladly tell the world who I voted for if I could just get my ballot in on time and have it count. Of course, that also means that I trust the person who counts my ballot to be as understanding and unbiased as a machine (assuming also that the machines are unbiased and the companies who write the programing do so in an efficient and unerring manner). It's crazy, and yesterday the embassy wrote to the citizens on the mailing list saying regular mail would not be fast enough. If we wanted, we could drop our absentee ballot into the building in Beijing before Monday and they would send it for us, free of charge. That's only four days, three of which I'm working. It'd take at least two to travel to Beijing, and I can only hope they're open on both those days (not sure how often the embassy is open). It's also a lot more expensive to travel to Beijing than it is to Fedex something. Though Fedex is faster, EMS is the most reliable option. Even if it's probably going to take about a week to two weeks. 

Iowa is nice enough to allow mail that has been postmarked before the 3rd to arrive until the 13th. They probably won't make a difference by that point, but it is very reassuring to know I have a voice. Many states won't- if it isn't there by the 6th, no good. How scary. I'm so glad I'm not teaching in a more rural area, where the mail doesn't come and my mail would take forever to send. 

So I have voted. But there is a chance my vote won't count due to how slowly mail systems work in other countries. It is not an option to go to Beijing, it is not an option to go to Zhengzhou (I'd have to bring a student and they are not open when I could go), and there was little time to vote and send the vote back. All of this is frustrating. However, I am aware there is little I can do. 

In the next election, I hope Iowa allows for voters to register via e-mail, prove there is a connection, and let us scan our documents, signature, and vote that way. 

End result: I paid about $20 to try and vote, though it may not count. If you're reading this and part of the US, there's no reason you cannot vote. Your vote is free. Do it. 

Hospitals of Kaifeng (Just the City One)

Today.

 

Today was a momentous day.

 

Today. I went to a place.

 

A very unusual place.

 

A very foreign place.

 

I went to the hospital.

 

 

I'd been trying to avoid it as long as I could, mostly because of worries over needles and the idea that you go to a hospital if you can't recover. But let me start at the beginning.

 

On Thursday, I noticed my voice was weaker than usual.

 

On Friday, I realized I had both little voice and little energy- I typed my words to the students since they all had computer screens for audio-visual class and when I was not teaching, I was sleeping. My throat was sore, and my nose was dripping into the back of it.

 

The next morning I got up, talked to my family, and went back to bed. Saturday was spent in bed with a 103 fever. Sometimes I took Tylenol- the fever only went down to 101. My throat was now raw, and my ears and eyes hurt. I cancelled my Sunday classes with apologies.

 

On Sunday, I had no fever, except for the end of the day of something at 99, and my ears still hurt. My throat was even worse, and unfortunately, I had acquired a cough. I cancelled Monday's classes.

 

Today, I still had a raw throat and cough, though I feel loads better. But better to be safe than sorry, I think, because I don't want this developing into a problem later on.  Especially if it could develop into a two week problem.

 

So I called one of my students for three reasons. The first reason is he's a local. The second is he's taken another teacher to the hospital before. The third reason is his name.

 

His name is Rambo.

 

How could you not want Rambo to escort you to the hospital?

 

So Rambo and I agreed to meet at 12:30pm to go the hospital. I asked if I should go to a hospital or clinic, but he said hospital. I remember my first impression was that hospitals are for emergencies only, and then thinking myself out of that- maybe they are not just for emergencies in China. Rambo said it was okay. Who am I to doubt Rambo, the local?

 

I took my passport, my health certificate, $250 worth of RMB (No idea how much it would be), sucked it up to getting an IV, and wrote down my prescriptions in Chinese. 

 

We took a taxi to the city hospital. Outside there was a stand selling all sorts of food, but we went in and registered me. A brown book was my registration file. We went, talked to a lady in respiratory illness. I was wondering why we had come here- everything had started with my throat, after all, but there were no places for ear/nose/throat people.

 

Most of the doctors in the rooms were sleeping soundly- it was nap time. This is legit in China, though, so please don't think "Sleeping? On the job? How lazy!" The doctors started work again at 2:30. Just like I start teaching in the afternoon at 2:30. The doctor lady who saw me did so despite missing her nap time. Granted, the most she could do is fill out my book and then hand me stuff and tell me to go get my lungs tested.

 

So I did. The testing center opened at 2:30. On the way there, we went out back through the parking lot and ended up where the inpatients were. There were a couple of stores in the building- places to buy buckets, soap, and places to buy food. The Chinese medical system means you need someone to take care of you. Since most people live with their children, even in later life (for example, if my family were in China I would be living with my father's parents currently), either the parents take care of their offspring or the (adult) offspring takes care of them. Nurses, Rambo explained to me, just deliver medicine and things like that. Janitors clean up. Who feeds you and helps you to the restroom is family only.

 

There are good things and bad things about that, I think.

 

The testing center people were really nice, trying to communicate through Rambo. They had me breathe through an apparatus that was hooked to a computer and the program was originally English- I saw a couple of the prompt screens though the rest had been translated. (My nose was shut so I could only breathe through my mouth.) After I was finished with the tube thing, they popped an inhaler in my mouth and gave me a dose.

 

What.

 

I was taken a bit aback.

 

Inhaler? Where did that come from?

 

I now have a newfound appreciation for the people in the US who don't speak English and then go to hospitals. How would they know what is being said without a translator? How would they know what was going on?  Then I think of a mother going in for a sick baby. I would be so scared- what happens if something goes wrong? I'd be scared anyway, but if something went wrong I wouldn't be able to understand.

 

So I inhaled this drug after freaking out about it. When I was done we had to wait for 10 minutes, go back in, and have the drug again. The upside, there was no problem with my lungs. Still, the lady gave me three different sets of things for my cough (three different pills!), but I'm glad she looked at my meds. I'm also glad my meds don't have a lot they interact with (or what they do, I'm not currently affected by).

 

After four hours sitting in the hospital, I knew two things. 1) Many people who were there were not there for emergencies, but because they had started to be sick. I was the opposite- I was ending a sickness and didn't want it to develop further. 2) It was dirty. There was a hole in the ceiling of my respiratory testing facility's front desk, dirty walls, the usual Kaifeng dust (did I mention this is a dusty city, 'cause it is), grime, non-shiny surfaces. Despite my disbelief, I did see biohazardous waste bins. It was a relief, though I'm embarrassed that it was or that I thought the facilities wouldn't be safe. Sure, the facilities may not be the cleanest, but that would be almost impossible with the materials, number of people, and KAIFENG dust. Also, I'm not meaning that the hospital was covered in grime- I've slept in dirtier places. It reminded me of living in my old apartment, or maybe Bushnell back in Beloit- grime, dirt, but people would pick it up, it was pretty clean, and you lived there because it was the only place to live (seriously, where else were you going to live?).

 

I picked up my three medicines, was told about how to use each of them, and everything- the hospital exam, the medicines- cost me about $15.

 

When I submit them to my insurance here, they will be less than that.

 

I'm not sure why my throat wasn't talked about, but it's been feeling better today, and the reason I wanted to go to the hospital was for my lungs anyway, so I'm glad.

 

HURRAY I DID NOT HAVE TO HAVE AN IV!!! AVOIDING THAT FOREVER*~

 

 

Now I must think of a proper gift to give Rambo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Or until I need one. 

Meanwhile

Waiting for Ann, cleaning, trying to update blog, trying to enjoy this break, and suddenly there is a knock on my door. 

The front desk lady and her daughter stand there. 

They ask to see my doll. 

Really, they mean the two stuffed animals I've received from Ben/Ann and Candy. She wants to buy one for her daughter, I think, because she asked me if I bought it in Kaifeng. So they were here for no more than three minutes, and I made the cat move and speak terrible Chinese. 

The daughter seemed to enjoy it. 

I did. She's welcome to play with the cat-doll anytime.