Thanks for all your concern about me this week because of the earthquake that happened in Sichuan. I've heard that some people in Beijing felt the quake but I'm 1,000 miles away from the epicenter so I didn't feel anything. But I do have some updates on the situation over here as I've heard this week from friends. One of my good friends is from Chengdu which is about 50 miles from the center of the earthquake. The last news she had was that they are having major shortages with food and clean water down there. They are also short-handed when it comes to medical care since so many people have been injured.
One of the hardest things about the situation is where this quake hit. This area of the country has lots of mountains so it was difficult at first for rescue teams to get in and its been hard to get people out of the damaged areas. The other thing is, this is a lower class area of China. A few emergency rescue groups have set up refugee camps where people can sleep and get food but it isn't enough for all the people who have lost their homes. For these people, it will be difficult to rebuild their lives. They do not have the resources to deal with such a traumatic experience.
 
Another problem is that it's been wet in the area lately. There were several mudslides that killed people and have blocked off access to places. Early this week I heard from some teachers in the south and they said things were pretty intense at their school. They are in the neighboring province and they had felt the quake but it hadn't been as extreme. Yet, the students were sleeping outside because the leadership didn't know if they should trust the stability of the dorms. Another friend told me that some students she knew were sleeping in their school canteen because dorms had been damaged. Classes have been cancelled this week for most universities in that area and the students aren't sure what to do with themselves. They can't offer much help but they don't have their school routine to keep them busy and distracted from what is happening around them.
I heard today that they think the death toll may rise to 50,000 by the time they get through all the rubble and affected areas.
Two positive things have come from this so far though. China has been accepting aid and workers this week from Taiwan and Japan. Their relationships have been a little rocky but it's been awesome to see these two neighboring islands get over that and come to help the Chinese people. Also, there has been so much drama and hype about the olympics since it's now less than 100 days away. There has been a lot of negativity against China and a lot of anger from Chinese people against those who are boycotting the olympics. This was a wake up call that there are more important things in life....like the people of the country. Hopefully people from other countries can take a break from knocking China for certain policies and actions and start caring about the common people.