Author: karenxiao

Mealtime is quite a spectacle at Bethel. The room is always loud from kids screaming to their friends a few tables away (they probably don’t realize how far away the person they’re trying to talk to is).

The kids all eat porridge with various vegetables and other foods mixed in it. Since they can’t see what they’re eating, I suppose in the end all their food gets mixed together anyways.

Crystal is allergic to onions, so I always help her pick out the onions in case she accidentally eats one.

The huge room where all the kids eat. The boys sit on the left, the girls sit on the right and the older kids, volunteers, and staff sit at the tables in the back

A lot of the kids can’t eat by themselves, so the nannies stand over them and shove spoonfuls of food into their mouths

Gui Gui stuffing his face haha…what the heck, it’s so much easier to just stick your face in the bowl

 

Christy, the orientation and mobility teacher (the person who teaches the kids how to use their canes) did a workshop with us today, teaching us how to use the walking canes, how to guide and work with blind people, and just in general, what it’s like being blind. So we put on blindfolds and for an hour, walked in the shoes of these kids.

Until now, I’d never really seriously thought about what it was like being blind. Sure, when I was little I walked around with my eyes closed and that sort of thing, but I’d never met and spent extended amounts of time with a blind person before. The time I’ve spent at Bethel with the kids and with Crystal has really made me think about how difficult life is for blind people.

1. Walking up and down the stairs was a pretty terrifying experience and at all times, I was really scared of running into something and falling.

2. I usually have a pretty good sense of direction, but with the blindfolds on, I couldn’t tell where I was facing at all and found myself walking in the wrong direction a lot. Orientation is another part of what Christy has to teach the kids because knowing where you’re facing is a big part of being able to get around.

3. Walking canes are great! For part of the exercise, we walked down the hill to where the kids lived. We felt like we were walking forever! But maybe that was because we were walking really slowly…

4. Sounds really helped orient me. One of the classrooms was playing music, so from the sound of the music, I knew whether I was getting closer or farther away to the end of the hallway. It’s also the only way to recognize people. The kids have learned to recognize me by my voice. Or sometimes, they’ll feel by bracelet and know that it’s me.

I guess this experience really showed me how much harder life would be as a blind person. At the end of the day, I’m able to take off my blindfolds, say that was a fun experience and carry on with my life. However, these kids don’t have that option; this is their reality. Then, on the other hand, I suppose, I may not be able to imagine life without vision, but since this is all they know, life might not be so bad.

Last night, the kids were invited to perform in a concert celebrating Children’s Day at the Beijing Children’s Palace, 少年宫. It was a typical over the top, hectic, and wonderfully unorganized government-sponsored event. We arrived and it was clear that none of the nannies or kids even knew where we were going before they got on the bus. When we got there, no one really told us what we were doing either. Apparently the kids were going to sing two songs! Alright!

They sat the kids down in the front row, in front of a bunch of kids from a school for the deaf. Why they decided to put kids that can’t see in the front and kids that can’t hear in the back is still a mystery to me. It was wonderful because none of the performers knew what they were doing and the organizers ran around like crazy, yet somehow they were able to put on a picture-perfect show.

As always, the kids were great. The older kids in the choir sang and the little ones sat in the audience. The entire time the older kids in the choir were performing, little Yang An sat there saying “I wanna go on stage too!!” Later, I brought Yang An to the bathroom and he peed all over his pants. Poor Yang An.

Today, June 1, is 六一儿童节, or Children’s Day. At Bethel, it was an absolutely hectic day because tons of people, organizations and companies came to visit the kids, bring presents, and do activities with them.

We had a church’s worship team come play a concert for the kids. These women from a company in Beijing came with a huge cake and stayed to play with the kids. A gymnastics Olympics gold medalist came and signed autographs and helped plant trees. Basically, the entire day, people were coming in and out.

The kids, however, had a great time!

Michael is 11 and a really really smart boy. He’s only been at Bethel for 3 years, but he has learned everything really fast. I teach his English class in the mornings and he gets really excited when I read a book to him in English and have him write it down in braille.

Michael also really likes playing piano and said he wants to be a pianist when he grows up!

Crystal is one of the volunteers that I met at Bethel. She was here for six months as a consultant for Bethel because she is blind herself and has accomplished so many amazing things as a blind person.

In China in a fairly rural area where she would’ve been barred from doing a lot of things, her parents were really adamant about her learning how to read and get an education. When the local school refused to accept her because she was blind, she tested into an even better high school and she moved to Beijing with her mom.

She then went on to be a gold medalist runner in the Paralympics and became a really great flute player. She was eventually able to go to Sweden to study music at a conservatory and go to college.

Now she works for a PR firm in Sweden and is pretty much self-sufficient as a blind person. Crystal was really a really inspiring person and taught me so much about the difficulties of being a blind person – things I hadn’t really thought about before.

She said that her company would send her to business meetings because as a blind person, she couldn’t judge someone based on their appearance. Therefore, she was especially attuned to the things a person said and the way they spoke. As a result she was pretty good and accurate at judging people and a company.

She said that because she was a blind person, she could also go speak to the janitor of a company (something that normal “businesspeople” wouldn’t do on a business trip). She said that the attitudes of the lowest level employees of a company are a great reflector of how a company is and how it functions.

 

I learned so much from Crystal during the short time I spent with her at Bethel. She was such a happy person with such a positive outlook on life, in spite of her disabilities. Crystal gave me a lot of hope in people, just like she gave a lot of hope to all the children at Bethel who were blind and hoped for a better life.

Cha Lu, or LuLu as everyone calls him, is an ADORABLE three year old little boy. Everyone loves him because he is really cute and cuddly and likes being held.

Lou is in my “Panda” English class and is quite the chatterbox. He’s really curious and is always asking “What is this? What is that?” I can’t get him to be quiet and sit still in class, but he’s just so darn cute that I can’t get mad at him!

when they turn on the irrigation system to water the plants in the fields during the day, it messes up the water pressure in the volunteer’s building, so everyday we come home and hope that there’s going to be running water for the night! two nights ago, we didn’t have running water. last night, we didn’t have hot water, so i had to take a shower in the freezing cold. well, that’s rural china for you!

Every month, Bethel has a joint event with the kids from the International Academy of Beijing (IAB). Each kid is paired up with a “buddy” from IAB and they go on field trips together, have events, and write each other notes, etc.

This month, the activity is a sports day. The kids were divided into four teams based on color and competed in relay races, long jump, bean bag toss and tug of war.

Lining up the teams and getting ready for the relay race.

Alan with his “buddies” and all their awards! Go Red Team!

Cindy is so excited about her prizes!