A month in Changsha.
Dear All, This is the third time I have tried to send this blog - I am hoping third time lucky!! Last time I wrote a great blog - all 90 minutes of it - and then it disappeared into the ether.
So, I have been here a month, so have found out a bit more around Changsha and can update you on
Butterfly.
First, Butterfly... We still have the same number of children as we haven't yet moved into our new premises. We keep hoping "it will be in 2 weeks" but it doesn't happen. We really need the space as the children, mostly, are quite well and need to be able to play constructively and whizz around a bit. We have 3 waiting for adoptive parents to be able to take them away, two more with adoption papers going through. One little chap will be able to rest in peace soon. Another is in Shanghai being assessed for potential heart surgery. He needs this to live, but it may sadly be too late. If he can have it there will be a flurry of fund raising activity as Butterfly will have to pay. One way and another we shall get more babies without increasing the number of cots, but we can take another 10 babies on top of that when we move. Our 'new boy' Luke I wrote about last time is doing very well; he's put on 2 lbs in weight and looks totally different from the worried 'old man' we took in - we still are not sure what is wrong with him and maybe never shall know, but he's OK. In our flat we have a new volunteer who has been with us for 2 weeks and will be with us for another 2 and, this weekend, we have another volunteer who will be staying for 6 months. Both these new girls are newly qualified paediatric nurses from Ireland so good to get different ideas and information. I have been carrying on turning out clothes when there are too many of us around - I am going, now, to take quite a lot of not needed clothing with me to the Midwifery with Altitude children which is good.
So, Changsha... I've gradually been looking around and finding better things about this huge city. With 'the girls' (our flat and Lana - long term volunteer who looks after the volunteers and does fund raising) we have been out to dinner - dumplings and 'typical local Chinese'. One night we went to 'the mountain' which is across the river and quite high. We took a bus up and joined with loads of locals to watch the Saturday night fireworks which was great. A lovely clear evening for a change, good atmosphere and good fireworks. Lovely views of Changsha and its lights at night, with all the tall buildings and the river. We walked all the way down and felt it on our legs the next day. Another day, the 'new girl' and I went to the island in the middle of the river and walked to the end to the enormous statue of Chairman Mao as a young man - just his head with his hair blowing in the wind - looks a bit like Beethoven! We started off in sun and then the heavens suddenly opened and we got completely drowned in minutes. We have had loads of rain, chunky dollops usually but I am told by a local that, on 1st May, the sun comes out. Yesterday it poured, thunder, etc. all day but, today, so far, it is sunny-ish. I have found a roof terrace where you can hang out washing so my sheets are out there with me looking nervously out of the window. The humidity, however, is sometimes overwhelming, although some days it can be sunny and very pleasant. The river is nice-ish - wide with Changsha on either side, and the island in the middle. Pleasant gardens along the river bank. The girls and I also visited a pretty park - quite big, not far from our flat with lakes, fishing ponds and ponds with fish, lots of trees and shrubs - mostly azaleas which are nearly over but still attractive, and some good walking around. We get around by bus - you can go anywhere for 18p. Lots of things here are really cheap - lunch of mixed fried rice, or boiled rice and different veg. for 60p - I don't bother to take lunch to work now! You can go out for dinner for about GBP2 -3 - the other day we went to a posh restaurant for one of the girls' birthday - that was GBP5 including beer. (Wine is expensive and not good on the whole..) I had my hair cut for GBP4.50 and Lyn (Butterfly boss) and I went for a massage the other day - 90 minutes worth of kneading, pummelling, pressure pointing and reflexology for GBP9. However, clothes worth buying are pretty much the same price as at home and an kind of 'international' food - eg muesli, tinned corn,pasta - is expensive.
China generally... Still on the subject of food - we have a 'wet market' near us which goes on for several streets. There are most vegetables and fruit we know and some we don't sold everywhere - really nice condition and variety, displayed directly on the street, maybe onto cardboard/plastic sheets on the street, on trestle tables. There is meat of every kind, including live frogs, turtles, chickens, ducks which can be slaughtered for you as you wait (which is a no thanks for me!) - fish, eels, which you buy live in plastic bags and take them home on the bus, prawns running around, giant scallops, and I am told there is a dog meat street near here which I hope never to come across. If you have a meat dish in the restaurant it is a challenge and all meat is just served cut into chunks with whatever bit it is just joined on - bone, gristle, chickens feet, heads, and intestines, pigs trotters and all 'insides' are a luxury. We were invited to a birthday party of one of the Ayi's (nannies) and there was a whole chicken or two in one pot, a questionable fish in another, eels, tripe, and something of which origin we never discovered. Add chopsticks and noodles into all that and the whole meal is still memorable!! But it was still a happy party! For fruit, my favourite is pineapple - they choose a good one, skin it, then cut all the eyes out sort of diagonally which makes the pineapple appear as a spiral. Top and bottom come off and it is gorgeous - always just right ripeness. That is 50 p. max.
Non-food.. The roads are constantly being dug up. Usually onto the pavement so, on the pavement you have piles of sand and brick (I have seen women in high heels climbing over these) or, if there is a gap,the scooters usually choose the pavement to ride on and the cars park in between the bricks. It is marginally better to walk on the road - at least you can hear the cars (but not the scooters). When they put the road back together they often don't fill in around manhole covers and the patches are just anyhow. A bus ride is always a bone shaker and I'm not sure how the busses last.
The streets are clean, however, as about every 200 yeards there is a street sweeper in his/her high vis jacket and coolie hat using a besom and dustpan on a long stick. Folk just chuck stuff onto the streets as its going to get picked up anyway. There is an industry in 'recycling' - most bins you pass have people looking through with their bags of plastic, cardboard, glass, getting what they can. They pile it into huge plastic bags and ride it away on their bicycle to somewhere which pays them peanuts for it. The street sweepers have first pickings and their barrows will have bags of everything dangling from them. However, the buildings are terrible. We are living in a block which is just 10 years old and I would have put it at 60 plus. The outside is just filthy, inside the flats are damp, although quite nicely done up, but the water, gas, etc. comes and goes. All the flats are the same which gives the city a very dingy look during the day (at night it looks very different with all the lights).
Etc. I still never see a non-Chinese face and people still stare and say hello. I have had to have my photo taken several times - once with a wedding couple! There are not even other Asian or black faces around, just Chinese. So all the parks, etc.they have here are just for their own benefit, which is nice.
They love fireworks and firecrackers. About 3 or 4 times a day you hear quite long displays of fireworks being set off - even though you can't see them in the daylight through the smog!
And fashion... Mostly around here people are very casual, track suits, jeans (which suits me fine!). High fashion you don't see, as we would recognise it. What we would think of as a cocktail dress (quite often with a netting skirt like a tutu or long netting) is often worn with leggings and trainers and a mickey mouse T-shirt on the top. It is not unusual to go out shopping in your pyjamas - with spangledy high heels. The latest fashion accessory are spectacles without glass and walls of them are displayed in shops like Accessorize - it is quite strange to see people wearing them.
Well, enough, I think. I hope you get this this time. I am hoping soon to get away for a weekend to the area where they filmed some of 'Avatar ' - the bits with the tall thin mountains. Its meant to be very amazing. I was going this weekend but our rota has changed so we can give special care to our poor little boy in his last few days. We are all doing different shifts for 24 hour cover. However, I think there will still be an opportunity to get there. And, in 3 weeks time I shall be off to Hong Kong for 3 days to renew my visa so that I can carry on with my travel plans in China. A month today I meet up with Mary and start my next adventure - but I will try and write a final blog before then: I shall be incommunicado for a few weeks from that time.
Fingers crossed this gets to you,
With love,
Liz
Dear All, This is the third time I have tried to send this blog - I am hoping third time lucky!! Last time I wrote a great blog - all 90 minutes of it - and then it disappeared into the ether.
So, I have been here a month, so have found out a bit more around Changsha and can update you on
Butterfly.
First, Butterfly... We still have the same number of children as we haven't yet moved into our new premises. We keep hoping "it will be in 2 weeks" but it doesn't happen. We really need the space as the children, mostly, are quite well and need to be able to play constructively and whizz around a bit. We have 3 waiting for adoptive parents to be able to take them away, two more with adoption papers going through. One little chap will be able to rest in peace soon. Another is in Shanghai being assessed for potential heart surgery. He needs this to live, but it may sadly be too late. If he can have it there will be a flurry of fund raising activity as Butterfly will have to pay. One way and another we shall get more babies without increasing the number of cots, but we can take another 10 babies on top of that when we move. Our 'new boy' Luke I wrote about last time is doing very well; he's put on 2 lbs in weight and looks totally different from the worried 'old man' we took in - we still are not sure what is wrong with him and maybe never shall know, but he's OK. In our flat we have a new volunteer who has been with us for 2 weeks and will be with us for another 2 and, this weekend, we have another volunteer who will be staying for 6 months. Both these new girls are newly qualified paediatric nurses from Ireland so good to get different ideas and information. I have been carrying on turning out clothes when there are too many of us around - I am going, now, to take quite a lot of not needed clothing with me to the Midwifery with Altitude children which is good.
So, Changsha... I've gradually been looking around and finding better things about this huge city. With 'the girls' (our flat and Lana - long term volunteer who looks after the volunteers and does fund raising) we have been out to dinner - dumplings and 'typical local Chinese'. One night we went to 'the mountain' which is across the river and quite high. We took a bus up and joined with loads of locals to watch the Saturday night fireworks which was great. A lovely clear evening for a change, good atmosphere and good fireworks. Lovely views of Changsha and its lights at night, with all the tall buildings and the river. We walked all the way down and felt it on our legs the next day. Another day, the 'new girl' and I went to the island in the middle of the river and walked to the end to the enormous statue of Chairman Mao as a young man - just his head with his hair blowing in the wind - looks a bit like Beethoven! We started off in sun and then the heavens suddenly opened and we got completely drowned in minutes. We have had loads of rain, chunky dollops usually but I am told by a local that, on 1st May, the sun comes out. Yesterday it poured, thunder, etc. all day but, today, so far, it is sunny-ish. I have found a roof terrace where you can hang out washing so my sheets are out there with me looking nervously out of the window. The humidity, however, is sometimes overwhelming, although some days it can be sunny and very pleasant. The river is nice-ish - wide with Changsha on either side, and the island in the middle. Pleasant gardens along the river bank. The girls and I also visited a pretty park - quite big, not far from our flat with lakes, fishing ponds and ponds with fish, lots of trees and shrubs - mostly azaleas which are nearly over but still attractive, and some good walking around. We get around by bus - you can go anywhere for 18p. Lots of things here are really cheap - lunch of mixed fried rice, or boiled rice and different veg. for 60p - I don't bother to take lunch to work now! You can go out for dinner for about GBP2 -3 - the other day we went to a posh restaurant for one of the girls' birthday - that was GBP5 including beer. (Wine is expensive and not good on the whole..) I had my hair cut for GBP4.50 and Lyn (Butterfly boss) and I went for a massage the other day - 90 minutes worth of kneading, pummelling, pressure pointing and reflexology for GBP9. However, clothes worth buying are pretty much the same price as at home and an kind of 'international' food - eg muesli, tinned corn,pasta - is expensive.
China generally... Still on the subject of food - we have a 'wet market' near us which goes on for several streets. There are most vegetables and fruit we know and some we don't sold everywhere - really nice condition and variety, displayed directly on the street, maybe onto cardboard/plastic sheets on the street, on trestle tables. There is meat of every kind, including live frogs, turtles, chickens, ducks which can be slaughtered for you as you wait (which is a no thanks for me!) - fish, eels, which you buy live in plastic bags and take them home on the bus, prawns running around, giant scallops, and I am told there is a dog meat street near here which I hope never to come across. If you have a meat dish in the restaurant it is a challenge and all meat is just served cut into chunks with whatever bit it is just joined on - bone, gristle, chickens feet, heads, and intestines, pigs trotters and all 'insides' are a luxury. We were invited to a birthday party of one of the Ayi's (nannies) and there was a whole chicken or two in one pot, a questionable fish in another, eels, tripe, and something of which origin we never discovered. Add chopsticks and noodles into all that and the whole meal is still memorable!! But it was still a happy party! For fruit, my favourite is pineapple - they choose a good one, skin it, then cut all the eyes out sort of diagonally which makes the pineapple appear as a spiral. Top and bottom come off and it is gorgeous - always just right ripeness. That is 50 p. max.
Non-food.. The roads are constantly being dug up. Usually onto the pavement so, on the pavement you have piles of sand and brick (I have seen women in high heels climbing over these) or, if there is a gap,the scooters usually choose the pavement to ride on and the cars park in between the bricks. It is marginally better to walk on the road - at least you can hear the cars (but not the scooters). When they put the road back together they often don't fill in around manhole covers and the patches are just anyhow. A bus ride is always a bone shaker and I'm not sure how the busses last.
The streets are clean, however, as about every 200 yeards there is a street sweeper in his/her high vis jacket and coolie hat using a besom and dustpan on a long stick. Folk just chuck stuff onto the streets as its going to get picked up anyway. There is an industry in 'recycling' - most bins you pass have people looking through with their bags of plastic, cardboard, glass, getting what they can. They pile it into huge plastic bags and ride it away on their bicycle to somewhere which pays them peanuts for it. The street sweepers have first pickings and their barrows will have bags of everything dangling from them. However, the buildings are terrible. We are living in a block which is just 10 years old and I would have put it at 60 plus. The outside is just filthy, inside the flats are damp, although quite nicely done up, but the water, gas, etc. comes and goes. All the flats are the same which gives the city a very dingy look during the day (at night it looks very different with all the lights).
Etc. I still never see a non-Chinese face and people still stare and say hello. I have had to have my photo taken several times - once with a wedding couple! There are not even other Asian or black faces around, just Chinese. So all the parks, etc.they have here are just for their own benefit, which is nice.
They love fireworks and firecrackers. About 3 or 4 times a day you hear quite long displays of fireworks being set off - even though you can't see them in the daylight through the smog!
And fashion... Mostly around here people are very casual, track suits, jeans (which suits me fine!). High fashion you don't see, as we would recognise it. What we would think of as a cocktail dress (quite often with a netting skirt like a tutu or long netting) is often worn with leggings and trainers and a mickey mouse T-shirt on the top. It is not unusual to go out shopping in your pyjamas - with spangledy high heels. The latest fashion accessory are spectacles without glass and walls of them are displayed in shops like Accessorize - it is quite strange to see people wearing them.
Well, enough, I think. I hope you get this this time. I am hoping soon to get away for a weekend to the area where they filmed some of 'Avatar ' - the bits with the tall thin mountains. Its meant to be very amazing. I was going this weekend but our rota has changed so we can give special care to our poor little boy in his last few days. We are all doing different shifts for 24 hour cover. However, I think there will still be an opportunity to get there. And, in 3 weeks time I shall be off to Hong Kong for 3 days to renew my visa so that I can carry on with my travel plans in China. A month today I meet up with Mary and start my next adventure - but I will try and write a final blog before then: I shall be incommunicado for a few weeks from that time.
Fingers crossed this gets to you,
With love,
Liz
Just catching up. You paint a really realistic picture of where you are, before you know it, it will be time to come home. Continue to enjoy and give more Cornish hugs to those littleuns. Now going to read your other posts..... Penny
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