May 12, 2008

Today May 12, 2009 at 2:28pm marks the 1 year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that hit China the day after Mother's day last year. I was studying dance with BYU last summer in China and at the time of the earthquake we were at a university in Chengdu, the capitol of China's Sichuan province, which was also the province the earthquake hit, Chengdu being only about 50 miles from the epic center. I remember we were in class that afternoon (like 1 in the morning Utah time) we were working on a writing assignment with a partner. We were all in a studio on the 3rd floor of the 7 story building. It was quiet, but then a very loud noise came which sounded like a gush of wind or very loud cloggers or tap dancers above us. I looked up at the ceiling then down at everyone else as the building began to shake. One of the girls said "earthquake," very calm actually and everyone ran to a very large door frame in the studio. There were about 20 of us from BYU studying so some others ran to the bathroom door frames next to the studio. I had no idea of what was going to happen. The building was shaking SO hard I thought for sure it was going to come crashing down. Especially as I look around and saw the pieces of the building falling from the inside out. I couldn't even cry. I just held on to my roommate at that time as she cried and I just prayed, "Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father"..... that is all I could say. I saw chinese students from the other classrooms running through the halls franic. Some of our girls got them to calm down and duck their heads and stay low because they really didn't know what to do. One of the girls began to sing "A Child's Prayer" and I joined in but was so frightened I could barely get the words out. I was just thinking about how it would feel when the building collapesed and how our families would react to the incident. Thankfully, after what seemed like hours but was only a matter of minutes the earthquake calmed. Two men ran up the stairs to us seconds after. They were dressed in traditional chinese costumes for tai chi cause they were scheduled to teach us later that day. They hurried us down the stairs (after being told to grab our shoes) and many of the chinese students were crying. I held one girl's hands, she seemed younger than me and was crying. Once outside the building I looked up at where we were in the studio and brokedown in tears! One of my chinese teachers (we called him Will) came to me and gave me a hanky, he was so nice. While we were waiting for the OK to go back up and get our stuff or back to our hotel we called our parents, were entertained by our tai chi teachers, and endured 3 aftershocks. Finally at 11pm we were giving the okay to go back to our hotel. Once at the hotel we were told to sleep outside but it started raining so everyone decided to sleep in the lobby. I wanted to go home. It was so scary because of all the aftershocks that night that I was hoping BYU would just send us home a month and a half early. The next morning I knew that they wouldn't send us home, I just didn't feel like it was time to leave yet. I was right, BYU decided to move us to a different city that weekend.

I learned so much being involved in this experience. I hadn't ever been in a natural disaster of this magnitude. The people that were hosting us at the university were so kind and concerned for us. They kept telling us they had no idea this would happen (of course we knew that :) ) they felt so bad that we had to have that experience. They took such great care of us. The people there are so kind and they really have so much less than us! I loved them and I really miss them right now because I keep thinking about that experience. Two years before I actually went to China I saw the program and knew I needed to go. I don't know if that's the reason why I needed to go but it was definitely a life changing experience. I'm so thankful for it and the people of China and pray for the thousands and thousands of people who lost loved ones that day. Wo ai ni, wo xiang ni zhong guo!!!! (I love and miss you China)

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After the earthquake, outside the university.