Every December 1st, people from all walks of life from around the world gather to reflect and show support for those living with HIV and AIDS. World AIDS Day, first established in 1988, is also a time for friends, family, community members and students to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic. Students at Yangtze Normal University in Fuling, China are no exception.

Peace Corps Volunteers in China entering their second summer of service are required to organize a two week teacher training program called "Summer Project." Volunteers travel from their sites to one summer training location. Luckily for me, traveling was not an issue; my university in Fuling plays host to this project every summer. Even though I had the luxury of living in my own apartment and avoided the daunting task of traveling in China, I had been preparing for this two week event for the last two months. However, the preparation paid off. After thirteen days of lectures, lessons, presentations, and activities, over fifty Chinese middle school English teachers from the surrounding countryside left Fuling with Western teaching methodologies and ideas to use in their own classrooms.

Monday, June 2, 2008 marked the three week anniversary of China’s horrific earthquake that has killed almost 70,000 people and destroyed millions of homes; leaving over four million people in Sichuan province homeless. Along with the extremely high death toll, which continues to rise on a daily basis, close to 20,000 people are still missing. Due to the constant (and sometimes overwhelming) amount of new information that is being sent my way, either from Peace Corps, teachers, students, friends, or the locals on the street, I had started to tune out much of the material that was being presented to me. My focus was to teach, nothing more and nothing less.

As we all know, a massive earthquake (7.9) struck Sichuan province in China on Monday, May 12, 2008. Even though I am six hours away from this area in Fuling, I still felt the shock. I was cleaning my kitchen floor and realized the ground was moving. However, I thought it was from the construction work taking place in the apartment below. After hearing and seeing students run from the campus library, I quickly realized it was an earthquake. Throwing on some shoes, I walked outside (the last to leave the apartment building) and found one of my teacher friends. Nadia (her English name) told me this was the first real earthquake in Fuling she could remember. After watching students and staff panic for about twenty minutes, I was the first to return to my apartment and continued cleaning my kitchen floor.

The jobs, duties and expectations of a Peace Corps Volunteer extend far beyond teaching English in the classroom. Along with our daily routine, we are encouraged to share aspects of western culture with our Chinese students. During the course of this year, my sitemates and I have hosted celebrations for Halloween and Christmas. Along with teaching our students the ideas and traditions of western holidays, we have organized educational activities for World AIDS Day, International Women's Day and Global Earth Day.