The Flu Fiasco

I have tried everything to keep healthy and strong, yet I doubt any number of vitamins, orange juice, sleep or washing my hands is going to help. A week ago I came down with a minor cold, and within days I found myself with what I like to believe was pneumonia (or it sure felt like it). After 36 hours of not being able to get out of bed, I made it to the pharmacist, and went to work Monday morning. It is Wednesday night and I still have intense coughing and shortness of breath occasionally. If I had gone into the doctor, I am sure they would have said I have the flu.

Everyone here is getting the flu, or some sort of it. Half the teachers are sick, and half the students are not at school due to being sick. The flu is unavoidable here, and it is extremely frustrating to me. I have not gone running in a week, and have not enjoyed the beautiful outside weather. I thought I had built up such a strong immune system before coming here. I was sick for the first 6 months of working at Fraser, but then had stayed healthy until coming to Korea. I argue that I should be able to fight off these germs, but I am told that this is a new environment and new children. Maybe I just don’t like to accept the fact that I am just going to be sick constantly for the next few months.

H1N1 is an extreme fear here. If you are ill, you wear a mask. If you are afraid of getting ill, you wear a mask- both children and adults alike. The masks are very similar to doctor masks, except they only cover the mouth. Some children have really cute ones though- e.g. some of my kids have a bear face on theirs. I have many students that come to class wearing masks. Parents are very fearful of their children getting the flu, since past children have died from it. I do not know facts or statistics from this, it is just info I receive from Korean co-workers. We have 2 children in our kindergarten class that will be gone for a month from school because they are currently sick, and their parents do not want them to get worse. Other parents are deciding on whether or not they should keep their children home as well.

Since at ECC we are an English Academy, and children come to our school after their regular day at school, parents can choose to send their children or not. (IVY Kids is school for Kindergartners- a language immersion school) Many students have not come to ECC because there regular school has closed for a few days do to H1N1. I am not sure what it is like back home, but I am blown away by how many schools have closed due to this. I understand it is a serious issue, but I do not believe that many children have H1N1, and that instead it is closed due to the fear of the “flu”.

We can only hope that so many children are absent at our school it needs to close for a few days. Since some classes already have been cancelled since no kids showed up, I think this will stay as just a hope…