ILP (International Language Program): a disaster story.
It all started with a (really) crappy situation. I was a modern-day Rapunzel, locked in her town, searching for a way out. While scrolling through Instagram and the endless amount of Utah photographers (no idea why they were all from Utah?) I saw something interesting…
Something that I was searching for.
“The International Language Program.”
So I dove deeper. I’m talking about stalking your ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s mom’s sister’s friend’s neighbor’s dog- deep. It seemed like the perfect way for me to get out of my hell as well as see the world.
“ILP focuses on providing a meaningful semester abroad experience for college-age volunteers who make a difference by helping children in foreign countries learn the English language through a friendly and fun atmosphere.” — I mean this seemed absolutely perfect, right? Even still to this day.
So there I go — I applied in the Winter of 2017, hoping that I may go straight away, but I didn’t end up going until the Spring of 2019.
The entire beginning of the program was a mess. With more than 20 people working in their office, you’d think they’d be able to at least answer a phone right? Wrong. The dates of the program kept getting pushed back and then pushed forward. My city kept changing. More dues kept coming up. At first, I was going to Poland — no wait, now it’s Mexico — oh hold on, now it’s China.
Okay, China it is! Let’s stop there, that feels like a real adventure. That’s what I’m looking for.
Well, I had a pit in my stomach the day I moved to Zhongshan, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I was moving to China, but simply due to the instability I had already been facing with this company.
The fun really began once we touched down in Chinatown.
Now there are nearly 10 girls living in one apartment, in a strange new country. There are bound to be problems, of course. What none of us anticipated, however, was that along with the common roommate problems that we faced, we would have far greater concerns that soon approached. Concerns that surprisingly were with those in charge of ILP.
To make a Harry Potter — 300+ words each story short, our apartment was in a very unlivable condition. There was black mold in our air conditioner units, which were directly above our heads at night. We had issues with our “Head Teacher” who gets paid to come and be our voice. Well, she got paid, but she was certainly not our voice. We had issues with the school that we taught at, where we received constant changes in scheduling and planning. The biggest issue that we faced however came roughly a month and a half into our ‘supposed to be 4-month long’ trip.
One lovely spring morning, all seems well in Zhongshan, China. We had roughly 15 minutes left of our classes, then we had lunch and could head home for the day. Of course, that was not the case on this very memorable day. Suddenly our coordinator ran into the classrooms and told us to pack our things, class was over. Confused, we quickly gathered our belongings and ran outside. Once outside, we were told to get into one of two cars waiting for us. Of course, we were not so willing to hop in a random car in China. So, after much debate, we got in the car and asked the driver “What is going on?” The response was, “I do not speak English.”
After what seemed like a car ride from hell, the longest car ride of our lives, we approached our apartment building. We were finally told that the government was coming and doing rounds at the schools and we, much to our surprise, were not supposed to be there.
Not supposed to be there? Did we not just pay thousands of dollars to come to China for a teaching program?
What followed after this insane morning still baffles me, even today. We found out, from another teacher, not from those in charge, that the government did rounds at another school except those teachers did not make it out in time. They were “caught.” Drug tested, held at gunpoint, and cell phones were taken away. Those in charge of our lovely program neglected to tell anybody (I’m talking teachers abroad, parents — anybody) about this incident. When we found out, we told our parents and hell broke loose.
They started calling and calling the millions of people who don’t answer their phones over at ILP. Finally, the program director answered, gave nearly no information, and then continued to spread lies to us.
Come to find out, whatever visa they set up for us was not the proper visa for being a volunteer English teacher. The government in China is conducted in a way where each region is allowed its own smaller government (essentially). Our lovely region in Zhongshan just so happened to be cracking down on those who volunteer in China, because so many were coming over as “volunteers” yet getting paid.
This was not the case for us. We paid to get there, but we did not get paid.
After two nights of anxiety, my group decided we did not want to be sitting ducks. Slowly waiting for the government to come and get us even though we did nothing wrong. So we took a trip. We went to Guangzhou, China for the weekend. Of course, this was “not allowed” according to ILP, but we did it regardless.
Once in Guangzhou, we finally received a phone call. We were given three options and told to make our decision that night.
1). Stay in China, take Chinese lessons at the school (that we were not allowed to be at), and stay the duration of the program- with no food covered. — So basically, stay in China, possibly get busted for being there, and pay for four months worth of food, which was supposed to be covered by ILP.
2). Leave the next day with no refund for anything.
3). Leave in a week, stay long enough to travel, yet have the constant fear of getting into trouble, as our fellow teachers did, without any food or accommodation covered (which again, we all had planned for).
As you can see, none of these options was ideal or even remotely realistic when one considers the amount of money we spent getting there. We all decided that after our time in China which was full of fighting with our Head Teacher, going to the Chinese hospital for illness due to the black mold, and lies from our director, we just wanted out.
We all packed up our four months-long worth of objects and marched to the airport with our heads held extremely low because, despite all of this, we loved China. We left that beautiful country out nearly $4,000- thanks to ILP. Some of us left that beautiful country, with the loss of hearing in one ear (yours truly), 20 lbs lighter due to intense flu, and with a collapsed rib- thanks to ILP.
All of those thousands of girls that I watched from afar having the time of their lives seemed so distant to me once I returned home. I would have loved this opportunity to work out as we spent an obscene amount of money on it. However, for whatever reason, it did not. For whatever reason, ILP is still floating. For whatever reason, a bunch of girls who wanted to do good got scammed by a company led by a monster.
China is a beautiful country to travel to — if you get the chance please do take it. Just don’t trust companies that you think you may be able to trust. You just never know. I was so excited to live in China and it was taken away from me just as quickly as I got there.
So for many reasons, we all left that situation, that company, that country- a lot smarter, more cautious, and very, very pissed off.
