Hi all (from Rog),
I am back in Qiu Bei at the hotel. All is well here & hope there too.
Leaving Jui Dao Ma Lu
We had too many people to make it to town with just one trip so Yuan brought Steve, Ong, Sophie, and me then went back to get the rest of our crew. Our 1 !/2 hour trip to town was slowed by many animals in the road and a market in a town that we came through. The people we slowly drove past in the market town just stared at me like I was an alien (well, I guess that is what I am here!)
Village Farewell Festival
Last night we ate dinner in the village where we have been tenting. The men sat around one small table on short stools and we were served with bowl after bowl of food that everyone just helped themselves to using their chopsticks. There were plain dishes (potatoes, yams, tofu, and fried bread) that were intended for dipping in a special hot sauce. Also spicy fish (carp?) complete with heads, greens, pork, chicken feet (& we know what they'd been walking through), roots, and rice. There was also a dish of chicken livers mixed with chicken blood (not my favorite). Jenny brought smoked salmon & we'd bought fresh tangerines at the market to pass out. Bet you know what Jane ate. This was all preceded with cigarettes being passed all around (to help chase away the flies?) and more bowls filled with beer for each person. After many toasts we were told that the next one was "bottoms up" and the bowls were refilled. Some of the men played a drinking game a bit like rock, paper scissors where the loser had to take a drink. They wanted us to play, too, but after one short round we were ready to call it quits for the night even though it wasn't late.
Final Village Meeting
We met with the villagers again this morning and they seemed to be very happy with the help we have given them. We built solar lights, built a cover over the latrine, drilled for water, played with and read to the kids, and Jenny taught the women to sew and some of them got sewing machines. Xiang, the young man that I trained to put solar lights together, was very appreciative. He shook my hand and even hugged me as we said goodbye. He put five solar lights together while we were there and yesterday we took three of the lights to a village where there is no electricity.
Le Hong Ka
That village (with no electricity) was in a beautiful valley with a good supply of water (coming from a seep in the side of the mountain). The people and children were very clean and their crops looked good even though they have had three years of drought. The leader of the village started raising goats four years ago. They now have about 100 goats that look very healthy. The men took us to visit a cave near their village. We were interested to see what possibilities there might be for water inside the mountain. It was steep and dark with stalactites and stagmites, curtains, and combs formed by the action of water in the limestone cave. I didn't see any life in the cave, but Steve saw a couple of wood rats about a foot long! Jane assessed the children's education level (which was higher than any other children she'd assessed) and left word cards & books so the oldest girl can teach the younger ones. Jan also talked to the ladies about hygiene and such...and they were very responsive to wearing the washable menstral pads. Though this has been the nicest village we'd visited, they had lost 7 of their youth recently to city life. As we left, many of the people followed us up a steep trail to the the road where we had parked the SUV and we passed out a few treats as we said good bye. Someone from the village had put a large bag of hard boiled eggs (still warm!) in the car for us to enjoy on our trip back. It was very thoughtful and we enjoyed them as we bounced along the rough mountain road overlooking beautiful valleys and terraces. If our driver, Yuan hadn't proven himself to be very careful we might have been scared as the road (if you can call it that) was narrow with no guard rails and the drop was often 50- 100 ft. -- sometimes several hundred feet.
