Alright, so when i last left you I was about to head over to Chengdu and that is where I will begin.
Monday morning Marcus and I got up, started to get ready and then we me Alex and headed to the airport. Now this is the new fricken HUGE Beijing airport terminal #3. It is probably one of the largest man made structures there are around right now. Besides being BIG it also has a Burger King, which Marcus had to stop at before we got on the plane. I understand this because living in China you have, relatively, not as many options/varieties of food. For about 30 mins Marcus was in heaven and then we were off.
The plane ride over wasn't all that great, but then again not many flights in China are. We landed in Chengdu and then went to the hotel where Alex's father works. The 4 of us went out to eat at a local restaurant and then went back to the hotel. Marcus and Alex wanted to show him pictures of his new grandkids. I decided to take a little walk and explore the area around me. I was out for about 2 hours and I found the normal.....small shops selling odds and ends, restaurants, street food and well, red lights (i.e. brothels) (these are VERY common in China and are a very sad sight) By the time i came back Alex's dad was gone and we all hit the hay for tomorrow.
The next morning we all got up and meet Jackie, a leader in the church and former friend from JingZhou. He pointed us the way to the hostel where we would be staying for the next week. It was the Dreams Travels Youth Hostel! YAY! (ok so this is no 5 star hotel, but really it was cheap and did the job and that is what i really cared about.)
When we first got there most of the families had already arrived. I went to a room just to put down my stuff and there met some of the kids. I wasn't really, "surprised" by what I saw, rather wondering how in the world i was going to communicate with them. In China there is the, "standard" language, what we call Mandarin, and then there are the thousands of local dialects. There is the almost a different language for every city, so for me know like, 20 words in Mandarin, I knew that talking to these kids was going to be......interesting to say the least.
Ok, now I have mentioned a bit about where these kids have come from but I haven’t yet told their specific stories or how they got there, so let’s rewind time…..(insert Wayne’s World doh doh doh doh, doh doh doh doh, doh doh doh doh)
Almost a year ago an earthquake hit near Chengdu, China. (Check Here, Here and Here). Well the church that I was with working with wanted to help the people that were affected by the earthquake and started sending people from the church over to the places hit hard. While they were there they started to meet families in the hospitals. Through these connections they met the kids that we worked with in Chengdu. So here they are….
From Chengdu Kids
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Ma Cong
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Ping Ping
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Shang Ting - She was one of the last people to be pulled out alive. She was buried for 5 days, and basically heard her classmates expire around her. She is in a wheel chair because she has two prosthesis.
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| From Chengdu Kids |
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Si Yu (aka Cutie) - She was saved when her teacher grabbed her before the classroom was about the be filled by a landslide. They made it out the door and the teacher used her body as cover as the landslide hit them. The teacher died, but Si Yu survived. She received a deep gash in her leg from heel of the shoe her teacher was wearing that came off and dug into her.
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| From Chengdu Kids |
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| From Chengdu Kids |
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Wen Jing
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Yin Fun Qun
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Zhao Chen - He was buried for a day and then was pulled out. But because there were so many kids/people that needed to be moved, that he had to lay on the ground for a day. From there he went to a field hospital, where he had to under go an amputation from below the knee without anesthesia. Because of the amount of people going to the hospital and that many of the regular hospitals in the area had collapsed many places had run out of anesthesia, so many people had to do without it.
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| From Chengdu Kids |
Zhu Jie
So there are the kids and some of their stories.
The week had a schedule, kinda. For the most part it was this
Morning – (7am-ish) get up for personal devo, then breakfast of steamed dumplings and rice porridge.
After Morning – Singing and lesson
Near Noon – Small groups and English Class
Noon (ish) – Lunch (usually at a restaurant in the area)
Afternoon – outing (think Panda Amsterdam)
After Afternoon – Free time (i.e. Allan updates Twitter)
Evening – Dinner (again restaurant)
Night – Activity/Video
Now that was a loose idea of what we did. It wasn’t always like this, but this was generally what happened.
The part that most affected me was the “English Class”. Basically Marcus and I would teach the kids a few songs and work on their pronunciation. It was fun, but it was a bit frustrating for me as I just couldn’t talk to the kids. There are some things that are universal, such as passing out stickers or small prizes for pronouncing, Tuesday, correctly, but overall I had some limitations. (Note, I have to thank all of the teachers and staff that helped provide supplies for the English class)
Alright, that is all I can get done right now, I will give a finishing post a little later.
Allan
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