Lions with…Headdresses?
These lions were at the backside of one of the Buddhist temples being
reconstructed or newly built. If you look closely, you’ll notice that
what looks like a head-dress on one of them is just a used rag draped
over his head, and you’ll see sawdust and other construction debris
littering the floor. You’ll also see a little tea kettle set on a
brazier to the left…these proud temple guardian lions, surrounded by
workaday reality, rather captured the imagination of this Leo.
Kids & Statues
These next are really my people shots from the mountain. We start,
unsurprisingly, with kids – they’re usually so much more interested in
being photographed. Then we’ll have some young monks walking the
mountain path, in which one of the them steps aside to relieve himself
behind a tree (no, I didn’t photograph that – but it’s why you only
see two people in one shot). His behavior when he saw me behind them
on the trail was adorably embarrassed, which I have to contrast with
the behavior of the very many people I saw in and around Labrang
stepping into ditches or creekbeds or off to the side of the road to
relieve themselves in pretty much full view – seems the attitude there
is closer to what I understand the attitude has been in India –
relieving yourself is the most natural thing in the world, why be
embarrassed about it?! For a Westerner, especially an American, this
can be jarring, of course.
National Geopark
I shot this sign mainly because it indicates this is Kongtong Shan
National Geopark: an interesting way to make sure such an interesting
piece of history is preserved and valued, without resorting to making
a national park of a Daoist sacred mountain as such. :-0
Flood Relief in Pingnan County
Massive floods hit the eastern section of Guangxi in late June. Even
in a country and a region that has known periodic flooding since
prehistory, these floods seem to have stood out in the severity of the
damage to houses and loss of property. Through our work in Nanning,
we’ve developed a pretty strong working relationship with the Public
Health Bureau of Guangxi, and they asked if there was anything we
could do to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the
floods. After an initial exploratory trip on which some basic supplies
were delivered, we decided to focus our efforts on one county that
contained small villages in which thousands of families had completely
lost their homes and just about everything they couldn’t carry quickly
as the evacuated in the face of the rising waters.
I had the good fortune to spend a few days helping with the relief
effort, and the next several shots will show some of our work:
distributions in villages on two different days, as well as me and
other colleagues unloading wheelbarrows and then working to assemble
them.
This first shot was taken just as we and our truck of supplies had
arrived at the roadside up above the small village where we did the
first distribution I was part of. You can see how beautiful the
countryside is!
Small Village Relief
One distribution I helped with was to a small village 30 minutes to an
hours’ walk (depending where in the village you lived) away from the
road, up and down via a small dirt path over hills and past rice
paddies and vegetable fields. The area is absolutely lovely — but my
American self spent some time wondering what it must be like living
here, and how, for instance, even the bricks and mortar to build the
houses get delivered — walking along the path as shown just below,
one man wheeling the barrow full of relief supplies we’ve just given
him.
Here you see the barrows packed and waiting for the folks to pick them
up; in the next shots you’ll see people coming up the path to the road
to get them, and the one man and his son taking them home.
Kids at Home
This house was in the cluster closer to the road (perhaps only 15
minutes along the path). We wanted to see some of the destruction in
this village, and we needed to let folks know we were there with the
wheelbarrows and supplies, so we walked on down. Everywhere we went,
the kids were very curious and not too shy, so these kids posed. In
fact, once I started taking pictures every kid seemed to want in on
the action. These guys are posing in front of their home, and after
this you’ll see a few more of kids just hanging around watching us
work.
(so much world, so little time....) 