Why We Were There
I like the contrast of dark and light in this shot – you’re looking
from an alleyway past some still-standing houses, into a zone where a
few houses were all destroyed by the floods. This is close to the
school that served as our staging and storage area for the project.
Later on, you’ll see a few more shots of houses destroyed in Tonghe
Township, which is the administrative center for the towns and
villages we worked with.
River Sunset
The rivers bring floods but of course they also bring water for all
the necessities of life, and can add a good deal of beauty to the
landscape. Though the team worked long and hard days on this
distribution, there was usually time (even if only in the truck coming
home) to appreciate the beauty.
Following are another shot of a river sunset, then one of the guys who
worked assembling the wheelbarrows, and unloading with me. This was
supposed to show up later in a cluster on the wheelbarrows, but it got
rejected so I’m re-posting it…and this process is too time-consuming
for me to delete and repost everything in between. 🙂
After that you’ll see one of a Miao house (the Miao are one of
the ethnic minorities that live in Guangxi, with different language
and customs from the Han Chinese — they’re not strongly represented
in this area, but apparently this house serves as a restaurant), and
one of kids playing early-morning badminton at the compound where we
were housed for the duration of the project. The project lasted
slightly more than two weeks, serving something like 12 villages and
towns.
Onto the Boat
Another day we distributed to a larger town right on the road, but of
course some of the families whose houses were destroyed were across
the river…so onto the little rope-toe boat those wheelbarrows went.
It was an interesting process to watch and help with — and the ladies
wheeling the barrows were very gracious and appreciative of our
efforts.
As to roads, I need to note for the record that even the
administrative center for this particular cluster of towns and
villages is a good 1+ hours’ drive away from the nearest paved road.
When I say “road” I mean muddy and/or incredibly bumpy and dusty dirt
track. Not comfortable driving at all, but functional for bringing in
pretty large trucks for local deliveries and so on. Can’t imagine an
American truck driver would consent to drive over some of these roads
(I’m thinking of some where the floods had washed out some of the
bank, and I found myself silently praying the road would hold as we
passed over it…).
The next set of shots show both more of the barrows being loaded on
the boat, as well as some shots of the big distribution. Man oh man,
was I sweaty after all that! (We started that morning by unloading the
barrows, which were then assembled — shots of that are further
along.)
(so much world, so little time....) 