Visiting schools in Guizhou, China (Part I)

I have the privilege of serving as an Executive Member of a very successful charity association in Hong Kong, the Au Kim Hung Love and Care.  We raise funds from a wide range of sources and channel every single dime and nickel towards building primary and secondary schools in very, very impoverish parts of rural China.  It's all about keeping the human equilibrium: using our first-world successes to help solve some third-world problems.  

The problem of rural China is distance. Looking at the map China is about the same size as the USA, and yet comparatively rural China can be exceedingly remote - and I don't mean just slow-broadband-connections or an-hour's-drive-from-Denny's: these villages are often built deep into the mountains, with little access to stable and clean water supply, and villagers farm with medieval technology.  Toilet flushing has not been invented, even rice is a luxury (corn is easier to grow as rice needs irrigated farmlands). 

We have built 31 schools to date.  This trip to Guizhou, China, was to check on two schools we built back in 2008 and to survey new sites.  We needed 4x4 pickup trucks and jeeps to take us up the mountains (where they'd usually walk), over unpaved dirt tracks.  As the local government could only supply a limited number of vehicles, I ended up standing at the back of one pickup truck....

I start with the journey to the two schools we built in 2008.  We started from Wangmo County of Guizhou, which was 270km (180 miles) from Guiyang airport.  In Europe or the US, you can easily cover 270km in under three hours, but this journey took us over 6 hours.

I don't suppose there is a market for Iams here in China: here's a happy dog chewing on a piece of knuckle bone after we've had our pork knuckle noodles.

These are signs put up by the government encouraging the one-child policy and discouraging abortion - a practice normally done when the child is confirmed to be a girl.  There are signs like these in almost every village.  Some of them are even quite graphic....

These are the lucky kids who have had a school to go to these past few years!

The local Walmart

No recollection what animal was on the menu that afternoon.  I just had a feeling I had seen him not too long ago. 

These people belong to a minority called Buyi (or Bouyei, 布依族).  They have their own language and they don't speak a word of Mandarin.  We were trying the teach them English; they'd no doubt be the first bilingual Buyi/English people.

What's not seen in this picture: 
the kid's pants have a hole at the back (an easy solution to soiled clothing) and my forearm is now rubbing against something very smooth and slightly moist ....

Wangmo County: 

The names of the schools are Xinping Primary School  新坪小學 and Bayou Primary School 岜油小學.

(To be continued ...)