We Are Home but the Blog goes on

Hi Friends and Family,

We have arrived home safe and sound. It is good to be home but I do miss my fellow travelers. We had a great time together. A lot of early mornings, late nights and most of all, laughter.

As you have read, we visited many different places during our trip. For this blog I thought I would show you, through pictures, the school children we met and the activities we did with them.

We are surrounded by school children who have never seen Westerners before.

These curious boys were looking in at us as we met with the principal and a few teachers. I took this picture with my big lens, and when the flash went off, they "took off in a flash".

One of the activities we brought for the children was making dream catchers. They were very proud of their accomplishments and we enjoyed interacting with them.

Larry is giving Kazoo instructions with great success.

Frank and a student sharing a good laugh.

It goes to show that laughter in any language is a joyful noise.

Keep viewing our blog. We still have a lot to tell.

time to go but will be back

As we prepare to leave, I post a final blog which brings bittersweet emotions. We know we have to leave in order to return. We have been so much a part of the culture and the friendships so strong. Our work has been valuable and the fruits of our labors have been witnessed already and there is so much more to come. I love this country and its people and its culture. I am so proud of our team and thank our district and our comrades in the great town of Glenville for their unconditional support of us and this project . We fly soon-15 hours home to those who love us. It will be so good to sleep in our own beds and eat a home cooked american cheeseburger. Yet I know my memory will wander most often to what I have learned and felt from this country, a beauty that will be sorely missed. Even though we leave soon, I can't wait to come back.

We'll be Blogging for a While

Our time in China is growing short, and we have had a whirlwind of experiences. We worked all day yesterday (Tuesday) preparing a presentation for the Shanghai Club. Frank did the heavy lifting of preparing the overall format for the PowerPoint, and he led the section on the water project. I started the presentation with an overview of why we want to complete the first project, and introducing the villagers. Frank talked about the specifics of the water project

Our greeting at the Sun Mountain water site, the new source of water for the region. The middle photo shows the reservoir, which is still filling with water diverted from the yellow river. On the right is the filtration plant. The water from here will be piped to a location in the village; our project picks up from there, to distribute water to each household. The farmers will dig all of the trenches by hand to distribute water throughout the village and to their homes.

Helen followed that with a review of the clinics, and Mel wrapped it up with his perspective on the schools, and other partners we can turn to for help in making the lives of the people here better. The club received us warmly, and we hope to make this project the first of many.

We'll all be blogging for a while, long after we get back. We experienced so much in such a short time, and have had so little free time to process it all, that we will all need the outlet of this forum to relive the experience, and create a record to share with others.

I will attempt, through my future postings, to adequately convey my experiences in such a way that you will feel as though you were on this journey with us. My friends Helen, Mel and Frank have been extraordinary travel companions. We have had no conflict, no personal issues to deal with, no disagreement. Each of us has been accomodating to the needs of the others, and we have grown together into a team dedicated to our projects, and to each other. We compliment each other, tease each, console each other, all when approriate. We also complement each other, in that each of us brings a different perspective, back ground and goals; they all just seem to meld together as we work. I hope that as you read our postings, you'll feel connected with us as well.

As I close this message, I'll leave you images of a few of the reasons we are doing this. Click on each one to get a better view. Please note that the first one is a video! Enjoy!

Building Friendships Part One - written by Mel

BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS
Part One - Impressions of Ningxia

Greetings from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (with Inner Mongolia on it's northern border) in north central China. We first landed in/visited Yinchuan, Ningxia's Capital City. A city of over 1 million, here the streets are active but not as swarming with traffic and crowds of people as in Shanghai.

Mel with Li Tao, Mr. He and our other hosts

We met a smiling, welcoming ,warm and very hospitable people, a mixture of majority Han Chinese(60%), Hui (Muslim) minority (30%) and a smattering of others. The Han are mostly urban and the Hui are mostly rural. At the airport our team, traveling with Shanghai Rotary's Frank Yih (we've told much you about him previously) and current club President Roger Owens (with wife Daisy) is greeted by officials of the Ningxia Charity Federation including He Yun-Sheng (whose son Lining was the person who introduced us to Ningxia and this project), Li Tao (a member of the Hui and an official with Youxie (the Chinese Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries) and Frank Yih's very unique photographer friend Wang Bo. They accompany us throughout our stay here. As a leader of the USCPFA (US-China Peoples Friendship Association: see http://www.uscpfany.org/ for information about the Capital Region Chapter and http://www.uscpfa.org/ for the national web site) I have been meeting and traveling to China with Youxie since 1977.

We have just returned from our amazing visit to YanChi (City and County) and MaErZhuang, the site of our project area. In the project area a dry, warm air hits us during the mostly cloudy day; it quickly cools down at night. The dry reddish-brown earth quickly lets us know we are in the desert (even though we did "bring" a little welcome rain to the area; Helen said she always brings rain and that it can be blamed on her). Many here have never seen an American or even a Westerner and, at times, the widened eyes and stares are startling.

On arrival we are handed a schedule for our five and a half day stay there (arrival April 9, departure April 14). From the early rising and breakfasts to the evening banquet meetings we have 16 hour days with an amazing vast array (and that does not include our team getting together to evaluate and plan). We begin in YanChi City and then move out into the countryside for most of our stay. The next several postings of this "Building Friendships" series will detail some of our experiences with outstanding individuals, visits with unique families in their home, visits to schools, food and beverages, the Hui Minority People and more.

Mel

Hot Pot

As I write this, it's Saturday morning, about 6:15. I won't be able to post this until we arrive later today in Yinchuan. We have spent the last two nights in a hotel in Yanchi, in the northeast part of the region.

We traveled by plane on Wednesday to Yinchuan from Shanghai, and stayed overnight at the Apollo Hotel. Our traveling party consisted of Helen, Frank P, Mel, Frank Yih, and Roger and Daisy (and me!!). Roger is the President of the Shanghai Rotary; a tall easygoing man with a warm smile and generous nature. He is originally from Northern Ireland, and he has a great British accent twinged with Gaelic; to hear him speak Chinese is a treat! Daisy is his wife, originally from Hong Kong; I have not had much opportunity to get to know her.

We were met at the airport by officials from the Government and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Charity Federation. Also joining us was Wangbo, an extremely talented photographer. Wangbo has spent about 20 years telling the story in his photos of the horrific living conditions children face in the mountains of western China. I'll write a more serious blog later about that.
We went by bus to the hotel, and had a fantastic hot pot dinner. None of us had ever experienced a hot pot dinner before, and although Nick had described it to me, I hadn't grasped yet what it would be like.

Each place setting has their own pot of boiling liquid; they start you with a broth with some vegetables in it and as the evening goes on, they add water to make sure you have enough liquid. The flame under the pot appears to be paraffin, and the servers keep coming back to replenish your flame (and refill your beer!)

You fill your plate with anything and everything you may want. There was lamb, beef, shrimp (with the heads still on) duck esophagus (yes, I had some) sheep intestine...you get the idea. I am a very adventurous eater – it shows, too...On the side, the server offers a variety of sauces that you can have mixed together to satisfy your own tastes. I mixed sesame paste, wasabi, and a little of a lot of other things.

Now comes the fun part. You simply drop in, one or more at a time, the various food you have chosen and cook it to your liking. Some of it is easy to manage with the chopsticks, some very difficult. I tried cockles (very small clam-like critters) and got all but one back out of the pot! I just couldn't the last one!!

I'm now writing on the bus heading back from Yanchi to Yinchuan. There is a lot of detail to fill in between! Look for more postings!

Water and Health are Linked!!

We left Yinchuan on Thursday morning to head toward Yanchi. We visited a clinic that serves 5,700 people in their region; the facility was clean, but sparse in terms of equipment. Think of your own doctor's office, then remove the computers, most of the testing equipment, almost all of the administrative staff, almost all of the furniture, add some beds (not at all what we think of when we think of a hospital bed) and add in a pharmacy. At the clinics, they practice both Chinese and Western medicine, so the pharmacy has both herbal and pharmacological concoctions.
The young woman shown here was receiving an IV treatment for what our interpreter described as pain in the joints, such as elbows and knees. At first I thought of arthritis, or bursitis, but I later realized that the ailment was related to high fluoride content in the water. Fluoride in small quantities is beneficial, and in the US we often add it to our drinking waster to promote good dental development. In many areas of the world, fluoride is naturally present in the water in dangerously high levels. In addition to the joint and bone problems, it causes a permanent yellowing of the teeth, and can lead to other dental problems.
The next photo shows a man in Maer Juang village. He talked about his teeth, and I asked him if I could take a picture so I can better tell his story. As you can see, he agreed!!

Connection Problems

We are back in Shanghai, Monday, April 14 at 4:15 pm and we have all had problems connecting to the Blog (and in some cases, to the internet!!). We are each working on more postings, so keep reading!!