This is the eleventh in a series of articles and images from NDH correspondent, David Sand, on the road in China with John-Roger, John Morton and 106 traveling peacemakers.
August 25
It’s 9:30pm and we’re sitting in the Guilin airport waiting for a flight that was supposed to leave at 8:15. The flight will take us to our boat for a 3-day cruise on the Yangtze. Luckily it’s a boat chartered just for us so it can’t leave without us. It’s been a full day….
It starts with a new mode of transportation for us, although we thought we’d experienced everything: Motorcycles with sidecars. We’re going to visit a village school, boarding at the hotel.
The ride there is incredible–through highways and narrow village streets, paved and unpaved, under those steep, looming mountains. Before I came to China I thought these mountains were a special geological formation in a very limited area. I didn’t realize that they go on for miles and miles, and that there are villages, farms, and roads in their midst.
A bumpy dirt road leads us to Lungtan Village Elementary School–a few rooms in an old cement building, with just the very barest old wooden benches and desks. The children are lined up outside to greet us, along with a local TV crew that’s been following our motorbike ride.
We go into their classrooms, and they sing to us in Chinese, we sing to them (Old MacDonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider), and we simply spend time enjoying each other. It’s a very poor village school, but the children seem very happy and well-fed. It costs $40 per year to go there, so some of the very poorest can’t attend, and we take up a collection for a scholarship fund for those. It’s a delightful experience for us, and an exciting, special occasion for them. We bring gifts of pens, pads, crayons, and some toys.
At the end we meet outdoors again, and John Morton presents the school with a piano, some electric fans, and our scholarship fund.
The older children in the village try to sell us cold drinks and postcards to make some extra money. One of these is a 15-year-old girl who speaks excellent English, and is part of a 3-child family (which means her parents must pay a steep fine to the government each year as part of its policy to limit population growth). So she’s earning some extra cash by selling to tourists.
The rest of day was spent in transit to our boat on the Yangtze, flight to Chongquing, running thru streets of Chongquing to a local hotel to email, found a guy to guide me. Gotta go. Hopefully I will get back to the boat in time. I may or may not be able to email out the next couple of days.
P.S. At the end of the day at a restaurant, John Morton gives a blessing, with John-Roger commentary, about keeping our focus on Light on the trip.
Click here to view Children of China Special Feature
Click here to view Day 11 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 10 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 9 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 8 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 7 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 6 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 5 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 4 of the China Trip
