Operation Blessing Earthquake Relief - Sichuan, China

From Mianyang in Sichuan

We visited the school project bright and early this morning to be with the children as they went through their morning exercises.  It was great, the "drill sergeant" had the kids fall in line at 7:00am, sharp.  They then went running up the road in groups and came back puffing and panting about 5 minutes later.  When all the groups returned from their morning jog they mad a big circle and a teacher came forward shouting out names.  The names were of those children who had made a noted effort on making their bed and tidying their living space.  After each name the children clapped and cheered.  They then watched a martial art demonstration from some college volunteers.  The children loved it and were obviously very impressed as they were constantly applauding and laughing.  When we spoke with one of the volunteers (picture of Bill shaking his hand) he told us that he was a university physics major who had come to help at the school after the quake.  "We are here to show love to the children and help them become happy again" he said.  Seeing the smiles of the children in the school, it is hard to imagine that only a few weeks ago they went through unimaginable trauma, most of them lost classmates in the quake.

From Mianyang  in Sichuan

We were busy interviewing families again today.  Last week we took pictures of all the families in the village. When we cross referenced the photos with the list of family members it was clear that there were quite a few villagers missing from the photos.  As we have been conducting the interviews it is becoming clear that life for the villagers of Yaojin wasn't easy even before the quake.  Many family members are working far away from the village in other provinces as migrant workers.

The migrant workers from Yaojin mostly work in factories.  Some work in textiles, others in plastics, one couple actually work in a chopstick factory.  In the interviews they have been describing their living conditions during these jobs.  Some families live in dormitories with hundreds of other workers.  A woman told me how she and her husband lived in a tiny room in a basement with no windows while they worked 12 hours a day in a fabric factory.  This kind of conditions are no place for a child to grow up.  And country children are not allowed to attend city schools.  therefore many of children in Yaojin are living with either one parent or their grandparents if both parents are away working.  It has been sad to hear about this phenomenon form the families as we talk to them.  If a father is away working in a factory we have been asking the question; "How often can he come home"?  The most common answer is "Once a year".

There are two main reasons we are hearing as to why villagers are forced to seek this type of labor;  because they want to pay for their child's education or because they are paying off the debt from constructing their home.  Imagine the pain at seeing your home, your pride and joy, fall to the ground after years of working away from your family in terrible conditions to pay for it.

Most of the villagers in other provinces were working on factory floors when they heard the news.  Yaojin is only a few miles from the town of Beichuan, and the radio was broadcasting the news that Beichuan was completely flattened.  After the quake there were no telephone communications in Yaojin for many days so for some workers it was an agonizing time of not knowing whether or not their family was still alive.  One woman said her husband had to take a train for 46 hours to reach Yaojin.  He arrived 4 days after the quake.  When he saw his wife and child the whole family broke down in tears.

Quite a few workers came back to the village in the first few weeks to be with family and check on their homes.  A good number of workers have had to return to their jobs (or loose them).  Quite a few workers have decided to stay in Yaojin and work towards rebuilding the village.  Almost every family in the village has someone working in a far off place in order for the family to prosper.  Without that income each family would live as subsistence farmers and find it very difficult to build homes, have their kids educated etc.

Hearing about the plight of these migrant workers from Yaojin made us realize that without any external help it would be impossible for them to rebuild their homes for years and years.  Some people's years of hard work and investment has been wiped out in a minute.  There is so much more work to do before Yaojin is restored but good thing is OB is here working with these villagers, our presence is a true lifeline.
We came into the village a stranger but after a month of working amongst the villagers almost everyday we feel like we are getting to know them very well.  And now with doing these interviews we start to know each family on an even deeper level.

We visited Yongmin and Hedao today, the water systems are functioning perfectly. 

From Mianyang in Sichuan

Our water system in Yongmin is a complete success. We have managed to run a water line 765 yards from a mountain spring into the camp of 300 people. The water runs into two large metal storage tanks at either end of the camp. The villagers were overjoyed and already using the water in every imaginable application.  Women were busy washing clothes outside their temporary homes, before they had to haul the laundry to the spring, wash it, then haul it back.   The water system has ended hours of lugging water. Previously, each family had to carry large water containers back and forth every day.  Now that time can be spent in more productive ways, like cleaning up their village and rebuilding their lives.  The water pressure is unbelievable, we watched as a boy held the outlet of one of the water pipes over his mothers cup.  She wanted a drink and it was his job to fill it.  When he turned the valve the water came shooting out and sprayed us all, it was great  (That pipe is now hooked up to a tank).    The village leader was thrilled and thanked us profusely, we have now provided a latrine and a much needed water solution.  One of our water tanks was placed in what will become the camp kitchen.  It was beautiful up in the mountains today, giant butterflies the size of birds flew around us as we spoke with the villagers.  As we left the village Mr Xu said "I never realized how good it feels to help people".  This is his first experience working in the humanitarian field and he was touched by the villager's gratefulness.

From Mianyang in Sichuan

This morning we went to the hardware market in Mianyang to purchase all the necessary components for the water system in Yongmin.  The system requires 700 meters of piping and two large metal water tanks as well as all sorts of fittings and valves.  We crammed all the parts in our two vehicles and headed up into the mountains to deliver the system to the village.  The villagers were ecstatic when we arrived, the chief came and shook our hands vigorously.  As we unloaded the cars the villagers gathered around and began expressing their glee, tomorrow they will have water in the camp!  But first things first, a team was set to work digging trenches for the water pipe.  The project is quite simple to implement but will have a huge impact on the community.

We visited another village with a population of almost 2000 people, like the village we visited yesterday, they need a shower facility.  We told them to have a meeting and call us when they are ready to show us a possible location.  These villages are all willing to put in the hard work of construction if we help them with some of the materials needed such as piping and cement.  The village was in bad shape, 95% of the homes had been destroyed and 7 people were killed by the quake.  As we walked around it was really noticeable how different the recovery progress was in this  village compared to Yaojin.  There are so many villages in need and simply not enough help to go around.  It has been several weeks since the quake hit and we noticed that grass had started to grow out of the rubble in one place.

In Yaojin there is very little chance of grass growing since our excavator was hard at work digging a colossal hole!  We are preparing to do a huge landfill with the useless debris.  The rubble will then be recovered with dirt and the land used for crops.  The topography of the village is changing so fast that it is almost confusing arriving there each day.  One day there will be a telegraph pole in one spot and the next will be gone or there will be a pig sty or pile of rubble and then it will suddenly disappear as the machines plough through.  In just a few days the village will be earily empty, a blank canvas.  we are visiting several sites tomorrow to obtain quotes for pre fab housing solutions.

the gear stick in the Great Wall snapped off again today!

From OB Northwest team

According to the two coworkers' description of the disaster areas of Longnan Area of Gansu after they returned from the exploration trip, OB Northwest Office discussed to supply tents and disaster relief kits for the people in Longnan and Wenxian. On Jun 16, we went to the tent factory and ordered 600 tents. We contracted with the factory to make each tent as 30 square meters. The tents were supplied for covering the foodstuff and the crops of the villagers.

Jun 18, loading with 600 tents and the disaster relief kits and other disaster relief materials, we set out to Longnan and Wenxian.  It took us four hours to arrive at Tianshui City, for we had to load another 15 packs of medicines along with us.  From Lanzhou to Tianshui it was still raining, and we had little worried if the weather would influence the project.  In the next morning, the rain stopped and we kept on driving to Longnan.  We knew there would be still another four hour from Tianshui to Longnan.  About noon, the lorry carrying with the disaster relief materials got to Longnan first.  As our vehicle arrived, we met with the lorry at Longnan Bureau of Civil Affairs.  Transferred the material list to Longnan CCF and the Bureau of Civil Affairs, we should have visited a village in Wudu District of Longnan.   However, the heavy rain had caused landslides mud-rock flows in most villages.  For the damaged roads, we could not get to the disaster destroyed villages in Wudu District.  Discussed with CCF and the Bureau of Civil Affairs, we decided to take the disaster relief materials to Wenxian.

After another four hours' driving, we finally arrived in Wenxian.  Contacted with the local Women's Federation, we planned to distribute the materials in two townships.  The Women's Federation and the chiefs of the townships would cooperate with us.

Jun 20, early in the morning, guiding by the Women's Federation and the chief of Shi Jiba Township, we set out to the villages in the mountains.  The road to the villages was seriously rugged and dangerous.  Landslides and mudslides always happen in this area.  Driving on the road, we still could find many debris and rocks fell down from the mountains several days before.  It made the lorry very hard to go through the road.  This area lives with Han Chinese and Tibetans.  The Tibetans here are called White Horse Tibetans.  When we arrived at the Tibetan village, the people here were passionate and they stood at the entrance of the village, beating gongs and drums to welcome us.  When we unloaded the materials, the villagers came up over to express their gratitude and happiness.  At once, with organizing of the chief, the villagers signed their names and every household was given a tent, a disaster relief kit and other materials.   Because the villagers lived scattered in the high mountains, we couldn't spend longer time in one village, and moved on to another village in no time.  When we finished in the third village in the mountain area, it was almost four in the afternoon.  Again, we found the black clouds gathered above our head.  The chief and the villagers could not keep us even they invited us to have tea with great passion.  The weather warned us to drive down the mountains, otherwise we probably would meet the landslides or mud flows.  The traffic here really took us plenty of time.  We distributed the materials to 378 households.  The villagers thought the life kit and the tent were very useful to them.  They just reaped the wheat.  For the humid and rainy climate, the villagers were worried the foodstuff would go moldy and become rotten.  Now they got the tent, and they could protect the foodstuff with it.

As we were busying with the project in the mountain, our coworker accompanied with the township chief went to another village so that our team could have enough time to distribute the materials.  This village was a small one, with 60 households.  After sending the goods to this village, our coworker sent 24 packs of medicines to the clinic of Shi Jiba Township. 

When we got to the foot of the mountains, we went to the last village-Deng Caoba Village of Shifang Township.  There were 180 households of the village, and the people here just met with a serious landslide caused by a heavy rainstorm in Jun 13.   Many facilities, constructions, crops and roads were destroyed.  After the quake, the landslide disaster seemed to be another hit for the people.  Afraid of the rains and landslips, the villagers were busy in the fields.  Just a few villagers came to the township government when they heard our arrival.  We talked to the chief of the village and planed to distribute the materials tomorrow, for it was too late as well. 

Jun 20, it was unlucky.  Even we got up early and got ready to set out to Deng Caobao Village, it had been raining.  It seemed that we could do nothing today.  It was raining harder.  To avoid the landslips possibly happened on the way back to Lanzhou, we had to choose leaving.  The chiefs of Shifang Township promised they would distribute the materials, and they expected OB would come again to help them.

From Chengdu in Sichuan

“I always dreamed about the day when I will be normal…I am happy that I can have surgery. I want to show my grandma first after I leave the hospital.”

Jiangzhong, is a 14-year-old boy from Tongluo village. When Operation Blessing China went to Mianzhu to distribute emergency relief items immediately after the earthquake, an old lady there clasped one of our volunteer’s hands and said “You are all good people.  Please help my grandson.” We followed her home and found her grandson, Jiangzhong, who has cleft lip and cleft palate.

Operation Blessing China decided to help this child undergo surgery. We contacted several hospitals and eventually chose Huaxi Dental Hospital. When we told them Jiangzhong’s situation, they said except for some additional fees for examinations, they will do the surgery for free. We were all very excited to hear such good news.

The following week, we contacted Jiangzhong’s father to pick them up and send them to Chengdu city.  “Our house collapsed in the earthquake. We have nothing left,” Jiangzhong’s father shared with us on our way to the hospital. It is his first time to leave the village. “ Thank you for helping us.”

Jiangzhong is a bright boy but doesn’t talk much. His school had collapsed in the earthquake so he has had nothing to do for a month already and does not know when he can return to leading a normal life. When we asked if he is excited about this trip to Chengdu, he smiled and nodded his head.

Huaxi Hospital arranged a bed for Jiangzhong when we dropped him off at the hospital.  We then left our contact number and headed back to Mianyang. There is still a lot work that needs to be done there.  However, I am looking forward to visiting him when we return to Chengdu. We believe that we will see a healthy boy and a very happy grandmother!

From Mianyang city in Sichuan

No water! Imagine not being able to take a shower for weeks.  We only had one day where we were unable to shower, as the water was cut off in Mianyang City due to the releasing of the quake dam on Tuesday.  The government had instructed the water system to be shut, in precaution of the possibility of contamination from the dam water that flowed through Beichuan.

In days like this, where we are out from morning until evening in the heat, a good wash is always something to look forward to.  We couldn’t imagine not having access to running water for days!

Just when we thought that things will be completed according to schedule, something unexpected turns up.  Yesterday saw us return to inspect the water cistern at Yaojin which we realized had a large crack (due to the quake) that was as wide as 4 inches.  The leakage resulted in the low water pressure at the newly built bath house.  Once we supply cement to seal the crack, the solar panel for the bath house can be installed.  Soon, soon, will the villagers have a shower... 

We also transported the generator out from Yaojin Village (which now has electricity) to Hedao Village, to resolve their water issue.  The Hedao Village has 3 clusters of around 400 villagers with only 1 source of water for their drinking, cooking and bathing.  Without electricity, the pump for the well can’t function and has created a great inconvenience to 2 of the clusters, having to walk to several kilometres to fetch water.

So excited were the villagers with the revival of their source of water that the word had spread out across the mountainside by that evening. It was encouraging to see that by doing a simple act of replacing their lack of electricity with a generator, we were able to provide water again to over 100 people in the 1^st cluster.  The 2^nd cluster however, is waiting to have their water tank fixed first before they can tap into the same water well.

It’s been one month since the earthquake and the pains of that day still remains fresh for a number of the villagers.  The 9-year-old girl in the picture had lost her mother in the earthquake, she was crushed.  Her father is alive but has to work in the city to support his family. Her brother is also separated from her and she is currently being looked after by her aunty in Hedao Village.  It almost seems surreal sometimes, that an event as big as the May 12^th earthquake had caused the worlds of so many to have changed overnight.