Echos of Wen Shan: Chapter 11: Ethnic China

The backyard of Xiao Zhen's home

Three days ago, some of my team members here in Wen Shan and I went to a village to celebrate that they have running water. The water project team worked on a well in this village for a very long time, and finally they got it to work and the village has running water for the first time. So it was a big deal!
All of us who went took different directions, and I happened to go with the a family who is living here in Wen Shan. BL and AL (for your reference) are from Oklahoma, and they have 8 kids who are absolutely adorable and so much fun!

oink!

They have asked me if I would be able to baby-sit them while I'm here - um YES!!! :D So that's probably going to be happening sometime soon... :D

So the L's and I went to the village together, but we first stopped at their old house helper's village that was on the way to our final destination. She is a young Chinese woman, and she has one son and is pregnant with her second baby. She lives with her husband, mother, father, and husband's younger sister. They cooked lunch for us and we spent a couple hours visiting with them.

Xiao Zhen's first son

i just really like this picture...

An Chuan's village

Then we went to An Chuan's village where we celebrated the village's running water. (An Chuan is a Chinese friend who lives in this village.) It was beautiful scenery and a gorgeous day - particularly for photos!

We walked through the whole village to get a look around, and it was such a cool experience for me. "I'm walking in a Chinese village... a real Chinese village... this is so cool!"
I kept feeling like Ingrid Bergman in the movie called The Sixth Inn of Happiness. Anybody seen it? You would understand if you have ;)

they have a ton of chili peppers throughout the village hanging up to dry ou

mooooooo

heading down to the school to see the dancing and to eat dinner later

i've never seen a duck that looks like that. have you?

the whole village gathered to at the school to celebrate that they now have a well and running water

the elderly ladies of the village

We eventually got to the village school, where everybody was gathered to watch dancing for the celebration. There were several groups of Chinese women dancing and all dressed up in costume that represented their minority.

Later on, everybody put tables together in the school and a few guys brought out trays of food for the whole village. It was really cool, I just can't get over the idea that I walked through an ethnic, rural village in China. It was a totally new experience of the Chinese culture.
Supposedly I should be able to visit a lot of villages while I'm here in Wen Shan! :)

That's all the news for now. The kids at the PT center come in on Monday, and I'm super excited to start working with them. Keep me, the kids, and their families in your thoughts! I'll let you all know how it goes. :)

PS Sooo I kind of messed up the little reactions thingy at the bottom... I wanted to add more and it just wasn't working with me. So for now, if you have any of the reactions listed below, just click the box. I'll fix it as soon as I figure out how!! :P