Global Aid Network Mission Reports

Sunday, nine of us went out to assess three camps in the Sichuan Province.  We arrived around two o’clock in order to visit three villages near the mountains.  With us we had brought seven tents that could house 10 people each, about 500 bars of soap, mosquito coils and toothbrushes.

  The first group that we visited was a refugee camps on the grounds of a plastic factory.  They were from the mountain region that had experienced with the earthquakes that had destroyed their villages.  I think I was the first westerner that they had met…maybe ever.  I was definitely a curious sight to them.  The government had placed in the on the grounds of a plastic factory as when they were in the village they were not welcomed.  The pollution was terrible from the factory.  There were approximately 400 people here in 23 tents, two families to a tent.  These represented two tribes.  No one died from this first group.  They were being served by one toilet, the corn field and the river for places to go to the bathroom…..mostly the river and cornfield.  They were foraging for wood for cooking by cutting green wet wood in the forest.  One well that pretty much could run continuously for water.  I tested it and it was fine.  The children were really responsive to being played with.  They also loved it when our volunteers played Chinese checkers with them and talked.  They told us that in the morning the line for the toilet takes hours.  They have no job as they were mountain farmers.  This village had ten kids 12 and under.  All kids 12 and older were at boarding school.  They really appreciated our mosquito coils for their tents and took them all.  Mosquitoes were eating them alive they said.

The second group had stayed in their village though it was rubble.  Most had tents or tarps.  A few had died including the mother of the only baby in the village.  Now no one could nurse them.  I asked the Chinese staff with me to explain that any woman who was a mother in the last ten years could nurse him as the baby would latch on and re-start milk flow but that was thought to be culturally too weird.   They reported that they were feeding the baby powdered milk (I hope that is not true and that it is formula).  One lady showed me her house.  It had not fallen completely down.  She wanted me to tell her that it was safe to move back in.  I couldn’t as structural cracks were everywhere and the walls were bent.  One of our volunteers asked me to do it anyway, but I told him that he could do it only if he would also say that he would be willing to let his daughters stay there too!  He decided to tell her it was unsafe.  This village had around 800 people.  No toilets except for the toilets in the damaged homes that they could get to.  This village had around 30 kids 12 year and under.  Only one government group had seen them as they were a little hard to find.  We gave them our tents and the balance of the soap and toothbrushes that we had left.  They were so grateful some started singing.

 The third group was in a village.  The village seemed very affluent when it was standing.  Almost half the population of this village was over 60 years old.  One man I met was a 96 year old man (I hope I look and get along as good at 80!)  He said when the earthquake began; he walked outside and hung on to a tree.  He wanted to show me the tree so we walked over together.  He offered for me to come into his makeshift shelter and smoke cigarettes with him (hospitality as cigarettes are expensive) but it was starting to get dark and we had to leave.   We had one other family come to see us and ask us to come to their home.  With a weird sense of pride they showed to us a rock that had come into their living room during the earthquake that measured about 12 feet in diameter.  Absolutely massive.  It had rolled down the mountain and into their house.

In this area, toilets were again a need as was wheelbarrows, sledgehammers and shovels to clear the rubble.  Also they needed a way to dry the rice at harvest.  They had no toilets as well.

In all three locations, all the tents were very leaky as it is the monsoon season.  Blue tarps would be great in covering the tents to protect them from the rain.   

Several things struck me.  The government has done a great job of addressing shelter and water and food.  They are to be commended for this.

Fuel for cooking, waterproofing tents, recreational equipment for children, and especially TOILETS were the biggest physical needs we found and this was confirmed by several other groups.  The other need was their need to talk. All of them wanted to talk and be listened to.  They also were despondent over not having work and the thought that they can’t go back to their old ways….especially the farmers who are illiterate for the most part.  There is a real need of micro-enterprise and re-training these men.