The Hair Brained Adventures with the Illustrious Mr. Pu

*posted by Amy*

Lixian 15-July

So yesterday was crazy, we had an all day charette, which means come up with an entire plan for a problem in a short amount of time. For us, this was twenty four hours. We had to basically develop along the guidelines assigned to our group, but our group managed to find a way to do what we wanted by claiming we were sticking to the guidelines. We were supposed to develop the new town of Taoping using as much of the current existing infrastructure as possible. Well, that’s another story that didn’t follow our team’s agenda. The rest of the day was a blur, with a pin up of all our materials presented after dinner, where several instructors told us that we had the most well developed design, and succeeded in thinking outside the box.

That was at 9pm, then we had until 8 am to turn everything into a power point presentation. So a lot of people didn’t get to sleep until late, and I wasn’t to bed until 4:15. Then up by 7:30 for breakfast. The presentations were turned in, and we found out we won’t be presenting until tomorrow. The instructors instead have arranged today a meeting with the county officials in charge of the development of the new Taoping, and they are going to present a series of the student group suggestions. I know that our groups’ ideas were a little bit hippie, focusing on the environment more than others, but hey, do what matters most, and get them thinking about things outside their comfort zone.

So in the morning, after three hours of sleep, we turned in our presentation, and then ate breakfast. I tried to go back to sleep, but that was no use because outside in the courtyard, people were milling about, chatting, so I decided to just stay up. I rolled out and there was talk of going to another village, but there were only limited seats on vans to get there, and I claimed one of them. The village is called Puxi, and we were leaving at 9:30, and then grab lunch on the way to a 3:00 meeting in the county town.

I think I have mentioned our delegate from the county, Mr. Pu, and if I haven’t I’ll briefly recap. He is a good old boy, and he loves Li County. He also loves to talk way too loudly on the phone, and has a silly cadence to his speech, not that I can understand anything he says anyway. So we were in one van, students mostly, and the instructors in another. We got to the village center, and there was a considerable amount of damage, but there was even more reconstruction happening. It was a different experience then we had on our hike in the mountains earlier in the week. The place had energy, where as the mountain village had an air of apathy. We took some photos, and talked with the town head, who said there were only two killed in the earthquake, but this is perhaps what they have been told to tell foreigners. We piled back in the vans, and when I say piled, I mean piled, and when I say vans, I mean Ford Escort sized vehicles with high ceilings. We started up the road to visit some of the village in the high valley, and about two-thirds of the way there, our van, aka the gutless wonder, couldn’t make it up the hill with all the passengers on board. So we got out and had to hike. This was fine, except the other van was ahead of us, and we still had to get up the hill. There were seven passengers, and we started up the hill. We saw some trails that went up the hill, through the farm land terraces, instead of following the switchbacks. There were some steep sections but we made it to the road, and four of the group decided to follow the road, and Josh, Mr. Pu, and I kept going through farm land. We hiked, and Mr. Pu started this crazy yelling, to let others know where we were. I thought it would be fun to mimic him, and so I yelled, and he laughed and made some noise in an approving manner, and then Josh followed suit. We crossed some roads, rolled through more farmland, yelled some more, and kept going up the mountain until we hit a village.

This village was new, and had very little earthquake damage. The town was more than a year old, but the damage was limited by technology, steel rebar and concrete mortar. This made me feel as if the trip wasn’t all hopeless. I had been feeling like another village completely collapsed by the earthquake was going to be one too many. This town had survived fairly well. The people working were smiling as well, and we soon had a crowd following us. It’s not everyday that the people of Puxi see two white kids with light hair. After walking the town, and Mr. Pu videotaping most of the town , we headed back to find the rest of the group. We started the crazy yelling again, and found the rest of our group at an old portion of Puxi. We hoofed it over to meet up with them, and they were meeting with a Shibi, a Qiang version of a shaman. We was talking to the group, and Josh and I got there just in time to take pictures with him. We got in the vans, and the nice thing is you don’t have to push them down hill. So we headed off to Lixian for our meeting.

Driving in Li County is something that is more akin to a video game than an actual human activity, compares to western driving. The horns on cars rarely get a rest, you feel like you are getting kidney damage from all the bumps, and the road is so narrow at spots from landslides and construction, cars back several deep to wait for traffic to move through. Anyway, imaging a dirt road about 12 feet wide, barreling in a van that is way overcrowded, and hurtling head long towards a giant truck full of stone, to only swerve in the right side at the last possible moment, all while being bounced around haphazardly by potholes that could swallow a house. And to think this is the road that the Li county government wants to use to grow the tourism industry in Taoping.

We are currently in the meeting right now, and seeing as it is all in Chinese, and the person translating for me is giving me updates every minute, I’m not catching much. I had better turn off now, the typing is annoying some folks.