by Dennis Su
Greetings from Ling Yun. The official school visiting program began
this morning and we covered four schools right after breakfast at the
guest house. Two in the morning and two in the afternoon. This trip
was more enjoyable because of the fair weather of 24 C and only early
morning was cloudy.
The most impressive school visited should
be the one at Da Ping (big level), located miles up the mountain and
nestled in a valley. Condition is very much like the one at Yan Lou,
the one Rich Hoeg funded. See photo of part of the road getting there
and the school and kids. Many of the students have to walk about 2 to 4
km to school daily. 28 students in grades 1 to 4 with one teacher who
live in a room next to the classroom. At least there is no boarding
students in this run down and leaking building.
The other two
have decent classroom buildings (giao sher lau) but due to growth in
student population, many of the boarding ones are living in terrible
conditions, like four to a bed or no bed but just sleeping on wood
planks along the wall packed together. Kitchen and dining room are very
bad compare to the one we build at Bu Tou with Interglow.
The
forth school is one we funded earlier. Construction is well under way
with first level steel reinforcing and concrete frame in place.
Tomorrow will visit three more before they drive me back to Nan Ning to catch the evening plane to Shenzhen and HK.
Ling
Yun has been assisted by outsiders on many of the schools because the
county budget is always in the red. Major income is from exporting tea
but because of most of the county are steep hills and mountains,
transportation and level land for major agriculture are limited. Even
the salary of officials are under 3,000 yuan. The assistant Admin of
Education Bureau who greeted me this and lasat time Mr. Lin only makes
2800 rmb. The driver makes 1800 rmb.
Sister Cailan has been
very helpful in coordinating with various departments to get things
done. As in many part of China I visited, the best looking building in
many villages is the school. VIllagers know the value of an education
and even sending the kids to boarding. Just like those in Sichuan, the
un-educated minority young men who work in towns and cities were often
cheated by the employers. One was case was about a young man who was
promised 50 rmb a day for labor job but >only received a 5 rmb bill
because he can't tell the different.
Yes, there is a potential
of combining smaller schools into a central one, but so far none has
affected the CTEF ones. If that happen, the worst case that we are
aware of will happen: younger kids in remote villages will not able to
afford the boarding fees and live away from home at such young age.
