I wrote in my journal on January 26th: "Living in China is like living in Texas. We don’t take distance very seriously."
Note: I have established a photo site. If you want to see more photos, go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahsays


Our merry band of Amity Foundation volunteer teachers traveled far and wide in Guangxi Autonomous Region, visiting the projects of other Amity divisions:

We ride in three mini-buses, and for most of the journey we have a police escort! Sugar cane fields whiz by, and water buffalo graze on the stubble of harvested fields. Cultivated earth is brick red; vegetable fields lush green, every square inch growing food, right up to the sharp edge of the pavement. From afar the trees in the hedgerows look like poplars, but are actually deciduous trees with narrow leaves and slender, graceful trunks. A farmer with a hoe slung across his shoulder crosses an ancient stone footbridge; suddenly a gigantic power plant looms in the middle of the plain; our buses glide under its transmission lines and on into the countryside. Clouds hang low over soft, green hills, and then the startling limestone karst peaks appear, giant outcrops of rock forming an unreal landscape. There are cones, knobs, spirals, minarets, streaked with sparse vegetation, pocked with caves, eroded in grooves.

Our tour begins in a 60-bed home for the elderly in Nanning, the provincial capital. It is housed and run by a local Protestant church, with staff training and other support from Amity. We separate into small groups so that we can visit the rooms of some of the residents. Someone in my group suggests that we sing "Jesus Loves Me" to those we visit; our a capella effort gets a better reception than it deserves. We are all touched by the loving attitude of the staff people we meet, and I’m dazzled by the cleanliness and good order everywhere, especially after my experience of the hospital in Lanzhou. One charming detail: every resident’s bed has a frame for a mosquito net, surely an important thing in subtropical Nanning. The day we visit, there is a bunch of tiny bananas hung by a cord on each resident’s frame, so s\he can easily reach up and pull off a snack.













By afternoon we reach the Yizhou School for Special Education, which receives tuition support for students and grants for facilities and equipment from the Amity Foundation. This visit wins my vote in several categories: "most fun," "most surprising," "most colorful" (although not "noisiest" – see Phoenix Township, below). And, certainly, "most heartening," as we saw dozens of disabled children who

are receiving the rehabilitation and education they need. In many cases, the children are eventually able to be "mainstreamed" to regular classrooms. Our young hosts and hostesses put on musical performances and a play for us, and welcome us to their classrooms and dormitories. A steady cold drizzle is falling, but that doesn’t prevent the entire school – staff, faculty and students – from turning out into the courtyard to form ranks for a group photo with us.


Early the next morning I am able to take a quick stroll in the mist and snap a few pictures of the amazing karst hills, before boarding the bus for the Disaster Relief Project in Ping An Village. Here, fifty-five families whose homes were washed away in the summer floods of 2005 are building an entire village on higher ground, using grants from the Amity Foundation, government support and their own means. The weather is still unseasonably cold and raw for the region, and we are invited indoors by the residents to huddle around the makeshift wood fires that burn in metal bowls on their cement floors. The row houses are all fully occupied works in progress – the one common denominator seems to be cable TV, which the government has provided. The atmosphere everywhere we go is one of industry, cooperation, and optimism.














We watch as enormous pails of fresh cement are carried by hand from the mixer to the work site; a productive garden plot is evidence of the vitality of the community.


























Back to the buses, and off to an Amity-sponsored medical college, where we are greeted by throngs of smiling students. (We can’t help wondering if they are glad to see us, or happy that once they get rid of us, their New Year holiday will begin. Perhaps some of both?) They look incredibly young – they are. In China, one need not attend high school to enter medical training, so most of these students moved from junior high into medical college. Since 1989, Amity has trained over 18,000 people to provide medical services in remote rural villages where there is no other access to health care. Amity has built and staffed 420 clinics in such places, where the emphasis is on health education and preventive care along with treating the ill and injured.





The natural sequel is our visit to the Phoenix Township village clinic. The road to the village has been specially repaired to allow for our visit, and the entire village has come out to greet us. The local dragon dances to the beat of drums and cymbals, and blesses each of our buses by dancing around it and bowing to the engine compartment. Meanwhile, about a million firecrackers are being detonated in a huge cloud of smoke. This is not a day for evil spirits to be lurking about! We meet the village doctor,
who has received a total of five years’ training under Amity sponsorship. She serves about 3,000 people in the area, and in addition supports herself by working on the village collective farm in her off hours.









There isn’t room for everyone to see the inside of the clinic, so we amble about the village and greet the water buffalo, who look grateful for this break in the routine. I love the
image of the buffalo yoke lying beside the tractor. Modern China!
There are lots of friendly, medium-sized, light tan dogs – they all look alike, and wear no collars, but they do have ear tags. We learn that they are not pets – they’re livestock.

We head back to Nanning, exhausted but exhilarated. For me, especially, this has been a whirlwind tour of parts of China I would never otherwise see.