Guizhou and Sichuan

I know, you can't believe it. Another blog post within the same week as the last one. Incredible. :)

So after traveling around Yunnan for 3 weeks we all came back tanned and smiling to Beijing. From there, everyday we peeled off another layer of clothing as Beijing's winter faded. We watched green shoots creep up tree branches and then one day, sometime in early April, there was an absolute explosion of pink and white. A certain type of tree actually released chunks of white fluff that balled together to create fist sized snowy balls. When I first saw it from my window my first reaction was that winter had returned and the nice weather was just a cruel joke. Thankfully the temperature has since held above 70 degrees every day.
After a week or two of enjoying the nice spring weather, it was off to travel again! We took an overnight train from Beijing to Guizhou and spent about a week there. In Guizhou, we spent most of our time in villages. There is one particular story from the first village that I think appropriately portrays village life. It also happens to be a narrative essay I wrote for English. Enjoy!

Embracing the Shit

The wooden baskets swung wildly from their perches on a wooden pole held behind my neck. They carried a unpleasant but somehow familiar odor that brought back memories of animal filled stables and trampled straw. As they hung on either side of my head, I looked ahead on the path at my short and scrawny village father who was taking me to do field work with him. While my feet clumsily fumbled for grip like a novice tightrope walker on the narrow rice patty divider, he moved with ease and balance without any stumbling at all. He had not told me what we were going to be doing so when I saw the baskets I assumed that we would be going to his fields to pick vegetables or fruit. We came around a corner and my host father pointed ahead to indicate our final destination. All that was there was a large, dopey cow, and a heaping pile of its excrement. I gulped and realized as I looked at the rolling hills of crap, that it was going to be a very long day.
As we approached, a musty and putrid smell burned from my nostrils down to the back of my throat testing my gag reflexes. A chaotic combination of brown feces and yellow straw was compiled before us, and though the piles did not reach about our waists, the knowledge I would have to carry it all out made them seem like mountains. When we arrived my host father took the baskets from the pole ends and filled them brimming with the rancid concoction and then replaced them on the pole ends. The new weight made my knees buckle and my shoulders shake. I was about to open my mouth to say it was too heavy, but then my host father, a man who could not have weighed 10 pounds more that I did, effortlessly picked up his doubly heavy baskets.
Those same rice patty ridges that had given me trouble with empty baskets became absolutely treacherous a I swung to and from with the new weight on my shoulders. Again my host father walked easily ahead of me and turned occasionally to make sure I had not fallen off a ridge. The area was silent except for the gentle trickle of a creek, a breeze rustling the trees and my heavy panting giving away my struggle. My host father seemed to realize I was having trouble, so to distract me he started talking. Though his mandarin was heavily accented and difficult to comprehend, I understood most of what he was trying to say. He told me he had just gotten back from doing small jobs in a city Guandong province, but since the economy had started to fall apart it was back to the village and hauling cow manure. Since being back he had done the same tedious manual labour every day to support his wife and 2 month old baby. And when he wasn’t carrying the manure to the fields, my host dad was knee deep in thick swamp-like muck plowing his fields.
I walked behind him as he spoke and noticed the deep color of his skin. It was as dark as earth beneath our feet and spoke for the hours he had spent laboring under the sun. Though thin, tough muscles and veins as thick as snakes wound around his body. My host father’s entire appearance testified for the fact that he worked to live. So while he walked ahead of me with ease telling me an over view of his daily chores, I struggled behind him in amazement. What I could barely manage for 3 hrs, my wiry host father did every day for 6 or 7 hrs. While I cursed under my breath at the huge load hanging from my shoulders, he seemed to move breezily ahead as if he had forgotten he even was carrying anything.
When I got back to the village, I collapsed. I looked as if I had just showered I was so covered in sweat, and my clothing reeked of manure. My host father laughed and thanked me for my help though I am sure I was more a liability than asset. As he silently brought over a big metal basin for us to wash our filthy hands in, I thought about what I had gotten out of the day. Of course I had learned that cow manure is actually very heavy and leaves clothing smelling atrocious. I had learned that rice patties are very slippery and not fun to walk along. I had learned that carrying baskets across your shoulders on a pole leaves bruises. But most importantly I learned about the daily struggles villagers go through to make ends meet. They smile, pick up their loads of cow shit, and walk on.

I hope you liked it!
Until Next Time
Julia

Song of the Week
Snowflakes by Just Jack v.The Cure