After our safe arrival in Anshun, we rested for one night and headed out to visit one of our friend's hometowns in the mountains of rural China. It was an experience that really did a lot to help us understand some of where our students are from. It was a totally new experience for us.

We got up early 7am to take a bus from Anshun to Guiyang as we needed to catch a bus at 10am. The four of us, Kris, Robert, Patty, and I with our backbacks and some snacks. The bus backed up sounding not so reassuring and we went about 20 feet before the bus stopped and the driver disappeared. Then there was a second bus, we got on that, sat down and prepared to leave and minutes later were back on our bus and waiting for the driver. Now we were about 20 minutes behind schedule, but no worries as our driver worked hard to get back on schedule. We weaved through traffic and stalled vehicles to arrive at the bus station with just enough time to get tickets and get on our bus. The second bus experienced a number of problems--it overheated a couple of times and broke a hose so we had multiple stops to fix things. This allowed us opportunities to rest from the winding road through the mountains. About ten hours later, we arrived in Shijuan County, still 40 minutes from our destination. We needed to get a taxi and were told it would cost about 500 yuan ($70), but our friend got one for far cheaper and we wound through the mountain on rough roads to arrive dog tired beside the road with his father and a pair of flashlights. Now, we were going to walk up to the house--this faint light in the distance. It was a good thing we could see very little, because we later found out the paths we walked were about a foot wide, full of mud and dropped off to fields of rice ten feet below.

It was one rough trip to get there, but I have to say it was way worth it. I would not have traded the experiences we had for anything. This gave me a feeling of what I think life must have been like around 100 years ago in America. Here are some things we learned about living in rural China and the farmers of China:

The main transportation is your body. In the village, there were two families who owned cars and some others had motorbikes, but most people walked. We even heard of students who walked home for the Chinese New year from Guiyang (over 300 km or 180 miles). Most of the time when you are walking you are carrying something, such as a huge basket on your back with vegetables to sell at market, for these villagers one hour walk away. There is a new road through the mountains which makes life easier, but it also means far more accidents with motorbikes, buses, and lots of huge trucks. Vehicles travel at amazing speeds on such curvy roads!!

A normal house has one coal stove to provide heat. So that means a good deal of your time inside is spent on benches talking around a stove. Cooking is done in huge stoves heated by wood. Food is a big part of life in this culture, so most people are wonderful cooks.

I learned a great deal about hospitality during this time. Everyone in the village was free to visit at almost any time. People stopped by in the morning and they just made more food and piled closer together around the stove to eat. They would talk for hours and one night we went to visit a neighbor. They brought us all kinds of things to eat--it is normal to have peanuts and sunflower seeds for visitors or to eat in-between meals. There really is no need for phones, as to talk to someone you just yell out your window--even if they are a long ways away.

There is no need for an alarm clock, as the roosters will wake you up promptly at 5 or 6 am. I got up one of those mornings to go to the bathroom and walked around the hills and you could hear dogs and roosters echoing through the mountains from all of the villages--quite the morning experience.

Houses have a large stone tank you could call it that you go to the bathroom in. Over the top of it there are two planks to balance upon and I mean balance as one of them was warped at liked to move. This is the fertilizer for the fields. There are no showers so we walked about 20 minutes to a place where they have hot water to shower.

Most families had multiple fields terraced up and down the mountains and few of the families owned waterbuffalo, so most of the work was done by hand. They grew wheat, corn, rice, canola oil, and so other vegetables. Each family also had a forest of trees to get fuel from, but a majority of the trees were broken because of the storms this winter.

We learned a lot about the extent of the storms in China. On the way back we ran into one of my other students who lived nearby and everyone in her village lost all of their crops because of the ice and they had no electricity and water. So her Chinese New Year was as she said, "Awful, but good to see family once a year." We did lots of walking and climbing of the mountains and we talked a lot with Robert's family (well we actually just listened as he interpreted).

The farmers I believe are some of nicest, kindest people, but unfortunately many of them will leave their homes and that life to move to the cities because there they can get better jobs and a brighter future. Life is very traditional there--grandparents are taken care of by family, children have great respect for their elders, and everyone works together as a community. We have some pictures coming soon to our Snapfish account. If you would like to be added email either Patty or myself.

We are starting classes on Monday and it is exciting to see the students coming back to campus excited to see friends and to get started.