LEAF-go-VSO
Wenchuan
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Wenchuan |
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The Wenchuan Earthquake A
little can go a long way "Wealth
is like water. You can keep it to yourself when you have only one cup, but you
should share it with others when you have a whole river," said Chen
Guangbiao, a Chinese entrepreneur who has mobilized his own business resources
to assist relief work in the quake-hit areas of Sichuan. Every morning I wake up and realise that here
in Simao we are safe and well, but for the people of Northwest Sichuan
the nightmare continues. On Monday 12th May 2008 an earthquake of Magnitude
8.0 hit Wenchuan. This is what
Freda (our daughter, aged 8)
wrote in her school Chinese
writing diary, having been given the topic: "Heart, help, charity": (translated
from Chinese) "Thursday 15th May: In 2007 we had an earthquake in Simao. It wasn't very big, only 6.4. We were very lucky. In May 2008 there was an earthquake in Wenchuan, China's Sichuan Province. It was very big. Over 15,000 people have died and over 25,000 people are still buried under rubble. It makes my heart very sad. Many people in China and around the world want to help. They donate money. Our class raised over 1,000 yuan."
Wherever you are in the world, it is likely that you have seen pictures from
the earthquake zone and now know that the death toll is currently nearly
70,000 with over 17,000 still missing, buried under rubble that may take months
to clear. More than 87,000
lives taken by an event that lasted a matter of seconds and came
with no warning. An estimated
15 million people are homeless. I find it almost inconceivable that so many communities could be destroyed in such a short moment of time. Perhaps the most harrowing tales, the ones that haunt the memory, are those of the schools and hospitals that collapsed. I guess these represent those in the community whom we often work hardest to protect. Not because one life is more valuable than another, but that some seem more vulnerable than others. This is the fact that many people I have spoken to find particularly difficult to deal with.
This earthquake was never going to be victimless, but the cruelty of the
timing was unbearable. Only ten
minutes earlier and thousands of children sitting in their classrooms, waiting
for their teachers to come and start lessons, would probably still be alive
today. They would have been on buses, motorbikes, walking along the pavements,
even parking their bicycles outside the schools. Instead, they were sitting at
their desks, their parents heading back along the street to work, or home. One
Middle School of 2,000 children
fell with the first tremor. This level of human suffering is difficult to contemplate, to face, without the desperate desire to take some of the pain away, to share the burden. Here at Simao Teachers’ College we organized a collection of new and used clothes and raised money to send other basic items to survivors in the earthquake zone. The following diary entries detail the trials, tribulations and successes of our efforts.
Thursday
15th May 2008 Friday 16th May 2008 Monday 19th May 2008 For the next two days in Freda's school the children will have special lessons about the earthquake, including documentaries. So far this exposure seems to have helped Freda and Edie process their feelings from last year. Two weeks ago Edie refused to take part in any drill I attempted and 'shut down' at any efforts to talk. These days it features in their daily games and they have been happy to discuss safety issues.
Tuesday 20th May 2008
It was apparent within hours of our 'depot' opening that we were going to
have too many things to send. We've
spent the last three days
sorting, sniffing (shoes!) and
grading donations: 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice and 'no way'. The 'no way' bags are
going to a recycling depot and 3rd
choice is going to the local Red Cross - wearable but not worthy of posting and
pretty miserable to find in an aid box. Fortunately these make up a small
percentage of the donations. However,
the empty boxes we
acquired from China Post won’t
be enough to send even the first choice clothing. We also have a lot of new donations
of brand new clothes and toileteries. I’m psyching up to put some pressure on the Post Office to send more by getting TV and newspaper coverage for our efforts. I’m also planning a meeting with the Post Office leader to try to negotiate a good discount for our remaining 200 boxes. I wonder if we’re better off hiring a van and driving them to Sichuan ourselves? Zhang Yun insists we give everything else to the Red Cross. But I’m adamant that we wait, and find a way. Given the fact that no NGOs would get involved, because the government was insisting only new aid be allowed through, this may take considerable time! What’s keeping us going is the direct link we have with Guangyuan, from where the message is loud and clear: “Please send whatever you have”. Meantime I’ve contacted some Chinese friends with higher-level NGO experience for some advice as to what strings to try to pull.
Wednesday 21st May 2008 Thursday 22nd May
2008 Sunday 25th May 2008
All weekend we continued to pack boxes of aid to send to the earthquake zone.
A small number of boxes to distribute among
a large number of people, but a
gesture of love, support and solidarity - every item of clothing in the 112
boxes carefully checked, folded and packed. It's been great to work so closely
with a small team of eager and compassionate students and teachers, all turning
empathy and sadness into action. I’ve also been moved by the thanks and encouragement I have received - people stopping me around the College and saying: "Thank you for doing this for our China and our Chinese people". I hadn't anticipated this kind of response and it's been very moving. It has also reminded me that the Chinese people feel a great sense of togetherness, especially in times of difficulty. People consider themselves to be part of one big, national family and that can be a great and positive force.
Thursday 29th May
2008 The final box distribution was: Maoxian (22); Mianzhu (22); Lixian (22);
Songpan (22); Beichuan (24). The only disappointment was not being able to send,
with the toothbrushes, all the toothpaste donated - no real reason but several
excuses. Our local ‘inspector’ gave the first: "It's a 'special year',
what with the 2008 Olympics. The toothpaste presents a risk to national
security." Kunming Post Office explained it was simply because the tubes
might burst. Nevertheless, nobody was willing to negotiate that we parcel it up
carefully and have it checked before sending. Even the soap, permitted by Kunming, was vetoed by the local leader: "Simao has special rules. This is the Golden Triangle remember. We can't risk drug-smuggling." These are, indeed, special times in need of special rules - not because Beijing is hosting an international sporting event. We are sending aid boxes to a nearby part of China that has been devastated by a natural disaster and we can't include a few tubes of carefully checked and packaged toothpaste and some bars of soap. I've fought so hard to get this far, but I had to let this one go. I'll post them myself on Monday, over the counter.
We have achieved a lot, a credit to the generosity of the College students
and teachers. Still, as I waved goodbye to the boxes yesterday on completion of
our task it was with tears in my eyes; I can't help feeling that it's a tiny
drop in a vast ocean. I also know, however, that even that drop is worthwhile if
it can make a few people's lives just a tiny bit more comfortable - I only have
to imagine a child in Mianzhu with youngest
daughter Edie's yellow jacket on, scribbling down her thoughts and
feelings with a box of lovely new coloured pens; or a woman in Beichuan wearing
College issue trainers and new socks; or workmen on the road to Lixian wearing
VSO T-shirts and the canvas gloves we sent to protect their hands as they try to
rebuild their lives. The Red Cross were delighted to accept the clothes and shoes that we felt
unable to send. With a washing and sewing machine handy they'll clean them up
and distribute them to poor families in the Simao area. Nothing will go to
waste." As for me – it’s time to get
back to work, preparing 80 students for their teaching practice and carrying out
follow-up visits to Mojiang County’s most remote middle schools. As life goes
on and the communities affected by the earthquake try to rebuilt, I have not
forgotten. Daily I find myself reminded of the Wenchuan earthquake and I still
reflect on what more we could do to help, what more we could offer. Maybe a
school needs a teacher; maybe a College needs a trainer; maybe a tented village
needs someone to serve rice or some children need someone to play with them. I
still wonder if there is something more we could do. A little can go a long way,
but a lot can go even further. Moving on There's one more thing I'd like to share, before I sign off. It's the thought that comes back when I drop Freda and Edie off at school, when I wait outside Freda's old classroom building in the afternoon to pick her up, when I think of the earthquake we had last year that destroyed thousands of houses only 27 km from Simao, when I think of the two small earthquakes we had here on the 7th May 2008, less than a week before,, when I see images of pink Mickey Mouse school bags in building rubble and the bodies of children with school books placed over their heads after they were dragged from the debris, dead. It's the thought that it could have been us. Our family, our friends, our colleagues, our schools, hospitals, homes, shops, banks - community.
We might be safe, here, but we don't know. At 2:27 on 12th May, nobody knew what was about to happen. Everyone feels the grief and empathy, even so far from the epicentre; they are raw and enduring - whether it's glances or chat between parents at the school gate, eagerly waiting for Grade 1 to come out at 4:15 pm, or between nursery teachers as they run through an earthquake drill, in the classroom as we ask students, "so how are you today?" or waiting for my fitness class to start, one of my friends recounting another sad story from Chinese news. We have also spent a lot of time in that part of Sichuan, traveled along these roads, passed through the towns that no longer exist. This tragedy is very close to our hearts. We also live in a poor, rural part of China where architectural standards might not always be adhered to, where communities are too poor to put up new buildings, were the devastation of local roads and airports could make access difficult, where fault lines will give us no warning. The children are drilled in what to do when an earthquake starts - cover their heads, dive under a table, huddle against an inside wall and, if the building starts to fall down, run for the door. This was the last piece of advice Edie's class was given by their teacher, Mrs Guo (translated by Edie): "Mummy, Guo Laoshi said if we think the building is starting to fall down, we run. But not too fast, because then we might fall over and get killed." In the last year the girls have learnt something of the meaning of survival, but nothing by comparison to recent events.
When the Pu'er earthquake happened we were in bed - 5:50 in the morning. We woke up, instantly, to a deep, thunderous rumbling, the building shaking and objects crashing to the floor. We knew immediately that it was an earthquake although of a magnitude significantly greater than the small tremors we'd felt in preceding weeks. Concrete buildings shouldn't move. The sense of force is terrifying and in that moment we didn't know that the building would remain standing. It felt like it would collapse like a house of cards, any moment. The horror of feeling we were about to die and had to rescue the children is something I wont forget. It was hard to run through the house, due to the swaying, but we made it to the girls' bedroom and I remember clutching Edie like a koala bear and covering her head as we staggered to the main doorway - a main internal wall by the stairwell. There we waited, hoping the building would stand. It did. We evacuated and slept the following night outside, with the rest of Simao. We discovered our building would in fact stand a bigger earthquake, but probably not the magnitude of the one that reduced Wenchuan to rubble. The fact is, when the earthquake is that big, you can't run. You can't do anything - just curl up and hope for the best. That's why I know we were lucky. Despite this, I have been suffering from moderate PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), gradually increasing over the last 10 months. I recently received treatment for this in Beijing and feel much better equiped to deal with the small earthquakes that we still experience. Even after a relatively small incident, many people are still living with the terror of those moments. People don't often talk about it, but many students (who were thrown out of their beds) are too afraid to sleep on the top bunk. Bodies cover in goose pimples and hairs stand on end at the mere mention of what's currently happening in Sichuan. So consider, once more, the short and long term impact of what has happened there. Even once the rescue of all remaining survivors is over, and families have buried their dead, the recovery process will only just be beginning. The need for long-term support to rebuild these shattered communities will be on-going. Although I cannot go to Sichuan right now and do something practical to help, I hope I can do something, anything, in the future, perhaps teaching or training or anything else I might have the skills to do. Lesley The Wenchuan Earthquake - some science
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