6/12 Chengdu Update
Things are becoming less chaotic here. Coalitions are forming between government departments, Chinese corporations, and Chinese NGO’s. They want university professors to train volunteers and others. The university professors want us to train them. A variety of large groups are holding training session in the next three days, some of them three day sessions: the Chinese Red Cross, the Chinese Academy of Science (under the auspices of the Foundation for Sichuan Earthquake Psychological Assistance a large newly formed Chinese NGO), the Counseling Department of Sichuan University, a large Buddhist group and the Young Communist League of Sichuan (in association with EAP in China a group whose on-line training we arranged). I don’t know whether to describe my self as a spider in the center of a large net or as a match-maker. It has been a real pleasure for me to watch and help these various groups coalesce and begin working together.
I usually have breakfast and dinner with old or new friends and colleagues (People I know from Beijing and Shanghai are constantly arriving to work in the disaster zone or to train others.) or journalists. We talk about the earthquake and what each group or person can do for the other and what I and CAPA can do for them. We also talk about—what else?— politics. Here as many views are expressed as freely as they are in America. No secret police at the dinner table. No glancing uneasily over one’s shoulder when something critical of the government is said. (I am writing all these details in part because of the TAP article, which gives such a bizarre picture of China and in part to give those of you who have not been here some view of how it is.)
I have been told that the government is clearing out all of the untrained volunteers from the disaster area and organizing areas for different groups to supervise. I was supposed to go up to the disaster area 2 days ago but the trip was cancelled because of the rains and fears of floods. We went yesterday: myself, a young man who had just gotten his MBA in Sweden and who had excellent English and was the interpreter, a woman from EAP who had introduced me to the Foundation for Sichuan Earthquake Psychological Assistance, a woman from that group and the driver.
We had a faxed invitation from the principal of the school and from the mayor of the village where I was to speak to teachers. The village is Fu Xin Town, one of 20 or so villages of Mian Zhu City. The total population of the city and its villages is about 1,000,000. There are 10 kindergartens and 10 primary schools in the city itself and then each town or village has about 2 primary and 2 middle schools. The government is currently surveying the whole disaster area, but we estimated that there are 20,000-100,000 children involved in this area. At the middle school in Fu Xin that I visited 110 children had been killed in the earthquake.
We drove through very rich farming country. In China all the superhighways and very large roads have large park like areas on each side (maybe 2-3 city blocks wide), planted with trees and now red, yellow and orange Cannas are in bloom. As we got nearer to the earthquake area we saw increasing numbers of tents in these parks along the highway. Some were regular large and small camping tents, others were colorful structures made of heavy plastic supplied by the government and large corporations. There were lots of army tents and army earthmoving equipment. The Army is rebuilding the infrastructure, sewage, water and electricity of the affected areas and clearing the rubble. Some of the tents were stores with clothing, food, chairs or beds for sale. The people living in the tents have few cooking facilities and the government is said to be supplying cooked food. I think corporations are too. There is a lot of rebuilding of the one-story houses and that seems to be the work of the inhabitants.
When we got to the truly devastated area, the police and soldiers stopped our car and examined the faxed invitation and my passport and had a long debate. Then two of the young soldiers thanked me in English and we proceeded. As we got further into the area there were more tents and more and more crumbled buildings but on the streets, shops were open and from the outside it looked like business as usual.
The middle school is a large three-story building with parts of it crumbled (In local parlance: “tofu construction”). On the campus were about 15 very heavy canvas “school rooms” each large enough for about 50 children with wooden desks and chairs in them. A Chinese NGO donated these “school rooms”. There were about 50 teachers there, half male, half female ranging in age from about 25-50. Most were from this school, some from others nearby. There were five or six children about 8-13 years old. I think they were the children of the teachers. There was an adorable two year old with very short hair who kept wandering in and flirting with me, calling me “Poo Poo” (grandma). I thought it was a little boy until I saw the nail polish on her finger and toenails. Later her grandfather showed me the healing scars all over her head. Clearly, there had been no brain injury. School reopens this week and the government is going to keep the schools open in the summer___a really good idea.
We sat around in a circle and talked. I explained who I was and what I could offer and that I could not make promises about delivery but I would try. I asked them what they wanted and what was troubling them. One middle-aged woman started to cry and shouted again and again, “We want to save the children, we want to save the children!” I didn’t understand and when she had calmed down a little she explained that the parents were blaming the teachers for the children’s deaths. Other teachers joined in, “The parents say, ‘You saved your selves. You should have saved our children.’ “ “It is your fault that the school was not well built” “But we told the parents all along that the school was not well built.” “Why did our children die? Yours did not die.” Clearly, being blamed for the deaths of the children was the most painful thing for the teachers may of whom had lost colleagues, family members and their own children. I talked a little about how hard it is to have something terrible happen. It makes people angry and they want to blame some one or they will blame themselves.
One man told about how he had been trapped under rocks with several children. The parents could talk to them. “One man kept saying ‘Save my son, save my son’, but then walked away and vanished.“ The teacher was very angry. “Finally a stranger came and helped to get the rocks off us. How could he walk away? A stranger helped us”
I showed them the workbook. Many of the teachers worried that if the children remembered or talked about the earthquake it would upset them and make them cry. I tried to explain that, yes, they would be upset but eventually it would be helpful to remember. One 12 or 13 year old girl told me that when they fixed the school she would be afraid to go in. She asked me what she could do to stop being afraid. I said maybe she could just walk a few steps in every day. Maybe she could help a little child to go in. Maybe she could ask her parents to check the school and make sure it was really fixed.
Several of the teachers kept saying insistently, “Tell us what to do to help the children. Tell us what to do to help the children.” These were all male teachers. They wanted very specific advice. They wanted me to send counselors and people to teach them what to do for the children. I told them that they might need people to talk to also. When I left about five of the women hugged and kissed me. We were all very quiet on the way back to Chengdu.
elise