December 17th we flew from Shanghai to Kunming where we met up with the rest of our team from church who were volunteering to teach in rural Yunnan province.
We've traveled with Wes before in areas where tourists from rural areas were visiting cities in China and were not used to "foreign" babies, but we'd never actually gone to the rural areas. We started our trip feeling nervous, but excited for what was in store!
We met up with the rest of our team, and enjoyed exploring Kunming for the evening!
We tried to enjoy our hotel room in Kunming to its fullest, not knowing what to expect once we got to SanCun!
Nica was especially worried about the bathroom facilities, so took a photo to remember what decent ones looked like.
We enjoyed our final city experience in the city of Kunming before jumping into the vans and driving SEVEN hours south of Kunming, into the mountains, to the rural communities that would be our home for the week. We didn't know what to expect, but after one last trip to Carrefour & Watson's, we were ready!
Our team was SO welcoming of the youngest member! Ritsoko loved helping to keep Wes entertained on the long drives through the twisty, winding, mountains while mommy had to look out the window!
The scenery we saw on our trip was breathtaking.
We saw all kinds of interesting animals on the roads! Water buffalo were the most frequent.
Most of these photos were taken through our van window, which was not very clean. :P
Villages like this were scattered through the mountains as we drove...we had to wonder what our village, SanCun, would look like!
Villages like this were scattered through the mountains as we drove...we had to wonder what our village, SanCun, would look like!
Joe was SUCH a big help! When one of us started to feel sick from the winding, twisting, mountain roads, the other took care of Wes. What a team! Thankfully it didn't bother Wes at ALL! What a trooper! :)
Here we are!! The much-anticipated village of SanCun! Pictured here is Wes with Megan and Hannah, some of the other kids on our team, in front of our hotel! (yep)
Our vans. We really put them through a lot that week!
Our hotel room. Not the cleanest, but it honestly wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.
Wes enjoyed his nights in the bed of his stroller!
The furnishings of our room.
The view from our window of the downtown of SanCun. The next day a big backhoe dug up the entire street, so it looked horrible! I was glad I got this photo when I did!
Our bathroom. Unfortunately, although it was supposed to, our room had no running water. Well, sometimes we got a dribble, and we got a thermos of boiling water once/day, and that was it. yay. :P
Our team had breakfasts and dinners at this restaurant in the back of our hotel. The food was fantastic! And the atmosphere gave us an appreciation of the people we were there to serve.
We were excited to finally get to the school and meet the students we'd been praying for!! SanCun is the business center for the surrounding villages, so we still had to drive 45 min (one way) each day to get to the school! The kids board at the school during the week since their homes are too far away to walk each day. When we saw the boarding conditions and how few school supplies the students had, we were moved. They are so poor, but so happy to have us there!
Wes made friends with this precious girl whose parents are working with the people in the surrounding villages.
Wes in front of the school, watching our students doing their PE for the day!
Since we were teaching classes all week for the school, the Chinese teachers basically had the week off! They LOVED playing with Wes, and of course Wes, being his friendly self, just ate up the attention, and Joe and I could teach! win-win-win!
We brought some good food for the kids to eat! They don't usually get to eat meat, so they were happy to have that with their rice!
And here are our students!! We taught 39 4th-graders. They actually spoke Mandarin better than we expected, which was a nice surprise! It made communication much better in the classroom!
Nica taught hygiene, and Joe taught English (both topics were desperately needed!)
Driving to and from the school each day were breathtaking views. Sometimes we just snapped photos out of the window as we drove, other times we asked our driver to pull over so we could get out and just appreciate the beauty. Pictures really don't do it justice, but we tried.
We ate a lunch of fried rice and sour vegetable each day at the school. We enjoyed the rest from the kids while they played outside for recess and we prepared for the next set of classes. We have a greater appreciation for the Chinese teachers, that's for sure! They need to be so creative with their limitations. (no dictionaries, calculators, etc etc etc) They just can't afford the basics, and yet they teach each day. Such a special group of people!
Here is our photographer, Joanna! 8 years old, and she did a fabulous job! We had so much fun with her! :D
Wes enjoying his daddy time over lunch. :)
A new school is being built, and the old school building will be the new dormitory.
Our team will be funding new water pipes to go from the mountain source to several water stations throughout the school campus, including hand washing stations!
Here is a lady I caught with my zoom, knee-deep in mud, working in the rice "fields" which, as you noticed from the landscape photos, are more like terraces. Amazing how they can farm in these mountainous terrains!
Out of the 39 kids in our class, 3 had shoes, many had these sandals, and a few had no shoes at all. We were happy to be able to give used shoes to them!
We had to sort through boxes of used shoes, find the pair, and then see if there was a fit for a student in our class. We didn't find pairs of shoes for all of the kids in our class that needed them, but we were able to give to the majority.
Clothing was also donated and distributed to the kids. It was so special to see them trying on their new clothes! Most kids only have one pair of clothes, and they're definitely not warm enough for the cold nights. This was a big week for the kids!
I had to take a photo of the bad road conditions we encountered! Not BAD, but it was an adventure traveling through them, just the same!
We went to visit an elderly home. This lady cried so much as Adrian excitedly went to find her. He comes to visit her twice each year--and she shared through a translator that her children don't ever even come to visit her. Each one of these precious men and women have their own stories, and we were happy to meet them and make them smile, even if it was just one evening spent with them.
We had competitions and games and each class made a final presentation at the end of the week of things they learned. It was fun and so special!
Our church gave money this year to fund 2,000 gift bags for needy children and orphans at a few orphanages and schools that we work with. It was amazing to see the responses from the kids when they each got their own personalized bag!
Included in each bag was a fleece sweater that will definitely help keep them warm in the cold nights!
Here is our class excited to perform their song about the star that led the wisemen to Him! Our focus as a class for the week was about how wise men still seek Him.
Here's a shot of some of the windy, twisted roads we drove on every day! phew! As well as some shots we snapped out of the van windows as we drove. We tried to always keep the camera handy, there were so many beautiful views!
We went to visit a village--the same kind of village that our students are from. SO poor, but the people are so friendly. They LOVED Wes. Although they couldn't understand us, and we didn't understand them, we were able to communicate through our children. It was such a blessing having Wes on this trip!
They even invited us into their homes!
This was the school they taught at last year! They went to visit it, re-living the joy of crossing this wire bridge and re-living the days of carrying supplies back and forth, back and forth across it. They were happy to see that repairs had been made since they'd last been there! haha
Thanks to everyone for praying for us throughout our travels! Wes did an incredible job, we were able to maintain his normal schedule so our little 7 month old wasn't too interrupted with all of the travels, and all of us stayed healthy and strong. It was an amazing trip, but we were excited for Phase 3 of our trip to come soon!!
We concluded the SanCun trip on Christmas Eve with the 7 hour drive back to Kunming, when we took the overnight trip to LiJiang for the "vacation" part of our trip.
Those pics are in the next post.
You can see from this map how we flew from Shanghai (G) to Kunming (F) then drove 7 hours south through the mountains to get to SanCun (C) then the 7 hour drive back north to Kunming (F) then we took the overnight train to LiJiang (E) for a week (those photos coming soon!) then the overnight training again back to Kunming (F) before flying home to Shanghai (G). Hope this gives you an idea of were we went! Thanks, Joe, for the map!
Merry Christmas!
love Joe, Nica, & Wes
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