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Rolling up our sleeves in Yunnan
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I slammed my hoe down into the soft, red Yunnan dirt and tugged. The clay-like material lifted away from the ground with relative ease.
“Great,” I thought to myself, “Only 10,000 more to go.” I looked to my left. A short woman, dressed in traditional bright white and pink village clothes, was digging with a pickaxe. She was removing large clumps of dirt at a faster pace than I was. I wiped the sweat from my brow and raised my hoe again.
We were in Siqing Village in Yunnan. We’d come on Interim, an educational travel experience offered by Concordia, to do service work for the villagers. The population of the village is about 300. Their most prized possession, their church, was a looming three-story masterpiece, complete with beautiful blue tile and ceramic doves. The church had been constructed with their own hands, leaving uneven floors and slanted steps. To us, it didn’t matter. It was a place to sleep, a place to leave your stuff, and a sign of local hospitality.
Siqing is an impoverished community, but compared to other villages in the area it is rich. Siqing was at that time the only village able to raise the funds necessary to build a church. Not only did they accomplish this, but they were able to add aesthetic beauty with tiles, lights, and small doves.
During the first days of our trip, we were tasked with helping the villagers work on construction projects. The village lacked running water, so we helped them dig a large cistern and trenches to lay pipe. Having running water would save the villagers hours of valuable time because they would no longer have to walk long distances to the water source.
We also assisted in the fields by helping the villagers pick corn. Unlike our inefficient digging, we were extremely productive at this task. Just two dozen of us working in the fields were able to finish a 480-stalk field in under half an hour.
In the days that followed, we walked almost 3.5 kilometers to visit a school and teach some basic English. The opportunity to do this was invaluable.
Teaching students about activities that we all take for granted was both challenging and rewarding. The English teaching was difficult, mainly because the pronunciation of certain letters proved to be more of a challenge than expected. However, the most rewarding part of the trip was seeing students learn new words and be able to pronounce them correctly.
(Andrew Brandt is a Concordia Grade 12 student.)
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