Missouri Comes To Yunnan

This months service project came from the great state of Missouri. Seven adults from the Kansas City area traveled all the way to China to serve the people of rural Yunnan and provide one village with a clean drinking water system. The participants of this service project were quite different than last months. We went from 20 Shanghai high school students digging on the side of a mountain to 7 American adults digging just as hard. It was truly amazing to see my fellow midwesterners scaling down the mountainside to dig trenches and lay pipe.

The Missouri team with our government partners

Our view from where we were digging, just beautiful

While we were in the village, we took a break from digging one afternoon to visit an orange plantation and tea factory in the nearby town. The owner of the orange plantation was extremely gracious, he took us out amongst the trees and told us to eat until we were full, which we did. All of us took home quite a few oranges and had sticky hands from all the peeling we did in the field.

After the orange plantation, we headed to the tea factory where we were served pu’erh tea and were given a tour of the factory where they press and ship out tea to all over the world, including America. I was amazed to see tea leaves that were decades old. Tea is similar to wine in the idea that with age it gets better. We were taken through the process of when the tea leaves are picked from the plant, laid out to dry, pressed into bricks or discs, roasted or fermented, packaged and shipped out. China sure does tea differently than America and it was very interesting to see the process in its entirety.

The group gave the owner of the orange plantation a Kansas City baseball hat

Another afternoon in the village we visited a local school. The school had about 30 students, grades 1-3. The school had students from a few different neighboring villages and we spotted a few children we knew from the village we were digging in. We stood in front of the classroom and told them our names and where we were from. I practiced my chinese and asked the students for their names and ages. I was just as timid as they were when spotlighted to use a new and different language. We then sang the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” which got a real big laugh out of them.

All of the students and their teachers

Inside the classroom

New coloring books, crayons and a jumprope Happy faces

The group from Missouri had brought lots of great toys to give to the children including coloring books, crayons, jump ropes, bubbles and stickers. All of the children had huge grins on their faces and by the end of the afternoon were not so shy and afraid of the silly foreigners.

The end of our trip concluded with a bon fire/dance party with the villagers. Its a time for them to come together, have a feast (they told us they wanted to kill a cow for the dinner, which we tried to talk them out of), dance, sing and enjoy each others company. We danced under the moonlight around the fire putting a nice end onto a wonderful trip.

The group digging Just give me a hoe and some dirt and I'll give you a trench