YAO JIN, China – Yao Jin village sits at the foot of a 2,500 ft. mountain named Jiu Ding Shan (9 peaks mountain). I had been eager to climb it to take some aerial shots of the village and this weekend I got the chance.

I arrived in the village early on Saturday morning with our project coordinator, Alex and our chief engineer, Mr. Xu. We were told that one of the villagers would guide us to the top and I was expecting one of the teenage boys to lead the way. I was surprised when 66-year-old Chen Sheng Hua came strolling over with a machete. “Let’s go!” he said in Chinese. I was perplexed and asked Alex if the elderly villager would make it. Alex laughed and said he doubted that I would make it.

Two hours later, I was gasping for breath, my heart was racing and I was sweating buckets. Ahead of me, 66-year-old M.r Chen was swinging his machete at bamboo and scurrying up the steep narrow pathways without even one bead of sweat on his forehead. I was amazed at his strength and fitness, but then, the villagers of Yao Jin are farmers and they spend hours each day walking up the mountainside to tend their stepped fields. If it hadn’t been for me needing to take breaks along that way I think Mr. Chen could have scaled the mountain in one push. But during those breaks, as I caught my breath, I looked out over the valley and down to Yao Jin below. The scenery was beautiful.

The paths up the mountain were quite perilous; there were huge fissures where the earthquake had split the earth and numerous sections of the mountainside that had slipped and crashed down to the valley in huge rock-slides. These rock-slides proved to be deadly in many locations in the valley. Just a few miles up the road from Yao Jin lies the city of Beichuan. More than 16,000 people were killed when two mountains literally collapsed on the city and buried most of it. Several Yao Jin villagers lost relatives in Beichuan, including Chen Yu Min who lost his wife and daughter. Since then, the government has sealed off the city, as it is too dangerous for anyone to visit. The city will never be rebuilt. Instead, there are plans to completely bury it and create a memorial park. This is difficult for families mourning loved ones as they will never be able to really know what happened to their family members. For relatives, the closest they can get is a fenced-off viewpoint on a hillside.

On Saturday it was the start of the Chinese Moon Festival. The holiday is a celebration of the mid harvest season and coincides with the full moon. It is a time where families get together and where migrant workers often come home for a visit. But for many people in the quake zone, it was a time of mourning. At the viewpoint overlooking Beichuan there were many families gathered to grieve their loved ones during the holiday. Families burned gifts and fake money in remembrance of their lost relatives. It was very moving.

In Yao Jin, despite all of their losses, the villagers celebrated the festival with a big party on Sunday night. They invited the OB team and we bought a box of fireworks for the celebrations. The villagers lit a huge bonfire and sang songs into the night. The full moon was out but the main focus of celebration was that is was the eve of the reconstruction process.

Today a team of surveyors were in the village with hi-tech equipment to plot the site plan. We have a set of beautiful plans and now the surveyors are transposing the plans to the ground. They were busy marking lines where the houses will sit and where the pathways will follow.

After they set the points, the villagers used chalk to mark out lines. Tomorrow a set of heavy excavators will arrive to begin leveling the ground. The rows of houses will be stepped so the machines will be digging at different levels according to the site plan.

I could sense the excitement among the villagers as a large group were out in force today helping to mark lines and salvaging any last minute materials. Liu Zhi Rong was among the crowd holding his 3-year-old grandson, Hong Yu.

The little boy was wearing thicker layers and had a runny nose. Quite a few villagers have colds as the weather is getting cooler, so the project is launching just in time before the harsh winter arrives. The official project launch is planned for Friday when we will have representation from the government and local media, as well as a video blog marking the official start of the project!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Asia, China Disaster, David Darg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.