Deyang City, Sichuan Province, China - We visited OBI’s school project bright and early Friday morning to be with the children as they went through their morning exercises. It was great as the “drill sergeant” had the kids fall in line at 7:00 a.m. sharp.

They went running up the road in groups and came back puffing and panting about 5 minutes later. When all the groups returned from their morning jog they made a big circle and a teacher came forward shouting out names. The names were of those children who had made a noted effort on making their bed and tidying their living space. After each name the children clapped and cheered.

They then watched a martial arts demonstration from some college volunteers. The children loved it and were obviously very impressed as they were constantly applauding and laughing. One of the martial arts volunteers told us that he was a university physics major who had come to help at the school after the quake.

“We are here to show love to the children and help them become happy again,” he said. Seeing the smiles of the children in the school, it is hard to imagine that only a few weeks ago they went through unimaginable trauma, many of them losing classmates in the quake.

The children began to mimic the volunteers and learn some of their moves. Then a teacher showed the students how to start from the blocks in a sprint race. The children were enthused and will all soon be watching olympic sprinters on the TV’s in their classrooms, as Olympic fever sweeps the nation next month. After all the physical activity, the children were hungry and lined up single file to get breakfast. As part of the project, OBI has also funded a fully-equipped kitchen for feeding the children three meals a day. Today they ate a traditional breakfast of a steamed bun roll, a boiled egg, sauteed vegetables and congee, a type of rice porridge.

The campus, which we are running with our Chinese partner CFPA, is a fully functioning educational and living facility with all the amenities needed, including toilets and showers. It’s a place of strict learning but also a place of fun where the children can play sports together, socialize and look to the future after their great ordeal. I absolutely love that OBI can be a part of impacting the lives of China’s future generation.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 7:55 am 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.