YAO JIN, China – This morning while driving to the village, I spotted the yellow crane towering above the trees from about a mile away. In such a peaceful rural setting, the crane looked out of place in the same way that a summer carnival’s ferris wheel looks odd in the middle of a farmer’s field.

The erection crew had worked most of the night to get the crane assembled, so finally the stage was set to begin our long-awaited concrete pour. When we arrived on the site I felt a strong urge to climb to the top of the crane so I could see the village and surrounding area from a new perspective.

I climbed up the narrow steel ladder inside the tower, got to the top and climbed out on the operator’s platform. I was breathing hard, my upper legs ached slightly, and my hands were black with grease from the grimy rungs on the ladder.

The wind was gusting and the crane swayed slightly and made strange metallic groaning sounds. It was like standing on the top of a tall tree on a windy day. The scene was breathtaking; a background of fog-shrouded mountains, carefully tended fields in the middle distance and the new village taking form directly below me.

Huge piles of new bricks and steel bars had been placed alongside neat foundation excavations that looked like giant versions of the blue prints that we had worked on for so long. I felt a thrill that is hard to describe. The vision for a new village was actually taking shape and rising from the ruin.

In the days since I have left, there has been huge progress. The concrete crews are working 24 hours a day, and brick work has already begun on two blocks. In fact, the villagers and work crews are so productive that additional loads of bricks must be purchased immediately to keep up with their pace!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Asia, Bill Horan, China Disaster. 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.