more stories from the countryside
Showers
showers don’t happen in the countryside. sometimes i see the ladies wash their hair but a full-on shower? not gonna happen…
on the left is face washing water, right is feet washing water
the closest thing to a shower is washing our feet every night. i was given the feet washing thing first(can’t think of the word for the wooden thing in the picture??) and washed my feet in boiling hot water. then A’s parents grabbed the thing and washed their feet in the same water. yes, in my stinky feet water, but they didn’t seem to care. they asked if i wanted to wash my face, and of course i did. so i washed my face in the thing to the left.
one exception are the kids…they get full-on baths!
In Tune with Nature
the family woke up early in the morning and began the day with rice and vegetables.
getting ready for breakfast
it’s nice to be so in tune with nature. get up when it’s bright out, work the fields during the day, then go to bed when it’s dark. what a concept.
Cute Story
the above picture is A’s brother, F. i was right behind F as we were walking into the village, and a few ladies saw us and asked if we were a couple (i had no idea this conversation was going on until A told me about it later). then the parents proceeded to talk about how wonderful it would be to have a college graduate as their daughter-in-law. F was all blushin.’ and was kinda blushing the rest of the evening. =) so cute.
the next day i asked where i could get some drinking water, so A asked her mom if she could go to the nearby well to fetch some water. i went along but A was like, everybody’s going to think you’re the daughter-in-law! …the perks of a small community =)
then i thought, if i married into the family, it could really change their circumstances. not to say i myself could change their lives. but if i married the son, he would have the opportunity to go to america and find an ok paying job, instead of doing the back-breaking construction work he’s doing now for pennies. he could send money home. a couple hundred USD is a couple thousand RMB. maybe A and her family could eventually go to america too and live a better life, etc, etc… i won’t marry him =), but i can’t help but imagine the far reaching effects of this one decision…
A’s parents were able to save up 7000 RMB (~1000 USD) from working in another province. they hope to use this money to ‘spiff’ up their home so F can find a wife. =) A told me ladies from the countryside actually really care about this kind of stuff.
Hard Work
F and A’s husband, Q, work at a construction site, helping to build a bridge. they live, eat, and sleep there too. A showed me around, and i was appalled at their working and living conditions. A and family live in one cement hole. the families get a cement hole and the single men sleep in one big room together.
entrance to the cement holes
A and family all sleep on a wooden board. the bathroom is just a hole in the ground, and there’s no real shower.
the men inserting these huge, long metal things into a long, cement structure for the bridge
the bridge from afar
each worker makes a little more than 1000 RMB/ month (~$150 USD). Hardly enough for a family of 3 to survive on. the project will probably be completed early next year, then everybody will have to move and find a new job.
i was pretty quiet the whole time because i felt so much heart-break for them. talk about an incredibly un-level playing field. they kept asking me how i felt, and i said, ‘ni men hen xin ku,’ (you guys have such hard lives). i told A i could always go back to my comfortable home here and in america but their home is just a cement hole. she in turn tried to comfort me! though life is hard for them, and they have their own set of worries, she’s content that her daughter is healthy, and her husband treats her well. her greatest hope now is to have a healthy baby (their first baby passed away when she was only a month old). when i talked to the husband, Q, he said that there’s really no other way. if he doesn’t do this kind of work, they could not survive.
then i thought about the cards we are dealt. the simple fact of being from the countryside places them at a great disadvantage. the simple fact of being an american places me at a great advantage (relatively). A grew up very, very poor. her family only had one field, and it was not enough for a family of 5 to survive on. so A left home at 16 to work in the guangdong province. she worked in a factory and was very proud of herself for being able to send a couple thousand RMB home after working for a year. her story is not unique; it is a very typical story of a family from the countryside in this province.
are they deserving of their poverty? and am i deserving of my privilege? no. but oftentimes why do we operate as if we deserve all the things we work hard/ not work hard for?
