Aftera 16 hour train ride, we finally arrived in Ji’An! This is Megan, a pretty cool girl who works at the Meten Headquarters in Shenzhen. It would take another 5 hours on buses from Ji’An before we would arrive at the village.
Notlong after arriving, we were introduced to Mr and Mrs Zhang, who were farmers who had lived in the village for over 40 years. Mr Zhang was blind so his dogs were always there to help him(you can see them here in the photo). Mrs Zhang would serve us breakfast and dinner in her home every day and all of the food we ate was grown herself in the field just outside her house.
MrsZhang had quite a nice home but many of the facilities in the village were in a much worse condition. The picture on the right shows the school’s toilet, which was nothing more than a concrete room with no running water.
Some of these students walk for an hour to get to school every day. While they might not have the best facilities waiting for them there, they’re always optimistic and come to class with so much energy and will to learn.
Here'sthe school’s maths teacher MrZhang, who was as strict as any teacher you’ll ever meet. Whenever he walked into a classroom, students would sit up straight and not say a word. Here he is lecturing students at the end of day, telling them to avoid trouble on their walk home.
Throughout the week, we slept in a kindergarten about 1km from the school. Every morning before we woke up,students would already be inside our house as early as 6:30 waiting for their class to begin. Naturally, we were asked to give them some classes every morning before we went off to the primary school. They often made it hard to leave the building after class.
School meals were fairly basic, but pretty tasty. Meals are eaten standing outside the classrooms and there’s always plenty of chili. Meat was served once a month. We were lucky enough to be there on the day they served chicken.
One morning, we had the chance to travel to a bigger town about 30 minutes away where we gave some classes to grade 5 and 6 students. The welcome we got from the students here was unbelievable.
Meten'sbeen a huge help to the community here, paying for many of the students study fees and even building homes for the poorest families in the village. At the moment, Meten is buildinga new school for these students next to the current school. It’s a nice building and even has a library and a canteen so students can finally eat sitting down.Nevertheless, the school will always remain under resourced because of its remoteness, which is why its so important that Meten continues to send volunteers to these communities.
A big thank you to Meten for its continued efforts to support this village and also to all those Meten students and teachers who donated generously! The kids definitely appreciated it.