My Volunteer Life

By FENG AI

Several years ago, I read a notice soliciting volunteer teachers to work in the west. It caught my interest and I clipped it. Upon graduation in August 2000, I postponed my graduate studies in sociology and joined the Fudan Team of China Youth Volunteer Aid. My one-year volunteer life began in Xihaigu, a loess plateau 1,000 km west of Beijing, in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the most impoverished region in northwest China. What prompted a girl like me to make such a decision? Initially, I just wanted to help the poor children in this mountainous region. Later, my tutor's words strengthened my resolve. "As a sociology major, unless you stay in the countryside for at least half a year, you will not have a comprehensive knowledge of it. Without an intimate knowledge of the countryside, you can never understand this country."

I was born in Beijing and studied in Shanghai. Having lived in big cities for a long time, I knew little about the poverty of western regions. I was dispatched to Ningxia's Xiji County, a key region included in the National Poverty Alleviation Project and described by relevant UN departments as "a place unsuitable for human inhabitants." At an elevation of 2,000 meters, it has big mountains and deep valleys, poor transport facilities and severe water deficiency. Every volunteer had to command the basic skills of carrying water, cooking and lighting the gas stove. Two volunteers shared a room where we lived, worked, and cooked in an area less than ten square meters. All we had was an old desk, an adobe kang, (a heatable adobe sleeping platform), a stove, some cooking utensils and a bulb hanging overhead. This simple and crude equipment was prepared especially for us "graduate teachers."

The school was in great need of teaching facilities. The library had only old and obsolete reference materials, there were neither tape recorders nor tapes for English class and no decent experimental facilities for physics and chemistry classes. In PE class, 40 students shared one basketball. Prior to mid-term and final exams, the headmaster would carefully take out the school's only hand-operated mimeograph. When the new semester started, one-fourth of students could not afford the tuition fee and had to drop out of school. They stood at the school gate, crying, reluctant to leave. I began to solicit assistance for them from various sources; my telephone and mails were soon dominated by donation canvassing.

I was shocked by the pupils' poor rudimentary knowledge; I was once asked whether the Internet was used for fishing or catching birds.

My colleagues and I agreed to try to teach the children as much as possible in the limited time available. To make up for their poor foundation, I gave extra lessons in my spare time and included up-to-date scientific and technological topics, such as cloning, gene research, and Internet technology. As time went on, their eyes glistened with interest, and more and more students asked questions.

After a year, I returned to the city. Looking up at the skyscrapers, what came to my mind was not prosperity, but farmers' bitterness. I could see in the distance some migrant workers laboriously carrying reinforcing bars on the construction site. I felt sad for them. Among them could be my students' parents, or my students themselves. Migrant workers labor hard and suffer low social status and urban dwellers' derogatory remarks as they strive to give their children a chance at education. Living with the mountain villagers not only gave me an intimate understanding but also deepened my admiration for them.

For this reason, I joined another volunteer team last June heading to Zhanhe Township, Ninglang Yi Autonomous County, in Yunnan Province, a mountainous region 200 km from Myanmar. Located in China's southwestern frontier, it is 3,000 meters above sea level. Of its 230,000 population, 190,000 live in poverty and the Zhanhe annual per capita net income is only 280 yuan.

Zhanhe Middle School is the best in Ninglang County, but students eat potatoes all year long. The school has no library, and students own no dictionaries, only textbooks. In the playground there are three makeshift plank houses without windows, and crevices in the walls are wider than a fist. A total of 250 students lived here. In winter, many students caught colds. On one day 35 out of a class's 54 students were sick.

Fifty years ago, Zhanhe County was a backward place where various social forms coexisted. Today, urban dwellers could not imagine how ignorant and backward it is. In winter, students take down the electric light bulbs and put them beneath their quilt to get warm. To escape evening classes, they sometimes break high-tension wires with stones. I was distressed by their poor foundation, but like children at that age everywhere, they are innocent, kind, engaging and curious.     

Zhanhe Middle School is in great need of teachers, so volunteers had a heavy workload. I taught music, Chinese, history, and geography -- altogether 30 classes per week. I usually worked until one or two o'clock in the morning, correcting student papers and preparing lessons and got up at 6:00 am to attend to their morning study.

Once I had to go to Beijing to take part in an activity., When I entered the classroom that day prior to my departure, I was captivated by the wild flowers on the platform and a blessing written in chalk on a corner of the platform, "bon voyage." I was deeply moved. All my efforts seemed rewarded. I had no regrets because I had gotten the most precious thing in the world, children's pure love.

Things in Zhanhe are similar to Xiji in that many children have no choice but to drop out of school. My heart aches when I think of when they might get the chance to resume their studies.

When I went to Shanghai and Beijing, I missed no opportunity to solicit assistance. When I was invited to give a lecture by Northern China Jiaotong University, I asked for help in funding six poor students in need of subsidy, and donations quickly accumulated. In half a year, I was given 250 dictionaries, RMB 6,000 in cash, a hundred erasers, pencil-boxes, some clothes, basketballs and footballs, all basic equipment that the school lacked.

Our team expanded from time to time. People from Shanghai and Fudan University gave their support and we received countless phone calls every week conveying solidarity. Every month we received gifts from Fudan University. 

I learned that the Shanghai Project Hope Office would build a "Hope Library" in Zhanhe Middle School and donate 200,000 yuan towards building a dormitory building. A Shanghai-based non-public enterprise, the Weida Group agreed to help 50 students with their junior middle school fees, and many nice people sent donations to children living in Ninglang's mountainous villages. I was moved by Shanghai people's love and help and felt happy for the children.

An individual’s ability is limited. We cannot compete with the sun, we are just bulbs. A bulb's mission is to lighten a room, that is enough. As we pass the baton from year to year, it will benefit a large number of students. To benefit them is to benefit several generations and possibly change their lives.

FENG AI got her master's degree in sociology from Fudan University. Between August of 2000 and 2001, she volunteered to teach in Baiya Township Middle School, Xiji County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In August of 2003, Feng was appointed leader of Shanghai University Students to Yunnan Volunteer Team and taught in Zhanhe Middle School. In January of 2004, she was conferred a gold medal for China Youth Volunteer Service.