Visit to Yizhou Oct 2012

As we left Desheng behind, crossing at the Toll-Gate and travelling on to Yizhou, we were looking forward to meeting the many Desheng Girls who were now studying in Yizhou.

           The streets were decorated in Red Lanterns 

to mark Travel Festival in Yizhou!

                          and we just LOVED the matching red Post-vans!

                              Scary Lions guarding the school gates!

     as we entered Yizhou No 2 Middle School 

where many of our girls are studying

         We LOVE the grounds of this school with its trees, waterways, bridges

and the teachings of the masters to inspire excellence in the students here

And here are the Boards showing the top students of the Year!

We are SO proud that many of our girls make it on to this prestigious board each year!

When we arrived, it was straight down to work, with the girls filling out the forms for their sponsors.

Answering questions like.....

• What do like to do?
• What makes you happy?
• What is your greatest wish?

                              Some very thought-provoking answers..........

And the lovely thing is that for this term, 

sponsors have been asked to fill in similar forms 

to send back to the girls with information about themselves and their lives!

(  In fact Matthew just delivered them last week! The girls were so excited to receive them!)

               It is all taken very seriously and overseen by the Women's Association

When the work is done, The Team hand out support payments for each girl, 

all overseen and recorded and signed for.

Then the real fun begins...... 

Girls receiving letters and photos from their sponsors.

If you are the sponsor and you are asked regularly to send photos/notes for your girl, please know how special this part is for the girls. 

A few minutes of your time produces some great big smiles!

A gift for this lovely girl from her sponsors family whose sons are the talented Majestic Dandelions! Her own copy of their CD! COOL!

                                                And even better ......
                      Sponsors who come all the way from Finland to visit them :-)

It is great fun just "being" with the girls and having time to chat. 

They are more and more confident in their English to chat these days. 

( Unfortunately our Chinese is still not much better :-( )

Here are the girls who live in Desheng, but now study at Yizhou. 

They form a close group of girls who help and support each other away from home.

Here is the whole Deshng/Yizhou Team with cards handmade by children in a Touch Primary School, Dunfermline

to celebrate Sweetie and Sunshine,

the Pandas gifted to Scotland from China!

   And here with their beautiful scarves, gifts from sponsors around the world

                     The little ones had some fun ideas of what to do with them :-)

                 And before we knew it, our fun-filled afternoon had come to an end....

the girls had to go back to their studies.....

                        and we left , along the familiar road back to Hechi.

                                                     Until next Year, Girls!

Desheng Life...and Hope for the Future!

 After the excitement of the SWI visit, and our fun at the Temple grounds,

it was time to chill downtown before we went to meet the 

Guangxi Girls in Desheng

 This lovely Nai Nai was very interested in what was going on with our girls                    running around, climbing trees!!! and having fun!

In fact lots of people stopped to have a wee look as we sat there.....

We met an old friend while there - one of the nannies, 

also daughter of a Desheng foster mother, with her own son this year.

......we were just a bit surprised by the mode of transport, common here for young children - certainly no Health & Safety overload here?

Soon it was time for the girls to come out of school so we were heading back down to the Middle School to meet them....

    We have been here so many times before....we don't need any help.
We will walk thro Desheng and find our own way to the Middle School!

                                         Well, we had an amazing walk.....

and saw real Desheng life

                           with lovely people and views along the way......

                                     ...even the Finnish Quilt hanging outside:-)

                                ...but soon it was clear.....we were lost!

                                                            What to do?

Well, of course we stopped the first person we met, who was this old gentleman. We handed him the phone with Matthew on the other end...but he looked at us as if we were mad!

This young girl came to take the phone....

..but was none the wiser?

Why were these crazy foreigners wandering down their streets????

Thankfully we were saved when one of our own Guangxi Girls who was coming to the school to meet us, just happened by and took us under her wing!

When we got there, Lucy had the girls hard at work already, filling out the forms to send back to their sponsors.

                         They were taking their jobs very seriously!

 It was wonderful to see them again - 

growing up so fast 

and just blossoming as young women with a future!

 The boys around the school were very interested in what was going on too.....

 ...carrying the rubbish collected from the classrooms 

to the dump at the end of the day....

and having a good old laugh at the photos & video we took of them

After some time just chatting to the girls while staff took their individual photos for sponsors, our girls playing badminton with them.....

                                   ...we gave out their gifts from their sponsors

They were absolutely delighted to receive them, 

and we had some great fun with them twirling and showing off new styles!

                                  However, all was not happiness and smiles..
...as we began to notice that all was not well with one of our girls.......

                                   To cut a long story short, 
                   together we were able to fathom the cause of this pain, 
                           and with a Team from all around the world, 
 we were able to make a big difference in this girls's life in just the next month                                                                  when it was her Birthday!

                                 Everyone needs to know they matter........
...and we are so thankful to be part of a World-Wide team that does just that!
                                  Come and join in at Guangxi Girls
                 and share the wonderful opportunities to make a difference :-)