Journey on the old Silk Road..............

Its been a while.......life has been toooo busy.......but back to where we were......

After an amazing morning with the Desheng foster children, foster families and SWI staff, we headed for the peace and calm of the Ancient Desheng wall and Street, while we waited for the time to meet the Yizhou SWI Kids.

It was hot, peaceful, quiet and so calm after all the excitement of the morning 

                                            as we drove along the bumpy lane in our van.

I have visited several times with the girls,

 but it was lovely this time to share with  friends who hadn't been before

I could sense a visible relaxing all round as we stepped out of the van and just breathed it all in......

Aahhh... I can feel it now :-)

PEACE!

                               These are the ancient houses,100s of years old, almost in a time-warp

    with locals tending to their silk worms,

 carrying out their work on old bikes or trucks

                                                                   free range chickens.....

  We all stepped through the Ancient Desheng Wall,
 built by a Captain at the end of the Song Dynasty, over 1000 years ago.  

   and just marvelled in the scenes before us....... 

ancient houses with traditional rural lifestyles.

                                                  The Desheng Fu Sisters at their door......

I have only just recently fully understood the upside down Fu. I knew it it was to keep the Good Luck in, but never really quite sure how. Thanks, Pam for the explanation :-)

 "Idea is that you put the 'fu' upside down on your front door then when some one arrives they say 'Fu dao le' which means the fu character is upside down. But 'dao' also means to arrive so by saying 'fu daole' thay also say 'Fu (good fortune / happiness / luck) has arrived' so bringing good wishes to the house at the beginning of the New year." 

"Fu sisters".........off on their own Desheng travels........

The houses are mainly open to the street and locals are very friendly. I am sure there is not a huge passing tourist trade there, but they didn't seem too bemused by our presence?

and even invited us in to their homes........

                                                          checking out the Ancient Well

and using the "local conveniences"( that was a story in itself :-)

                        The fields around are full of Mulberry leaves used to feed the silk worms

                                                 rooms in the houses just full of silk worms.....

the next stage in the process

all done by hand

the girls were fascinated to touch the cocoons and learn all about the cycle

Somehow, one of these sweet little fluffy cocoons ended up in a bag heading for Scotland..check out tomorrow's Blog to see what happened to it!

                                        For now, we were back on our travels down the street.....

                                                        cleaning up as we went along

                                                      getting ready for some winnowing

                                                               and saying goodbye to our friends

                                      Shawn just couldn't resist a wee cuddle before we left.......

Love this picture which just sums up the beautiful connections we share around the world.

Desperate need for help in Guangxi

Poverty means different things to different people...........

Matthew has been making his school visits to Dou An and met with some little girls who are simply struggling to survive in their family circumstances.

While the governement is now paying school fees for Primary and Middle school girls, it is doing little to address these basic family issues with which these little girls have to deal.......they urgently need help if they are to remain at school and have any hope for the future.........

"My name is XX XXXXXXX, was born on Aug.5 of 1995, studying on Grade 8 in Lalie Middle School.



I live in a remote and poor village, there are six persons in my family, they are my parents, two younger sisters, one little brother and I. We depend on farm but have a low income. In July of 2009, my father was burn by fire when he repaired our marsh gas tank, we spent lots money to cure him, now we owe a lot of debt.My father cannot work again, the whole family is supported by my mother who is in a poor health and always takes medicine. My little brother is three years old but unlucky, he gets nepharophelitis and needs to cure, my two sisters and I are at school. Every year we just full of our stomach but this year met a flood and had no any food, our pigs and chicken died for murrain. My family fall in hopeless.


I am a good student at school and work very hard. I love study and my favourite subjects are chemistry and physics. My dream is I can study at college one day.


So I hope you can help me, I will try my best to work hard and don't let you down."


Sisters struggling.......

 My name is Qin XXXXXXXX, was born on Step. 10 of 2002, studying on Grade Three in Lalie Sanbiao Primary School.

My name is Qin XXXXXXX, was born on Feb. 10 of 1997, studying on Grade Six in Lalie Sanbiao Primary School.

I live in a poor village which my family is the most poor in. We live a broken and old house. Our house will leak when it rains. But unlucky my father died in Apr. this year for illness. That made our family get into hopeless. My mother is a epileptic and her illness often return so cannot work. Because of this situation, she cannot afford us to school.


I am hopeless but I love study very much and work hard at school. So I hope you can help me and let me have a chance go on my study. Also I hope I can help other after I grow up.


At home I will help my mother do some housework.


We have not included photos so as to respect the privacy of our girls, but we KNOW that if you could see their faces, you would want to do something to help them all!!!!!!
If anyone would like to help, it costs just £6/£10 a month to provide them with the support they so desperately need.

Please get in touch if you can help???????