Diary of Dongzhou children village

I don't know if the number 20 has a special meaning in China, but it means a lot for the children of Dongzhou village. Today was the 20th visit organized by the VIA team (Volunteer In Action), 10 people joined for this special anniversary. As usually children are very excited by our visit. These children really like when they get the attention of adults. The director of the village, grandpa guo, always takes the same pleasure to introduce slowly the guests of the day. His eyes are shining when he introduce us as "shu shu" and "ai ai". The children get even more exiting when we started to distribute fruits and candies that Jin Min and his parents bought in the morning.

After this food distribution, we gave to each of them a copy of a news-paper article, as well as some photo. They were all about Chinese people who are suffering of extremely hard life. The article was about one handicapped man who is every day climbing with dignity the Hua Shan mountains to carry some food for the rich tourists. Personally, I was thinking such stories will remove the rest of hope to these children. Without their family, how can they have a better life than such people? But grandpa guo is here to take care of them. With his incredible energy, this old man has been able to get supports from many people. In the entrance hall, I'm looking at all pictures and information boards: I can read only one of them from the "Xi'an young women Christian association". I can also see many people came here, including a lot of foreigners. There was even a CCTV cameraman today. But the most impressive of all are really the results: today the VIA gave a scholarship to a young girl who has been admitted to follow the Railway-staff school. Who knows maybe a new "grandpa guo" will come out from this children village.

For the time being, children need our help more than ever. They are really asking for it. After the small ceremony, children took us to their room and showed up some books ... English books, in my case. They have a huge desire of learning. They expect 100% of your attention. We were really not enough to satisfy their expectation. Another interesting point I have notice, is that this children village is really clean and tidy. For lunch, children are all queuing to wait for food. Then they are eating quietly, and finally cleaning all their dishes. Honestly we don't see it often in China, it looks even better than in our building cafeteria. Thanks grandpa guo for this nice education.

In the afternoon, Li Xin and Jin Min gave a class to the children to coach them in life. What nice "shu shu" they are !!! Unfortunately, I did not understand much of it, but children were listening well. Later on, we split into small groups. Some were taking pictures, some others were doing some kind of paper bending. Children were incredibly good at this: there are able to do a heart, or a bird or dragons. 3 dragons are now sitting on my thin line. I'm pride of me, I did one of them myself. 2:30 pm and it is already time to go. It is certainly too early for the children, but they are already looking forward to see us for the 21st visit. They expect us to come even more people than today.