Notes from the Field

Claire’s (in-country project mananger) personal account.

On the evening of May 17, Claire together with some CDC people held a very interesting and successful programme activity in a Jingpo village known as Yunqian Village. It is one of the villages under a greater Yunqian Village Committee, which is about 35 km from Mangshi, capital town of Dehong Prefecture, and includes 5 Jingpo villages and 1 De’ang village.

Three Jingpo villages were involved, and totalling 113 households! We had planned to include 87 households in two villages only, because the third village is about 4 km away rom the venue, but unexpectedly many young men and women from those 26 families in the third village came upon the news that we were doing an interesting programme. It was really inspiring!

One of the biggest differences of this programme from the others done before was that we had a dinner with some of the local villagers. Because Claire’s sister lived in the village where we held the activity, she recommended having a dinner of typical Jingpo food that evening May 17 happened to be a market day around the area (one market day every five days), so, Claire got up very early that morning and left for the market 13 km away so that she could have chance to buy some meat and vegetables and some ingredients needed.

The CDC people and some friends working as volunteers arrived in the later afternoon around 5 o’clock, supper was almost ready —- a couple of villagers were helping in Claire’s sister’s kitchen. We had a most delicious meal that day, all food being typically traditional Jingpo style and flavor! Everyone enjoyed it. Ms. Lee, director of the CDC Office said she had never tasted food like that! And after the meal, every member of the working group scattered around the bushes near the kitchen and was busy picking up and eating the yellow strawberries. They were just like kids at that moment!

We began the activity at about 9 in at night. Like before, we bought soaps, washing powder, towels, toothbrushes, toothpaste, tissue paper, pencils, exercise books, candies, mosquito coils, etc.. There were just so many villagers that the yard seemed too small, and more were still arriving, so after Claire greeted and spoke over microphone to tell the villagers the purpose of the programme activity, we had to divide them into three groups. Each group was in a different room, and we did the activity in turn in different rooms.

The audiences were really enthusiastic, and they nodded and questioned during and after the experts’ lecture. Near the end of the activity, it started raining, and it was almost 12 at night. When our programme actitvies came to an end, the villagers still stayed in the yard, no one wanted to leave —- they were expecting more lectures, more games … we promised that, time and opportunity given, we would come back to the village for similar programmes. We had to ask them to go back home, to sleep well for the next day’s labor.

When it started raining more heavily, they knew they had to part us, so they came up to thank and say it was so special, so interesting, so useful and so helpful. Many of them promised they would never do drugs and keep themselves away from HIV/AIDS as well as help others live a happy life though it might not be a materially rich one. Honestly speaking, we were moved by their remarks. It was a great success.