CHENGDU to XI’AN and on to YONG JI

We took a bus from Zigong in the afternoon (3 hours ride) to Chengdu and met Jackie, our worker from Xi’an. The next day, Ron and Jackie visited the two hospitals that I mentioned in the last section.

We had a very nice new hotel in Chengdu. The manager went out of his way to do things for us even though Jackie, our worker from Xi’an was with us. We left about 7 p.m. the next night to go to the train station. The manager helped with our bags to the end of the street and hailed a taxi for us.

The train looked like a newer train than most we have ridden, but it turned out to be the noisiest one. Our cabin was at the end of the car and the cabling or connection for that car was slipping and making a huge noise every few minutes. There was a lot of squeaking and rattling. We were on this train for 16 hours and it stopped at many places to either board passengers or let other trains go by. This trip was through the highest mountain range in China so we went through many tunnels. The countryside was very beautiful with tall mountains, valleys and rivers all along the track.

We ate lunch as soon as we arrived in Xi’an about 3 pm that afternoon. Jackie got his car and we left to drive two hours south to the small city of Yong Ji. We had another nice hotel (which we felt we deserved after the long train ride).

The next morning, we met with the Education Department official who had some old school buildings for us to consider for an orphanage. The first two we looked at were very old and would be expensive to remodel. They said they had another building we might like.
It was behind a very beautiful school (kindergarten through primary school). The village had gone in jointly with the education department to build a three-story building to house boarding students, but they got about 80% of the building completed and ran out of money. It has very good construction and will take much less to finish the building than to remodel an old one or build a new one. It is very beautiful, painted peach and white, like the school building. They said we could use two floors and they will use the third floor themselves for their boarding students. We would have enough space on two floors to house enough orphans, so we are very interested in moving forward with this location.

The head of the Education Department is a very nice man and really wants us to operate a care center there. He took us to lunch and treated us with a great deal of respect. He wants us to work with him and register under the Department of Education as a private dorm for students and not have to deal with the local Civil Affairs. If this will work, it will be a lot easier for us. The Civil Affairs officials are often the most difficult. He seemed to want us to avoid them if at all possible. Our attorney in Beijing will talk with him and decide if we can legally do it this way.

Yong Ji is a very clean city. They do operate a coal power plant that provides power for the whole city, so the air is not very good for this reason. If this contract can be worked out, Ronald (our son) will go there when he has completed the kitchen and dining room at John Connor Brown orphanage.

The things that need to be completed on this new location are stairway rails, bathrooms (plumbing has been roughed in for one section), tile floors throughout the building and kitchen set up with equipment. There is a large room completed for the kitchen, but it’s just an empty room now. The courtyard needs to be completed for a playground (basketball goal in place but it’s still just a muddy mess). Some painting will be needed too.

Hopefully, we can have this building ready by September, 2010, for students to begin the fall semester of school.