The Migrant Community and Happy Camp

I've been going to Happy Camp all week, and it's been...an experience!First let me give a little background on the area --The migrant community is a twenty minute bus ride from where I live. It'spretty close to the heart of Beijing, yet it feels like miles out. When weget off the bus a little ways down we join a few people walking next tothe highway (three lanes, but of course the traffic is everywhere!) andit's *very* dusty. Off of the highway is a little dirt road, and that'swhere the community is.We've only walked down that center road so I don't know what's behind theline of little shops and dumpling stalls, but I think it's all where thepeople live. There doesn't seem to be any other main roads and this oneappears to be the hub of activity. You can see even before you start downthis road that this is a very poor place.I'll try to take some pictures so you can see because that's much betterthan me trying to explain what the place looked like, but one thing thatstruck me was the amount of rubbish everywhere. Two water troughs ranalong the road on either side and both were grimy green-black and litteredwith popcycle wrappers, watermelon and banana peels, plastic bags andother packaging...Every hundred meters or so is an open dump spot where people have dumpedtheir trash -- kind of like the contents and volume of a dumpster withoutthe dumpster to contain it. We saw a man picking through it with a shovelyesterday. Zhongna says it has to be sorted before it's taken away.Perhaps quite appropriately, she chose the theme of our part of thecamp to be "Protecting the Environment."Being in this community has given me a new perspective on what it means tobe "environmentally friendly" and made me realize that actually, thereisn't a whole lot these kids -- or anybody in this community -- can dowithout significant outside help. Let's keep with the litter example: inAndover, where everything is sterile and beautiful anyway, we can holdcampaigns telling people not to litter, to set up rubbish bins, toencourage others to respect the environment. We're just having the kidscontinue the generally good behavior that is already demonstratedthroughout the community.These kids here don't have that luxury. It's alot harder to dispose ofyour candy wrapper neatly when there's no place to put it and everyonearound you just throws theirs on the street. We teach our kids that eachperson can "make a difference", but our kids in Andover also have themeans -- if only the moral support.Before I realized where we were working I was brainstorming fairly generalactivities to educate them about the water cycle, the effects of CO2 andother greenhouse gases, etc. Then Zhongna mentioned something aboutteaching them good habits that they could practice on a daily basis toimprove their quality of living and so I started brainstorming things likethat. Most were just common sense stuff, the things I learned as a kidthat most of us just spit back out, like spitting out classroom ruleswithout giving them any thought -- turning off lights and not wastingwater, for example. I didn't realize how much I took these little habits-- most of all, disposing of trash! -- for granted until I came to thiscommunity and saw how extreme their condition was. Saving water is greatbut these people do that already, out of necessity.Even after the first day, I fantasized that we could do a lesson ondisposing of trash and afterwards get them to go out and collect a bageach or encourage them to set up trash bins -- that would work in Andover,right? But this rubbish is so dirty I wouldn't attempt to pick up any of itunless I was in a full body suit, let alone a pair of gloves, and we can'teven kit the kids out with gloves. And setting up bins requires quite abit of money which none of the kids or their parents have. So sincethere's no designated place to put the trash, and nobody has the means toeither clean up the mess or start a new, cleaner system, the whole placestays filthy and change is just too difficult. If anyone has somepractical ideas, please let me know!Anyway, enough about the community. We are working with Compassion forMigrant Children, a charity that helps the kids of migrant workers. I'mnot sure whether they give the kids education or what -- as I understand,there are four elementary schools in the community and most of thechildren can read, so I think they are getting some kind of formaleducation. CMC works out of a two room building and we're helping out withthe summer camp which they're putting on.There are four classes -- art, PE, theater, and something else. We'redoing the theater bit and other people are organizing the other classes.Each class has 25 kids and they rotate, so all the kids get to doeverything and we get the four groups for forty-five minutes each. Agesrange from 1 - 16, though most are between 5 and 13. Big range, huh!That's probably the most challenging thing.Second most challenging is that all 100+ kids are either inside thebuilding, just outside, or running in and out, and it's impossible tocontain them since there are no doors either going out or between therooms! As a result, the place is very noisy and very chaotic. Add the echoin the room and a couple of huge fans and it's nearly impossible to hearanything. Poor Zhongna has come out hoarse every time from competing withthe noise!The typical day has gone like this: we arrive at 9:30 and watch the othervolunteers deal with roll call, name tags, and herding the kids intolines. The children all live nearby so they kind of come and go as theywant or need to. Many go to the toilet in little groups -- it isbasically three cement holes in a shack outside and around the corner. Nostalls, no door, no flush, no sink. An American guy does Head, Shoulders,Knees and Toes with the whole group of 100. They love that and everyone isvery responsive and attentive. Then at 10:20 they split into four groupsand we take one.Although we're supposed to do the same class four times since they rotate,each one has been different. We were so surprised by the chaos of thefirst class we just played any game we could think of to get theirattention. We've been trying to increase the theater element as well asthe environmental theme, though that's been difficult!At 11:05 the first class is over and there's even more chaos as kids runin and out and back and forth between the two rooms and the little ones getconfused...ten minutes later the volunteers try to organize everyone intolines again, take roll call again, and figure out which little urchinswandered in from the street and really shouldn't be at the camp at all...Meanwhile Zhongna and I herd the kids away from the electric fans, takethe thirsty children to the water bubbler, find this little one's "oldersister" (usually cousin, actually, since most of them are single children,but it's very common to call good friends auntie, uncle, brother, littlesister, even mother and father...)Then we have the second class, which is just as spontaneous as thefirst. Zhongna is AMAZING with the children, though, a natural mediator.She can hold their attention so well. Probably the best class we didhad a food chain theme and the children first had to play twenty questionsto figure out what animal was written on the stickers we'd stuck to theirforeheads. As you can imagine, most of them didn't really get it and wentround saying "you're a tiger!" "you're a snake!" or just peeled thesticker off and looked right at it, but they liked that game. Afterwardswe told them to make a food chain and link arms with the other "animals"that either ate them or which they ate. They also liked that.The class is over at 12:00, at which point all the children have to lineup again, take another roll call, and then they all find their ways homefor lunch.It's actually a great experience and the kids are adorable. Interestingly,not a single one has been surprised when I speak to them in Chinese.Have a great day!Love, Leah