Mianzhu Hanwang: Chronicle of Renai School on June 27 (Ajiaji)

School events:

Today was sun­ny and hot out­side, but the school was quite cool. Class­es at Qunx­in Vil­lage School con­tin­ued as nor­mal. Teach­ers Lin Yiwei and Ju Xing led morn­ing read­ing for the low­er and upper grades, respec­tive­ly. Instruc­tors Dai Xip­ing and Zhang Jun led mil­i­tary train­ing in the first peri­od. In the sec­ond peri­od, Teacher Ju Xing shared the ori­gins of the Chi­nese zodi­ac with the low­er grades, while new teacher Xue Shan­bing taught paint­ing to the upper grades. In the third peri­od, Ajia shared a math game about remain­ders with the upper grades, and then shared “Sophie’s Mas­ter­piece.” Teacher Chen Chao taught the low­er grades a song.

2. In the after­noon, the inter­est and read­ing class­es pro­ceed­ed as nor­mal. We had orig­i­nal­ly planned to orga­nize the low­er grade chil­dren to con­tin­ue rehears­ing “Afan­ti” and the high­er grade chil­dren to rehearse “The Emper­or’s New Clothes”, but a group of staff from the local gov­ern­ment depart­ment came to inspect and the rehearsal activ­i­ties were inter­rupt­ed.

3. The depart­ments that came to inspect the school includ­ed the Edu­ca­tion Bureau, Health Bureau, Pub­lic Secu­ri­ty Bureau, and oth­ers. They report­ed that some vol­un­teers at the tent school had recent­ly encoun­tered prob­lems, neces­si­tat­ing stan­dard­ized man­age­ment. Tent schools must pos­sess var­i­ous cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and doc­u­ments, and safe­ty and san­i­ta­tion stan­dards must meet reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments. These require­ments are very high, and if they are met, they could poten­tial­ly become a for­mal school. After lengthy expla­na­tions and nego­ti­a­tions, sev­er­al gov­ern­ment offi­cials were gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive about the school’s cur­rent sta­tus. How­ev­er, they con­tin­ued to repeat­ed­ly ques­tion, “What is the con­nec­tion between this school and Xiao Yi, the founder of the Niu­bizi Vil­lage School?” They explic­it­ly stat­ed that the Niu­bizi Vil­lage School had been noti­fied to dis­band auto­mat­i­cal­ly, and if it had any con­nec­tion to Xiao Yi, it would be shut down. (Orig­i­nal words) We repeat­ed­ly explained that although this school was ini­tial­ly found­ed by vol­un­teers from the Heart of Chi­na, it was lat­er oper­at­ed by the Ren’ai Char­i­ty Foun­da­tion, which had obtained cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Mianzhu City Edu­ca­tion Bureau. It no longer had any con­nec­tion to Xiao Yi. Vil­lage Par­ty Sec­re­tary Zhou and Vil­lage Head Direc­tor Tang also explained this and praised the work of the Ren’ai School vol­un­teers. Every­one agreed to dis­cuss the mat­ter again after return­ing home and ask the vil­lage com­mit­tee to pro­vide an expla­na­tion of the school’s oper­a­tion. If the vil­lagers wel­comed and accept­ed it, the school could con­tin­ue, but the con­di­tions would need to be improved and the for­mal­i­ties com­plet­ed. Ulti­mate­ly, they agreed to make a final deci­sion before noon tomor­row.

I explained to sev­er­al gov­ern­ment offi­cials and the vil­lage Par­ty Sec­re­tary that the vol­un­teers from Ren’ai School have over­come numer­ous dif­fi­cul­ties to arrive here and are con­tin­u­ous­ly improv­ing the school’s con­di­tions. They are dri­ven by a sense of com­pas­sion, uncon­cerned with fame or reward, seek­ing noth­ing in return but sim­ply to pro­vide the vil­lagers (espe­cial­ly the chil­dren) with what­ev­er assis­tance they can. The school’s con­di­tions are tai­lored to local con­di­tions. While strict hygiene stan­dards may not nec­es­sar­i­ly make it suit­able for a typ­i­cal school, we can guar­an­tee that it is one of the most san­i­tary and cer­tain­ly the coolest areas in the vil­lage. We have strict dis­ci­pline not to take up the vil­lagers’ resources or cause trou­ble for them. The vil­lagers (espe­cial­ly the chil­dren) have shown their accep­tance and wel­come to us. How­ev­er, as vol­un­teers, we will not force any­one. We will do our utmost, but if we are tru­ly unwel­come, we will with­draw with­out com­plaint. How­ev­er, every­thing has its rea­sons, and we deserve fair treat­ment. We should not be sin­gled out sim­ply for the mis­con­duct of oth­er, indi­vid­ual vol­un­teers.

Sev­er­al staff mem­bers said that they per­son­al­ly rec­og­nized the work of the school and expressed their sin­cere grat­i­tude to the vol­un­teers, but the doc­u­ment had so many rules and reg­u­la­tions that they need­ed to go back and study it in detail. They also hoped that the vil­lage could issue rel­e­vant cer­tifi­cates to help explain the sit­u­a­tion.

4. This after­noon, we had orig­i­nal­ly planned to haul anoth­er load of coal ash to bed­ding the camp, but we’ve decid­ed to hold off until tomor­row at noon. We’ve already made prepa­ra­tions for both con­tin­u­ing and evac­u­at­ing. Inspec­tor Luobo will be arriv­ing tomor­row to replace Ajia and Lin Yiwei, so if we do evac­u­ate, he’ll be in charge.

5. After school in the after­noon, I and sev­er­al teach­ers sent a group of chil­dren home. We played and laughed all the way. Such a hap­py day is real­ly nos­tal­gic.

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On the way to send the chil­dren home

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Haha, I caught one…

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fly

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6. In the after­noon, Mr. Yang from the Cheng­du Cycling Club came again to deliv­er sup­plies. He had just come the day before to deliv­er wood­en planks. He want­ed to under­stand what the vil­lagers need­ed and then mobi­lized the club’s mem­bers to donate. He and his wife brought their two chil­dren with them, want­i­ng them to expe­ri­ence the relief first­hand. We went to the vil­lage com­mit­tee to learn about the vil­lagers’ needs. On our return, we dis­trib­uted the 30-plus mos­qui­to nets Mr. Yang brought to the vil­lagers sur­round­ing the school as a token of our grat­i­tude for their con­tin­ued care, sup­port, and under­stand­ing.

It’s get­ting dark, so I’ll stop here. The weath­er is beau­ti­ful tonight, but this may be anoth­er sleep­less night.

June 27 evening Argen­tine Primera División record