by Pamela Logan  March 7, 2001

EARTHQUAKE RELIEF

As most of you know, an 6.0 magnitude earthquake occurred on Feb 23, centered at a village called Bawolung in a rural area between Yajiang (Nyachuka) and Jiulong (Gyezil) counties. Up to March 1, seismologists recorded more than 800 aftershocks, of which at least 600 aftershocks were big enough to have their magnitude calculated. The largest aftershock was 4.5; nine others were between 3 to 3.9.

This earthquake involved 30 towns and townships including 10,833 families and 51,964 people. Three people died, seven are still missing, and 154 injured. Damage to property was widespread 273 houses collapsed, 1,188 houses partly collapsed, and 9,682 houses suffered cracks. The earthquake seriously damaged the infrastructure of communication, transportation, energy resources and agriculture, and also damaged many government offices, schools and hospitals. The total direct economic loss is estimated at over 300 million yuan, or 37 million US dollars.

Kham Aid Foundation is working with the vice governor's office to determine the most important needs of the quake's victims, so that we don't duplicate the government's efforts. They have established a relief office in Kangding to receive donated goods and money from the public. In work units and schools, people in the city of Kangding are being asked to pitch in by donating cash and goods to this fund; which is administered by the Civil Affairs Bureau of Ganzi Prefecture. (You will be relieved to know that I worked closely with the Civil Affairs Bureau last year on our wheelchair program, and found their people to be capable and honest).

James Delano, a friend of Kham Aid Foundation who happens to be traveling in the region now, reports "Relief has been arriving by military transport. In fact, on the bus out of Kangding this morning, 5 March, military trucks could still be seen trudging up from the lowlands to Kangding and further on." Let's hope that all of this aid really gets to the folks at Bawolung, and that the soldiers don't trash the place and make things worse.

The Kham Aid Foundation relief fund is now up to US$1508! Thanks so much to everyone who contributed! We're buying building supplies and food with this money, and sending it by truck and horse to the earthquake zone. I'm planning to be in Kangding on April 1 and will have more reports for you then.

If you want to add to our earthquake fund, please reply to me at khamaid@khamaid.org.

BOOKS FOR SCHOOLS

For the last nine months program leader Badeng Nima, and co-leader Tsering Tashi have been directing the translation of a six-volume series called "Window to Science" into Tibetan. Last fall, just when we were ready to go to press, we hit a snag when the Sichuan Nationality Publishing House was ordered to drop all current projects and take up the writing, translating, and printing of a set of books heralding the accomplishments of the deceased Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. Aiyah! Naturally, we were all pretty upset about this delay.

The good news is that the publishing house has now gotten through their allotted number of Deng books, and can again take up our science series. We will print 3,000 sets and distribute them free of charge to schools in Ganzi Prefecture. Additional sets will be printed and sold at cost to individuals who have contacted us. (if you ordered books and you haven't paid yet, we need your money now).

For more information, please see www.khamaid.org/programs/education/bfsindex.htm

RE-FORESTATION

As I said, we have been planning for an April planting. Then, last night, I got the following email from our field office director Wu Bangfu

"This morning, [consultant forester] Mr. Zhang Heping came to my home and said, 'this year it is much warmer than last several years. So the planting time will be earlier than last year'.

"All of the seedlings in his tree nursery need to be provided for the tree planting of the [government] officials in Kangding. In the past year, the seedlings were not enough for them. This year the situation is the same. This year the officials' tree planting activity might be in late March. So our seedlings have to be removed to Oro village before they start their activity, otherwise, our seedlings can't be guaranteed. He suggested 1) we remove the seedlings to Oro village early and deal with them properly, and 2) we advance our planting time.

"This morning I paid 7,000 yuan for the guarantee of the tree seedlings.

"When I passed through Oro Village ten days ago, I saw the slope area, which the villagers had cleaned, is more than 100 mu. According to the budget made by Mr. Zhang Heping, the wages for slope cleaning is 10,000 yuan. So I told the villagers they could clean the slope in accordance with 10,000 yuan. I think the villagers worked very hard so the cleaned slope is larger than we planned.

"I think the villagers can plant more trees with the same payment of the budget. We might plant 150 mu with the same payment for wages. In this case, we need 10,000 more seedlings, they cost 5000 yuan. If you can get 5000 more yuan, we can plant one and half times as much as we planned.

This is a great example of how projects don't always go as you expect. Luckily we are a small, nimble organization, and can adjust to these developments. The "officials'" planting activity that he's referring to is an annual tree planting exercise that is performed by work units across China. Government workers leave their offices and troop en masse out to the edge of town with spades, buckets, and seedlings, and spend a day (or more) planting trees. Thus, government work units are big customers of the nurseries, and competition for us. (Unfortunately, the survival rate of trees planted by office workers is not so high compared to trees planted to paid, trained workers.)

For more information on this program, please see www.khamaid.org/planttrees.

ART CONSERVATION

This will be a really big program this year. We have been invited by the Dege (Derge) County government to clean and conserve the murals at the Derge Printing House. These murals are extremely significant examples of wall painting in Derge and Kham; they are not as well preserved as the murals at Baiya (Pewar) which we rescued in 1998, but they are nonetheless quite important for their style, content, and placement in Kham's most important cultural and religious site.

For several decades following 1950 the Printing House was not well cared for rain leaked in and chemicals were stored in the temple. These factors contributed to a terrible pealing problem on the rear walls, and the murals there have been entirely lost. In the remainder of the Printing House's two temples, the murals are in fair condition, but are marred by stains, chips, cracks, and bad in-painting. These will be addressed by our art conservation team, led by seasoned conservator Guido Botticelli, who comes to us from Florence, Italy. Our team will also include an architect conservator, Prof. Pamela Jerome, from Columbia University, who will investigate and solve the problem of moisture penetration through the adobe walls of the building. We will include half a dozen Tibetans in the team as art conservation assistants/apprentices.

The field work will begin with a 3 week mission in August of this year, and altogether the program is expected to take two years. I have not managed to post any details on it our website yet, but you can read about our past art conservation works at http//www.khamaid.org/programs/culture/goasianart.htm. The program director is Jonathan Bell and he can be reached at stanhope@post.harvard.edu.

SCHOLARSHIPS

Presently, we have forty-two children enrolled in primary and junior middle schools under Kham Aid Foundation scholarships. Most of the children are girls. Last fall, program director Dana Isherwood and I toured three of the five schools where these kids are situated. We wanted to get a first-hand impression of "our" kids their lives, the difficulties they face, and their feelings about education. It was an incredibly moving experience to see children whose minds are being nourished and who can now have a future and a chance to help their communities. The kids wrote some extraordinary thank you letters to their sponsors. Here's one written by a boy in Litang who is sponsored by Mike Dotson.

"To the kind people It's Thursday, the 5th of October, 2000. Two foreigners are visiting our school. Both of them are ladies. One of them has yellow hair; she seems to be an American. The elder lady is about forty or fifty years old [translator's note this is Dana Isherwood]. The other lady is wearing a pair of looking glasses with non-yellow hair; she can speak Chinese. [this is Pamela Logan]. On this afternoon, she brought a lot of things with her for us. I seem to be familiar with her although we only met for one day. She's so kind and pretty. Her voice is so loud and clear. Both of them are so warm to us. Now they are not the foreigners as I saw them just at the beginning. They are the kindest and best aunt and elder sister in the world. How great the world will become if everybody in the world is like these two great scientists! This might be called the internationalism spirit. On behalf of my family, I must say thanks to you. [signed] Sonam Pentsok."

Already we have received donations from new sponsors that will add six new children to the program next year. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please contact Dana Isherwood at dana@isherwoods.net. Most of the money goes to food and boarding costs for kids who live too far from town to commute every day. Costs vary by location, but most of our sponsorships for junior middle school girls are $800 paid over three years. Further information is available at www.khamaid.org/programs/education/khamaidkids.htm.

WHEELCHAIRS TO TIBET

This program was new last year, it was a fantastic success, and it's slated to grow significantly in 2001. In June we'll be shipping two container-loads of medical equipment to Chengdu. One container will have wheelchairs provided by the Wheelchair Foundation. The second will have other devices for the handicapped such as specialized chairs, crutches and walkers, and physical therapy equipment.

We have received some fantastic donations notably a $7000 Siemans Electro Cardio Graph machine donated to us and shipped to our Los Angeles office free of charge by Soma Technologies. This will be sent to the county hospital in Dege. (Some of you may remember that that hospital was the scene of a tragedy last May when the director of the Derge Printing House, Sonam Gyaltsen, then only 29 years old, died from a sudden undiagnosed illness and failed exploratory surgery). We have also received some optical devices for people with impaired vision. We're currently looking for an X-ray machine that is badly needed by the hospital in Danba, as well as many other items such as examining tables.

As part of this program, we are working with the Sichuan Holy Love Foundation to bring foreign physical therapists to teach Chinese trainees in Chengdu. There is not even rudimentary physical therapy knowledge or equipment in Kham, and in the future we hope to introduce it there. In the meantime, the Holy Love School has an active training program that is enhancing the lives of disabled people living in Chengdu.

Any doctors or physical therapists out there who would like to volunteer for the field team, please contact program director David Altman at sehl18@hotmail.com. Photos and reports from our 2000 wheelchair mission are posted at www.khamaid.org/programs/health/wheelchr.htm

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These are the highlights of our most active programs. We are also continuing our efforts at providing volunteer English teachers, promoting culturally and environmentally sensitive tourism in the region, and cataloguing and preserving Kham's ancient literature. We are also cooperating with a long-time friend and supporter of Kham Aid Foundation, Harry Wong, who is starting a Waldorf kindergarten in Chengdu. He is an amazing guy with an amazing and revolutionary plan to introduce humanity and spirituality into Chinese education. If you'd like to know more about his work, please write to Harry at Waldorfchina@hotvoice.com.