Kham Aid team braves natural hazards to visit a midwife in a remote village
 
by Craig Hunter
July 8, 2004
 
 It was a fitful sleep, the rain had been heavy all night. The rank and fragrant aromas of the town, with which we had gone to sleep, had been washed downstream.  Now, like farmyard cacophony, the incessant, argumentative, blaring horns of the daily "rush-hour", broke the morning air even before the sodden haze of day had crawled over the top of Nyachuka, the sacred Buddhist mountain that stands guard over Yajiang.

The town itself, like a Chinese acrobat, balances on the edge of the Yalong River gorge, squeezed between peaks shrouded in a gauze-like kata, created by a smeared blur of summer monsoon fog.  The air was filled with the smell of coal fired cooking stoves, boiling Sichuan-Qin jiao peppers and simmering dishes of unknown ingredients.  It was time for breakfast.

Our team was composed of Kham Aid president Pam Logan, midwife training program director Wu Bangfu, translator Dorjee Tashi, myself, and a menagerie of local government officials. Our plan was a visit to one of Kham Aid's newly-trained mid-wives, somewhere up the Yalong River. The availability of our "arranged" four wheel drive SUV's seemed to melt away like the morning fog, but Mr. Li, the Deputy Director of the local health bureau, a chain-smoking, high altitude marathon runner, managed to wrangle up an ambulance and driver. It was actually a minibus, disguised as an ambulance. The blue emergency lights strapped to the roof, the red cross on each door and the optional seating for 15 people never had me fooled for a minute. Our Tibetan driver had the look of an experienced madman, an occupational requirement in this part of the world. Our entourage clambered aboard as the inevitable rain began to fall.

 
We drove west, out of Yajiang, turning north onto a winding 
stone-and-mud road that had evolved little from its birth as goat path that paralleled the Yalong River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze. It carries soil laden run-off as well as nameless flotsam and jetsam from the Tibetan Plateau in a wild serpentine ride to the sea.
 
I couldn’t help but think of Joseph Conrad's, “ Heart Of Darkness” as we drove through the drizzling rain.  The road, clung white knuckled with clenched fingers to the side of the mountain that climbed perpendicular on one side. On the other, its feet dangled over a precipitous bank sometimes to a vertiginous 500 feet, with the river directly below. This was the Yalong’s road, not ours and it seemed indifferent to our passage. At this moment, we were definitely in the hands of the river deities.
 
As we passed from one picturesque snapshot to the next, I realized that this was not a body of water to trifle with. Here were class IV and V rapids, with whirlpools that could suck down twenty houses in a single gulp, and - I thought to myself - it probably had.  The mud-gorged water, as thick as syrup, was unforgiving; the evidence, the carcass of an unfortunate horse drowned in the deluge, lay bloating on the shoreline, as if vomited up by the river.
  
We knew that this road was dangerous, subject to mudslides this time of year and we weren't to be disappointed.  It came up quickly. To this point, the road had merely been pock-marked with large boulders that had fallen from the mountain above, and covered in layers of bathtub sized pot-holes filled with a dark-brown slop. But half an hour into the journey, the narrow road suddenly disappeared beneath a slow moving mass of crushed rock mixed with a soupy quagmire of mud and silt the color of dried blood that oozed its way towards the river.  It was undoubtedly a good time to stop.
 
The mudslide had covered the road for about two hundred feet across and ten to fifteen feet deep, completely covering the already meager roadway Now and then, loose rocks dislodged somewhere up the hill, bounced down and splashed into the river. Still, there were a number of locals crossing the narrow, slimy corridor that used to be the road. With their perpetual grins and laughter, as if completely unconcerned, those people would bail out of whatever means of transport they were in or on; tractor, truck, motorbike or car, then they pulled up their pant legs and chubas, to hike across the unstable pathway. Meanwhile the drivers gunned their engines, and plowed furrows through the gumbo in a maddened rush to the opposite side. Faith goes a long ways here; in a blink you could be swallowed by mud, the river or both.
 
We discussed our options. It appeared we would have to turn back, as the driver had already turned the ambulance around. But we decided we could ditch the ambulance and walk, for the distance to our midwife was a slightly challenging but an achievable fourteen mile return hike.  It still early in the morning.
  
When Pam and I told the rest of our party our intention, suddenly and inexplicably, there was a mass changing of heart.  The ladies of the Women’s Federation clutched their purses and set out bravely, picking their way through the goop in their high heel shoes. As we all trekked across the narrow path, I turned to see our driver, white knuckled and white eyed, a smoldering cigarette clenched between his teeth, driving like the madman I knew he was; the ambulance spewing mud from its spinning, bald tires, bounced like a jack-rabbit on fire, plowing through the porridge-like sludge, arriving on the other side, somehow unscathed.
 
I think we collectively breathed a sigh of relief as we (ironically) clambered back into the ambulance.
 
Climbing upriver from the slide, we all agreed that there was one imperative: to do our midwife interview quickly and return ASAP, as the rain was not about to abate, and the mountain seemed to have reached its' saturation point, making the prospect of more slides inevitable.  We had passed through a couple of other villages where, at one, through the steamy, mud spattered windows, I spotted a stupa (a white tower-like Buddhist monument) and next to it, the crushed and rusted cab of a truck, laden with offerings.  There wasn’t any doubt in my mind what this meant. I was hoping our driver had seen it, too.
 
We passed through a few more villages before reaching our destination, Gala township, Kundi Village.
 
As had been our previous experience, the interview went well.  We found He Yaohong cheerful in her new role as village healer, for Kham Aid midwives not only help bring forth new life, but also act as barefoot doctors, dispensing inoculations, medical advice and education on basic hygiene and health.  In her neighborhood, the only a doctor is a Chinese man practicing Chinese traditional medicine.  Transportation to town takes too long and is frequently impossible due to road conditions - we we knew very well.  Pregnant women - and most others in her village - overwhelmingly turn to her for assistance.
 
After the interview, we clambered on board our trusty conveyance amidst laughter, hugs and well wishes.  With ever present Tibetan smiles, their depth of gratitude was undeniable. I can still remember the villagers, waving in the rain as we lurched forward, ready to scurry back to Yajiang.
  
Our driver knew we had to hurry, although I did get him to stop at the stupa I’d seen earlier for a photo.  I wanted something to remember this little excursion. Yet, as it turned out, I didn’t really need the photo, this experience was about to be burned into my mind.  By the time we got back to the mudslide, things had gone from bad to down-right Disneyland, seat of your pants, “lets get this damn ride over”.  If possible, the clouds seemed lower, the rain heavier, and the mud in the slide was now pouring down the mountain in ever widening rivulets.  Even the locals were hesitant to cross the slide now and the traffic was backed up on both sides.
 
Everyone was chattering nervously as we pulled up behind three or four vehicles that were had stopped in front of us. The drivers stood on the running boards or had their necks outstretched the windows of their vehicles perused the mud warily, as if calculating their odds, hollering encouragements back and forth to each other, while their passengers mingled about, pointing anxiously towards the slide. We all knew there was little time to waste. Even if the ambulance couldn’t cross, we could.  We stumbled across the shifting path of goo, feeling like clay ducks in a shooting gallery as pieces of the mountain ricocheted down the slide. 

 
To my amazement, our driver dashed past the other vehicles and once more, eyes wild and glazed, drove his gauntlet into the breach, pedal to the metal, its diesel engine clattering and smoking as it clambered over broken stumps and boulders that flowed down the mountain to the river. He kept that poor machine screaming for mercy, until he  had clawed his way to the safer side of that forbidding obstacle course, where he skidded to a brake-squealing halt, honking his horn triumphantly then jumped out, throwing his arms into the air in victory .  And just like that, it was over.
 
Without looking back, we squeezed ourselves into the ambulance, everyone smiling and chuckling nervously to each other. I‘m sure we were one of the last vehicles to make it through that day. Even our crazy driver seemed to realize how close to the razor’s edge we had come.

 
As the adrenaline subsided we all came to the realization of what had been shared. There was a bond that had not been there previously -  an unspoken bond of shared adventure that transcended culture and language. With one of the few Chinese words I know, I laughed and said, “Pi-jiu time!” (beer time). We all had a good laugh and agreed that today was a day to be toasted. For it had brought us success and much luck.

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