The Village

A China Caves Project

The family have given up their best room for us. There is quite a lot of furniture in the room compared to others we have seen; tables, chests, the beds with mosquito netting and two wardrobes, one with a mirror. There is a wooden floor; mostly there are earth floors. The teacher has left his books and a personal stereo on the table.

The village has electricity for lighting and this farmhouse has an electric millstone for grinding corn and beans. I think the family have a radio and television. The only water, other than that carried on a yoke in buckets, is dripping from a small rubber hose into a stone trough. The central room has one large table, some benches, and a few simple but attractive wooden chairs. These good chairs are offered to us. A smaller square table is brought out and laid with food. The man of the family and the younger school teacher, Zhang, gesture for us to eat. We persuade the mans wife and Zhang's sister to join us and make things more equal.

Farmhouse

Yellow maize corn cobs are hung along the eaves to dry. Later the leaves will be taken off, and the corn stripped from the cob, before being put out to dry again, on mats in the sun. The scrawny hens will scavenge round for anything that falls in the dirt. Tobacco leaves are hung up outside many houses. The red chillis will be put out in round, flat woven trays. We see beans growing between the old maize stalks to give some nitrogen back to the soil. There are sunflowers, aubergines and potatoes. The ground is very dry, although light shade is provided by a few trees. Leaves from mulberry bushes are given to feed silkworms in one farmhouse. Some small bright green fields of rice, contrast with this dryness. They are an exception here. It is a time of harvest, and produce is being stored up in the attics of the houses, under the wooden beams and curved clay tile roofs. The pigs are ready for killing and the meat will be smoked and dried to preserve it. Very few houses have chimneys and the smoke drifts up through the tiles. This year there doesn't seem much danger of hunger in the village.

There is a good deal of shouted conversation between neighbours and people working in the fields. There must be jealousies, resentments and passions going on in this village, but we don't know of them. A person wouldn't lie dead in their house, without someone knowing about it, as they could in England.

We must walk out of the village and get to the town on the road. We need to phone the rest of the team with our news and return to Xin Long. Zhang Zheng Kui offers to accompany us and help carry our equipment. We are grateful because it is a stiff climb and he has a woven basket with straps, into which he piles most of the heavy things. This leaves us with the inner tubes, which we haven't been able to deflate despite pressing in the valve for an hour. Knowing the trouble we had getting them, we can't bring ourselves to slash a hole with a knife. I must wear my caving wellies and red padded trousers despite the heat.

There are a lot of people on the path coming and going out of the village, laden with firewood, corn and other produce. Some mules are carrying water and coal. We can look down on the village from the top of the cliffs and the patchwork of fields arranged around the houses. A bit further away we can see the immense cliffs leading down to the gorge and the resurgence of the Downstream Doline Cave. In the distance, mountains are blue in the hazy heat. It's a big country.

Getting Out