Welcome to the rest of the world

As I lie here all rugged up under a blanket, wih wool thermals and 3 jumpers on (It’s cold up here) I can look back at the day of travel that has just passed. I would love to tell you all about it but to be honest it was a complete information overload, with revelations and realizations. I would have to decypher my own thoughts before I could ever begin to regurgitate them for you in any coherent manner. However, i guess I’ll throw some thoughts out, some things hit me, some humoured me and other still just reinforced what i already knew

Our journey to Qing Hai lake (the location of the english school that we are teaching at) was by the local bus route, a 2 hour journey that begun with 4 people being kicked off before we started the engine. They somehow managed to sell more tickets than there were seats and the saftey inspector wouldn’t allow it, strangely though, those asked to leave left all their belongings on the bus. As we drove around a corner, 1 or 2 blocks away from the depot, it all became a little clearer. We stopped, the doors opened and on piled the 4 passengers that were asked to leave for safety reasons. Along the way we stopped a number of times, each time another small group of would jump on, pay the atendant and find a place to perch for the ride. I’m still not sure if they were legitimate customers of the bus company or just there for some extra pocket money for the driver and his attendant.

Building after building passed by, each could easily be mistaken for a precariously stacked pile of rubble. If i didnt know otherwise (well at least I think) I could have been certain that this was a war torn land in recent years. Eveything would be considered derelict where you’re from (whoever it is reading this) and most buildings would be condemned. Dirt is everywhere, a landscape of brown, complete with bown cubes that pass for dwellings scattered across it. I got lost in my own thoughts at the sight of it all. Yet despite my wandering mind Daniels comment somehow broke through, “This is how most of the world lives, if we were born today, we’d most likely end up in a place like this”. And he’s right, welcome to the rest of the world.

It’s amazing to meet people here, to say they battle to survive is to say the least, they dont know our God, and their seems to be very little hope in their lives. It’s not their will to survive that astounds me, just doing enough to get by. It’s the joy in their eys that still burns brightly when thez meet us, laughing and excited to hear us attempt to communicate, trying their language.
We see men playing playing pool outside a rubbled building, presumably the pool hall, the only walls around them is the world that surrounds. It could nearlybe a scene from the local pub of the Red Triangle (a pool hall on brunswick street, Melbourne for all who dont know it). On top of this easygoing joy, seemingly a conundrum in the face of their circumnstances, everyone is so willing to give, so willing to help and go out of their way with no thought of return. Even if you try to give them something in return out of gratitude they wont even begin to think of accepting it.
It’s a stark contrast to the world most of us come from. A world where many strangers will only begrudgingly help you, even then usually with the slight hope of getting something in return.