Tian He Elementary School

These pictures are from the Tian He Elementary School in the Mian Zhu Province. This was one of the hardest hit provinces from the two earthquakes.

Band

The school that we visited consists of temporary buildings that were built by the Chinese military after the earthquake. It is amazingly well built and functions very effectively. Our job is to provide a three day training workshop for TRE to 20 teachers from this school district. They will be trained for three years to be counselors to the children who exhibit PTSD symptoms. TRE is the first of three therapeutic modalities in which they will be trained.

Counselors learning

This is the first day of their training. They were very excited about their bodily reaction to the exercises and demonstrated a strong interest in having more training in this modality.

David falls in love

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The counselors

These are pictures of the counselors that are being interviewed to work in a five year project of spreading TRE throughout the 20 school districts that were affected by the earthquakes.

Counseling team

As part of their interview process they must experience TRE so they are familiar with the exercises. Dr. Helena and I observe the applicants together and try to discern which of the applicants are most receptive to the exercises as well as capable of teaching them in the future.

Explaining exercises

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First workshop with Dr. Helena Guo

Here are pictures from the first workshop that David did with Dr. Helena Guo.  Click here to see all 22 photos.

Dr. Helena Guo

Dr. Helena Guo

Helena teaching

Stretching psoas

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Finally arrived in China

I am not able to access my blog from China. This site, probably along with other blog sites are blocked by the government. So, all of my entires will be mailed to Anshul and he will enter everything into my blog. Anshul is a great person who does amazing work with a non-profit organization called http://www.livingubuntu.org. Check them out.

I finally arrived in China. A flight delay out of Phoenix which caused a mad dash for my international connection in San Fran. Was the only hitch in my travels. When I changed planes in Shang Hai airport, I was struck by the size of the population of China when I saw that gates in the airport terminals were numbered from 50 – 223. My flight departed at gate 95 so I only had to walk 49 gates. What an immense airport it is. When I arrived in Cheng Du, the entire team that I will be working with was there to greet me. They are great people. On our way to the city that we are now living in, we got stuck in the last hour of a four hour traffic jam caused by an overturned semi-tractor trailer. After 25 hours of travel I was finally able to get to my destination and get some sleep.

I didn’t realize it when I arrived that it was an important holiday here. It is the holiday of the Harvest Moon. It is one of the bigger holidays that is celebrated on the day of the August full moon. It is a time when generations of families come together to celebrate family closeness. It seems to be equivalent to the US holiday of Thanksgiving. We went out for lunch that day to a restaurant that is known for its variety of mushrooms. We had a delicious meal that consisted of 14 varieties of mushrooms, ginger, pigs feet, pork ribs, lotus blossom root and a variety of other vegetables and spices. It allowed us to get to know each other better and enjoy starting our work on a social note rather than pure business. So far my time here has already be an interesting learning experience on the social and cultural aspects of China.

Another Earthquake

Another 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck at 1630 local time (0730 GMT) close to Panzhihua town in Sichuan province, near the border with Yunnan. Xinhua news agency said rescue teams carrying tents, quilts and rice to the area were being hampered by heavy rain. Both provinces were severely affected by a devastating earthquake in May which left almost 70,000 people dead.

 

I was talking with the people from China yesterday. They said the devistation is quite severe. After talking about the severity of the suffering of the people, I also had another reflection from a purely geological perspective. How amazing it will be to stand on the ground where the plates of the planet are shifting so powerfully right now. The whole planet is shifting and I am going to be standing on the very place that these shifts are most powerful. I wonder what it will be like? Is there a certain energy that one can feel? It will be such an interesting experience from so many different perspectives.

Travel Itinerary

I will be flying to ChengDu in Sichuan Province’s capital. This city, of some 11 million people is located 60 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. Another interesting piece of information is that Phoenix and Chengdu became official sister cities in 1987. Since then, hundreds of cultural, social, educational, and economic exchanges have occurred and many friendships have been forged.

ChegDu is approximately 7,439 miles from Phoenix, AZ. It is also along the same latitude line as Tucson, AZ (32 degrees).

For those of you who are interested in travel routes, I thought I would fill you in on my route. You can find both ShangHai and Chengdu on the map below.

I leave Phoenix for San Francisco. After a two hour layover I leave for ShangHai. This is a 19 hour flight. After a two hour layover in ShangHai, I leave on a 3 hour flight for ChengDu.  At ChengDu I will meet Dr. Helena Guo who is the person who has organized this trip. We will travel together for one hour over land to  the area that was devastated by the earthquake.