Falling In Love With My Work

This is basically a translation of the speech that I had to say, and this is an essay I wrote for English about something we learned on the last trip.

It was hot, a heavy, hot heat that comes more from humidity then from the actual temperature. I could feel it pushing on my lungs, and the sweat already running down my back, even though it had only been 20 minutes since we had stepped out of the house. The sparse shade from trees hanging over the small path we were walking on did little to relieve the sun, and I could feel that the temperature was only going to keep rising. My and Julia’s small host father bounded ahead of us on the path, buckets barely swinging on the end of a bamboo pole balanced across his shoulders, and acting like the heat and the hill was absolutely no trouble at all. At this particular moment, watching our dad lead the way, there were only 3 things that Julia and I knew for certain: 1) it was hot, and we had only one water bottle, 2) we were going to work in the fields with our host dad and 3) we had absolutely no idea where we were going, or what we were going to do.

We were in a Dai village in Guizhou, following our host dad out to do work with him in the fields. The night before this march into the wilderness, Mr. Bissell had made it clear that all the SYA students were to go out with their host families to work, much like the intellectuals did when they were banished to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. However, when Julia and I had come out of our bedroom in the morning, and asked our family what we were doing for the day, they simply told us to go explore on our own, that we didn’t need to work. That point of view was quickly changed after a brisk conversation between my host dad and Zhang Laoshi.

We arrived at a small hut in the middle of the hills after an hour long walk. Our dad let the cow inside out of the hut and free to roam (cared for by another Chinese man), and picked up the 4 woven baskets we had carried to start loading them up with huge piles of wet, decaying feces and straw. Each one must have easily weighed 20 pounds, and he picked them up like he was carrying loaves of bread. With a smile and a laugh, he handed a pole laden with filled buckets to Julia, who dutifully hoisted them onto her shoulders with a grimace at the weight, while our dad went around the back of the shed to get his burden. With me documenting the whole trip on my camera, the three of us set off across small hills to dump massive amounts of manure into fields for fertilization.

After Julia had finished her ordeal, we went back, filled up the buckets again, and then it was my turn. The bamboo pole seemed to push unrelentlessly into my shoulders, and it was heavy and uncomfortable. I could imagine myself toppling sideways off the small path we had to follow (which was lined by rather unpleasant looking embankments.) I dumped my load of feces in a field, and then walked back to rest at the cow enclosure, as my dad was tired. He lay his scrawny body down on the ground, and almost fell asleep, complaining of being exhausted to death. I don’t know how he kept hauling huge buckets of cow manure up mountains. I could barely do it once.

After a 30 minutes break, we convinced my dad, with great effort, to start again. There was not a lot of spirit in his body or voice as, with a great sigh and complaint, he dragged himself around the corner of the enclosure, and started filling up the buckets again. It was plainly obvious he did not want to be there. Julia took another load, the same way we had both gone the first time (to the same field) and then it was my turn, for the last time. Julia offered to carry it again (maybe she is secretly a physic) but I insisted on doing it myself. I picked up the bamboo pole, and balancing it across both shoulders, felt it sit on the exact same spot as it had last time, putting more pressure onto my already sore shoulder muscles. I could already tell that I should have let Julia take the last load of cow manure.

This time, as we walked to the field, our dad led us a different way, along a path with small paddies on the left, and an irrigation ditch 10 feet blow to the right. As I watched my dad balance his pole on one shoulder elegantly, I thought that must be so much easier and more comfortable, and decided to try to imitate him. I was worried about balance, but it wasn’t a problem, and as it turned out, it is actually easier to balance the buckets on one shoulder then on two. So elated with my success, I turned to tell Julia how much better it was, excited to show off my new-found talents. This turned out to be a very bad idea. As I turned to talk to Julia, I kept walking. As I put one foot down, I seemed to lose track of the ground. Suddenly, it was no longer where my foot was, and I went down. Hard.

Both I and the cow manure fell down the embankment. I wasn’t worried about the cow manure that fell on either side of me, though. I was simply worried about not falling into the water that was at the end of the embankment. Desperately grabbing handfuls of reeds and hanging on for all I was worth, I slowed my fall, and eventually stopped myself, hanging upside down, 5 feet above the water. Julia and my dad, after assuring themselves that I was okay, (it wasn’t hard to convince them, as I was trying to stop laughing) soon joined me in laughter, and we all paused so we could catch our breaths. Then, without much ado, I heaved myself off of the embankment, much like a swimmer pulling themselves out of the pool.

I could feel my face blushing bright red as I brushed off pieces of debris that had attached themselves to my clothes while my host dad and Julia watched, with laughter in their eyes. Immediately, thinking only of my wounded pride, I made both Julia and my dad swear to not tell anyone. My dad, however, thinking he was very clever indeed, agreed to keep the secret, and then used the local dialect to tell every person we passed. So much for family loyalty.

This story, while seemingly well natured, taught me a very good lesson. Moral of the story: always watch where you are going, and always laugh off the embarrassing stuff. Everyone has embarrassing things that happen to them, and the best way to deal with them is to laugh. I have had this experience many times, but for once, I found myself actually wanting to tell the story. I feel like that experience of me falling down the embankment with two buckets of cow manure helped me let go of my pride, and simply enjoy my life.