Yesterday the aftershock was massive, registering a 6.4. Amazingly, there have been EIGHT THOUSAND aftershocks since 12th May but this was the strongest one of all (there was a 5.8 on 13th May). These aftershocks are making roads very treacherous; it can take three days to travel 200km, depending up exactly where you're starting from and exactly where you're going.
If anyone thinks that the worst has passed (which, remarkably, some people do, even as the dealth toll climbs in the direction of 80,000), here's a passage from an update today from a Beijing-based children's organization:
"The Aba, Sichuan, Civil Affairs Bureau is now caring for approximately 1,000 orphaned and displaced children, most of whom are 7-12 years old. There are over 100 infants. They'd been placing the children in local shelters but had just received news that 70 more children are on the way. There are no more tents and no more beds for them. Further, they urgently need powdered milk and diapers. And they need foods that don't require cooking as most of their cooking stoves and supplies have been destroyed. They need so much they can't even give us an estimate." It's truly devastating to read notes such as this from Sichuan.
Here in Beijing, I'm sleeping as a guest in the very small apartment of a local resident. My room is four floors above the street in a four-floor low-rise. Turns out that there is a makeshift night market right below me that opens at dinner time and runs to 2am. And it's a Monday so I can only imagine what the weekend will be like. So, I tried to sleep among the intensely sensuous perfume of charred mutton, curried squid balls and sizzling organ meats - all of which I really love but not so much when it wafts through my window in the middle of the night.
Morning comes here at 4:16am, I find. The sun rises and the sounds of hawkers rolling metal carts, readying to prepare street breakfasts gets me up and I'm out the door early for a walk. Reminds me of Ho Chi Minh City, the sounds and smells of perfect early morning pho.
I like this part of town even thought it's kind of rough and very far out - its entirely new to me. My host last night, through a translating device, wrote "I am so happy that you are welcome in my humble home that is so poor and wrong." Through my translating device I wrote "Your home is wonderful and warm as your kindness.". Not sure how well that translated but it's the thought that counts.
By mid-morning, and after a 90 minute taxi ride in bad traffic, I'm at a branch of a major bank. Woth the help of a friend of a friend of a friend we get a preferential exchange rate on the currency I have with me, then we're off to shop. .
The things in greatest need right now in the disaster zone are the following:
1. Tent cloth: Tent cloth is becoming increasingly rare and expensive in the past nine days or so. Interestingly to me, it's the cloth that's important, as tents can be made on site (uh, yeah, I couldn't figure out how to do that myself). We have sourced a supplier of very high quality, supremely durable cloth in Shandong Province, about 13 hours from here. So, we're ordering all of our cloth from there and they will put it in big trucks and deliver to us in Beijing on Thursday! We will then put it on the plane to Chengdu. We're ordering a gigantic amount of this stuff. Tens of THOUSANDS of square metres!. The rains will come soon and that's as ominous as it sounds. The tenting materials will allow for many makeshift shelters which will save lives. Just the amount of material we will ship will help at least a thousand people take shelter!!
2. Mosquitocide (if such a word exists...I may have made it up...basically, stuff to kill mosquitoes): The mosquitoes are making people very, very sick and disease will spread. So we'll buy and ship down hundreds of boxes of the stuff. Here it comes in various forms, some better for kids and some better for adults. It's hard to describe the actual drug - we don't have anything like it in North Anerica that I know of.
3. Medicines: The need for a variety of medicines is critical. We're on the trail of many hugely important types of drugs. Most of what is in the greatest demand and will help the greatest of number of people is not prescription drugs but over-the-counter Chinese medicines. These will prevent and cure many illnesses that people are already coming down with. There are seven to ten medicines that we've been told are badly needed and we've bought cases of each of them. Basically, we cleared out the supply and have ordered THREE TIMES AS MUCH from the supplier on a rush 48 hour turnaround. They also gave us tons of free gifts, given how much we spent. Toothpaste, toothbrushes and more. Very kind - xie xie !!
So, we spent all afternoon sourcing out and buying lots of medicines. It was a slow and careful process to make sure we're getting the exact right things and that we're getting the best possible negotiated discount price.
It was amazing how inexpensive painkillers, for example, were. A generic Chinese equivalent of Aspirin was less than a dollar a package. So, we bought cases of it, as it's one of the items on the greatest need list.
It has been a really good and long day. We have already bought, packed and shipped a huge amount of things. It feels good to know that as early as tonight these essential items will arrive in Chengdu then be off by ground for the final leg of their journey.
I took some pictures today on my mobile of the stuff we bought and shipped. I have no access to a reliable internet connection at the moment so I can't log on to this blog aside from sending posts through my mobile as I've done so far. If anyone is really that into seeing pictures of boxes and boxes of stuff, email me at ansolomon@gmail.com and I'll send some to you :)
ANS
