Hamugu and the Wise Elder
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
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34
354
Trip End
Ongoing
Hamugu,
China
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Doji was an environmental studies student in Qinghai, who was here as part of the education program to teach monks about Buddhism and the environment. His perpetual smile and calm friendly eyes greeted all. Jinhui, who moved here from Kunming, is the office manager here at WWF. He taught me how to say "good morning" when I only knew a few words of Chinese (now I know only a few more).
The WWF team met up with a village elder, Alo, and headed up the mountain. Behind steely eyes and the smoke of an ever-burning cigarette, Alo's aura needed some karma cleaning by the Friends' girls (regards to Lisa Kudrow). At first, I figured he was just the village leader and was testing us out with his wise ways.
I was wrong.
Irregardless, we headed up to the mountains of Hamugu for two nights of camping and a few days of hiking.
Yes, thanks for asking, it did rain.
The camping and hiking came as a surprise to Gomba and me, who were under the impression that we were just meeting with the community when they had a spare moment. But the surprise was welcome.
We headed up through forests and gullies with hermit caves, now vacant, in the cliffsides. The forests were rich and moist, with an abundance of flowers.
01 The Oak and Evergreen Forests of Hamugu
Above the forests, we reached the pastures and camped near a sacred lake among three log cabins, established to tend the livestock in the summer pastures.In the morning, we hiked around the pastures, at around 14,000 feet. We visited the village's holy mountain, where gold miners supposedly dug for gold, yet found none. While digging a tunnel into the holy mountain, many prospectors died. At the top of the highest mountain in Hamugu, we were above the clouds, with a view stretching in front of us like a soaring eagle's vision. This capped the day.
The next day, we headed back down to the plains of Zhongdian.
In the center of Hamugu is a new Ecological Learning Center, thanks to WWF. This center was designed for teaching about the environment and as an ecotourism learning area. As part of this, Hamugu was selected to be a site to develop a Community Nature Reserve, with ecotourism and education as potential focal points. Gomba and I, working together, were told that this was the case.
This was not the case.
A couple of days after our tour around Hamugu, we went to the Ecological Learning Center to meet with the community, supposedly invited by Alo. No one came. No one came because no one was invited. No one was invited because Alo thought the project was no good, but he never said a word about it until now. He believed that the Ecological Learning Center should just be for learning English, not ecology. He believed that he could represent the community by himself and that "things" had already been done.
02 The Log Cabins and Sacred Lake
He laughed in Gomba and Doji's face as they explained the project and what it would mean for the community. They explained that the project was for the community and that it was community driven, so one person couldn't represent a community process--as many people as possible needed to be engaged, from the get-go.
Trying to be diplomatic, we asked him what "things" had been done. He showed us some shriveled and decaying pressed plants: "this will be used to exhibit biodiversity of the area."
I pictured ecotourists looking at the dead plants, then looking strangely at each other.
He showed us an ecotourism movie. In one scene, a wobbly camera filmed a woman, rear-end sticking out of a bus window, flailing to get into the bus: it was a home video.
Once again, we pictured ecotourists looking at the woman's rear-end, then looking strangely at each other.
But Alo, in his elder wisdom, knew what was right for his village.
We left Hamugu before the movie ended. Never mind the Ecological Learning Center and the signed agreement with WWF. Alo's actions were a slap in WWF's face. Or maybe he just didn't want anything to do with Gomba and me (or just me).
We left feeling badly for the villagers and sorry that we wouldn't be working there, at least not now.
We left remembering that wisdom does not necessarily come with old age.
I also left with that empty feeling you get when you don't get along with someone.
