June 18, 2008 1:42 am
Fun and Games

by Maya Alexandri

On Saturday and Sunday, June 14-15, Mercy Corps conducted a two-day Moving Forward master training. The purpose of this master training is to train people who will in turn teach the methodology to caregivers in local communities who work directly with traumatized children.

Matt, Mercy Corps' Program Officer for Health, Youth and Sports, led this master training at Sichuan University. He said that he initially was unsure of how receptive his students would be to the Moving Forward methodology. "Some people take the attitude, ‘No, I'm not going to do that,' when you ask them to get up and play games. But the group just jumped right in."

During a break on Sunday, I spoke with some of the more than 60 psychologists, elementary-, middle- and high-school teachers, as well as vocational school teachers, who were participating in the master training. As Matt had suggested, their enthusiasm was unbridled.

"What do you think of the training?" I asked.

"The Moving Forward program is very useful," said one psychology teacher. "In China, our educational approach is to require things of the children. But the Moving Forward program asks, from the children's perspective, what do they want? That's best."

Another participant, a vocational school teacher with more than 20 years of teaching experience, said that he was particularly impressed with Matt's teaching style. "The Moving Forward master training is not like a typical Chinese class," he explained. "The training participants are very active, they're not at all passive. That's because Matt pays attention to all the participants and has an open teaching style that encourages active participation. The combination of activities with ideas in the Moving Forward program is also extremely effective."

I asked a group of teachers — elementary- and middle-school, as well as college level — how they would use the Moving Forward methodology to assist youth in the quake zone. "A really good aspect of the Moving Forward program is that it can be used to help all kids, in regular schools and in the devastated areas," replied one of the teachers.

"But it's good for children who have been affected by the earthquake because language cannot always express feelings and ideas," added another teacher. "The Moving Forward activities can help the children express themselves."

I was interested in this teacher's response because psychological counseling is relatively new in China, and mental illness still carries a heavy stigma. Although the Chinese government, from the outset of earthquake recovery efforts, has recognized the need for and supported the provision of mental health services to populations effected by the earthquake, talk therapy lacks an established history and institutional framework in China.

I'd been wondering if quake-affected people might resist talk therapy techniques because such methodologies were unfamiliar. "Do you think Moving Forward is appropriate for Chinese culture?" I asked.

The teachers nodded their heads in agreement. "Chinese children like cooperative games," said one.

"It's also good that the Moving Forward program is appropriate both for boys and girls," added another.

"We've already had success with sports and games activities at the displaced persons' camp," said a teacher who works at a middle school that's located in one such camp. "We thought the kids wouldn't be interested in games because they're too old, but they loved them."

Just then, Matt called an end to the break and began the next session of the training with a game called "Head Hands." The game requires people to stand in a circle, with a person in the center, holding a ball. The center person then throws the ball to each person in the circle in turn, saying "head" or "hands." Depending on the command, the person in the circle either "heads" the ball back to the center person or catches it and tosses it back.

Proving that even adults aren't too old to love sports and games activities, the training participants launched into the game with enthusiastic smiles and gleeful cheers.

June 15, 2008 8:05 pm
Ages and Stages

by Maya Alexandri

Today, Mercy Corps conducted a Comfort for Kids training at Sichuan Southwest Minorities University. This training was organized by the Young Communist League, a government bureau for Chinese youth aged 25 and under, but the attendees at the training were mostly older volunteers with psychological backgrounds.

Griffen Samples, Mercy Corps Senior Technical Advisor, led the group through basic trauma training and provided pointers on the use of the Comfort for Kids workbook supplement, "My Earthquake Experience: 5/12 Wenchuan Earthquake."

One part of the trauma training is called "Ages and Stages," during which Griffen focused the group's attention on the similarities and differences that adults and children exhibit in their normal reactions to traumatic events. First, Griffen asked the group to describe instances of trauma they'd witnessed among adults.

A female participant stood and described the experience of a someone she characterized as a "very brave woman." This woman was a new mother. During the earthquake, she'd fled down seventeen flights of stairs, clutching her newborn baby, to escape the danger. Reaching the street, this brave woman had asked the participant who was relating the story, "Where should I go now?"

The participant replied, "Come stay at my apartment building."

Several days later, in the middle of the night, an aftershock shook the participant's building. She heard a crash at her door. Opening it, she found the very brave woman, curled in the fetal position at base of her door jamb.

"What are you doing?" asked the participant.

"How can I live like this?" replied the woman.

"The earthquake," concluded the participant, "transformed this brave woman into a fragile woman."

Explaining that this brave woman's extreme fear during an aftershock was a normal response to trauma, Griffen then asked the group to describe the reactions of children aged 0-3 years old. Another participant rose to relate the changes she'd observed in her own daughter, an 18-month-old.

During the earthquake, the little girl's grandmother had taken her to the basement. The girl became extremely excited, thinking the earthquake was a game. But after the earthquake, the girl continued to behave in a hyperactive manner and had begun biting and scratching other children and strangers.

Griffen emphasized that changes in the child's behavior were indicative of trauma. Biting and scratching, as well as the child's fear of strangers, were all normal responses to trauma, regularly seen in children who have weathered a traumatic event. Pre-verbal children, Griffen clarified, absorb information about the earthquake and the fear it generates in the adults around them — but they aren't yet capable of responding with language, so their behavior bears the expressive freight of their reactions.

Similarly, children commonly behave as if the traumatic event is a game because they may not understand the significance of the event as it's happening. Moreover, playing "earthquake" after the event — constructing buildings from Legos and destroying them in an "earthquake," or shouting "earthquake" and demanding that adults rush from the house — may help children process the experience.

The examples kept coming. One participant described a 10 year-old girl who'd endured the earthquake with equanimity, but subsequently became fearful after watching four days of televised quake coverage. Now she calls her parents when she arrives home from school, demanding to know where they are, and she wants to sleep with them through the night.

Another participant described a 12 year-old boy who, before the earthquake, had enjoyed skateboarding, but after the quake had switched to watching soap operas.

Griffen replied that all these behaviors were recognizable, normal responses to trauma. Children often regress to earlier stages of development after a traumatic event. Independent children may become clingy, needing to know their parents' whereabouts and keep them close.

Similarly, changes in behavior, including a newfound attraction to the story-telling of soap operas, are normal. Escapist melodrama, like soap operas, can serve a soothing role in the wake of a traumatic event.

One 4 year-old boy, who'd been hit with a brick during the earthquake and had been protected from further harm by his grandmother's body, had been hospitalized after his rescue. The boy felt "like a piece of wood," reported the participant, and doctors were worried that he'd been paralyzed. However, brain scans revealed that there was nothing physiologically wrong with the boy. His paralysis appeared to be psychological.

"What should I do to help this paralyzed boy?" asked the participant.

"Comfort for Kids is about recognizing and treating normal responses to trauma," Griffen explained. "These kinds of extreme reactions require the opinion of a psychiatrist or psychologist."

Then she provided him the contact information for a mental health professional who could help.

June 12, 2008 9:45 pm
Zhao Pengyou - Making Friends

by Maya Alexandri

After a morning at the Xingfu Jiayuan displacement camp, I visited the Xiangfengqiao displacement camp in the afternoon. There the psychologists are doing double-duty, teaching general education classes to children because Xiangfengqiao camp lacks a school. After class let out, one of the students approached me.

"Can you tell me your phone number?" he asked. I gave him my business card. "I want to tell you my phone number," he said, and I wrote it down.

His name was Cai Qikun. The earthquake had left his house unsafe for occupation, and he and his parents are currently living in the camp.

He is a tall fifteen year-old, who'd previously had a tumor removed from his brain; a large scar circumnavigated his skull. Whether because of this operation, or because of other medical problems, his eyes don't focus properly, but he could see and read, and he spoke preternaturally good English for someone who'd never left Sichuan Province.

"I want to be the world's second Jay," he said, referring to Jay Chou, a Hong Kong pop star who's massively popular across Asia. Cai Qikun begged me to record him singing a song. I told him that I didn't have a recording device, but that he should just sing.

Without hesitation, he broke into song, and he glowed with happiness when I and the rest of the psychologists in the center applauded him at its end. "I want to be famous," he said. "You must remember me."

Later, when I was admiring the children's many drawings that hung on the wall, another boy struck up a conversation. Thinking he was ten or so, I was surprised to learn that he was fifteen. Vibrant and engaging, he gushed, "I have so few chances to speak to foreigners."

His name was Peng Jie. He was separated from his parents, staying at the camp with other relatives. Although he spoke some English, we spent more than an hour chatting in Chinese.

He was very curious about America. "Do you have robots there?" he asked. I told him that robots are often used in manufacturing.

"That's amazing! America is the most developed country!" Peng Jie exclaimed.

He told me that he could read English-language books, but that they weren't available where he lived. He had neither a cell phone nor access to the Internet. When I asked him if he wanted to visit America, he told me that it wasn't possible: he'd never have enough money. Nonetheless, he wanted to attend college, and he confided that his parents recognized that he was smart and should pursue an education.

He was very impressed that I'd moved to China by myself, without family. I replied that you had to be independent to move to a foreign country by yourself, but that it can be lonely.

"Loneliness is the worst," he commiserated. "My favorite thing is zhao pengyou — making friends," he said, emphasizing the last two words in English.

On the bus home, I considered that both Cai Qikun and Peng Jie were bursting with ambition and capability, intelligence and curiosity. I wondered what the future would hold for them and how the earthquake would change their lives.

I also remembered that, as we'd boarded the bus to leave, the camp's children had playfully blocked the door from closing and tried to pull one of the psychologists off the bus. I could relate. I felt the pull myself, to go back to the camp and do what I could to help.

June 12, 2008 5:43 pm
Leafless Trees and Spaceships

by Maya Alexandri

After the earthquake, the Chinese government established displaced person camps to house the estimated five million people left homeless by the quake. Two of these camps, Xingfu Jiayuan camp and Xiangfengqiao camp, are located in Dujiangyan, a city about an hour outside of Chengdu. In Dujiangyan, the earthquake reduced many older buildings to rubble and caused schools to collapse, killing hundreds of children.

Today, I visited Xinfu Jiayuan and Xiangfengqiao with a team of psychologists from Sichuan Normal University and Southwest Normal University, where Mercy Corps had conducted Comfort for Kids trainings. Both camps have mental health centers, where these psychologists have been evaluating and treating children.

I spent the morning at Xingfu Jiayuan, where people live three-to-a-room in temporary, prefabricated housing. The camp has electricity, running water, flush toilets, public bathrooms and showers, a library, a hair salon and convenience stores. A karaoke stage was set up in a square.

At the camp's school, the curriculum includes a psychology class. The school's psychology teacher coordinates with the psychologists who staff the mental health center, reinforcing the treatment the students receive in one-on-one sessions.

The morning's work began when a psychologist escorted two children, a girl and a boy, from the school to the counseling center — a single room in a row of identical, prefabricated units. The girl wore a matching shirt and pants that looked dusty; the boy had dirt on his ears and mosquito-bitten legs.

The first part of the evaluation involved gathering biometric information from the children to determine the extent to which their stress manifested physically. Each child was asked to sit in front of a laptop, and to attach a clip to his or her ear. The clip measured the child's heart rate variability (HRV). One of the center's psychologists sat next to each child, as the computer played a visual readout of the child's heart rate.

Then the child was asked to watch a short animated cartoon on the computer. The cartoon began with a leafless tree before dawn. Over the course of the cartoon, the sun rose, the tree bloomed and a bird flew into the frame. One of the psychologists explained to me that the cartoon is a variety of "emotional visualizer," special software that produces an image that changes depending on the biometric information received from the sensor on the child's ear.

The animated cartoon ran smoothly with both children in that morning's first evaluation, but later I watched a child stare for five minutes at the leaf-less tree in the pre-dawn. The scene never changed.

"Why isn't the sun rising?" I asked the psychologist.

"Because he's anxious," she replied.

After the cartoon, the children were asked to draw pictures of trees, people and houses. One child drew a spaceship. After they completed their pictures, the psychologists asked the children to explain what they'd drawn. Throughout the activities, the psychologists sat at close proximity to the children, often laying an encouraging hand on the child's back.

When the evaluation ended, the psychologists gave the children their choice of books to take with them as a gift.

So far — a month after the earthquake — the psychologists have completed evaluations for most of the camp's hundreds of children.

"How many of the children have problems that are revealed by the evaluation?" I asked one of the team's psychologists.

"All the children display some symptoms of post-traumatic stress," he said.

The psychologists are awaiting official publication of the workbook, "My Earthquake Experience: 5/12 Wenchuan Earthquake," a supplement to the Comfort for Kids methodology in which the psychologists had been trained.

"The book is very good," one of the psychologists affirmed, thumbing through a photocopy of the book that she'd been given during the Mercy Corps training. "We just need the official copy to give these children." The book has just gone to press, and will be available for distribution in the next several days.

June 10, 2008 11:25 pm
Supporting Caregivers

by Maya Alexandri

Today Griffen Samples, Mercy Corps' Senior Technical Advisor, conducted a Comfort for Kids training at Sichuan Normal University. Comfort for Kids is one of Mercy Corps' youth psychosocial methodologies. It has an impressive track record, having been used to alleviate childhood trauma in the aftermath of 9/11, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and following the 2007 earthquake in Peru.

The Comfort for Kids methodology combines a trauma training workshop with an interactive workbook that helps children tell their story of the disaster in a safe context moderated by an adult caregiver. The workshop introduces the framework of the "Pillars of Security," which are the people, places, routines and rituals that anchor our everyday lives.

After a disaster, the task for caregivers is to re-establish these four pillars of security for children, so they can feel safe enough to resume their day-to-day lives. The workshop also assists caregivers in identifying normal, age-specific trauma responses that children may exhibit.

As a supplement to the trauma training workshop, Comfort for Kids also includes a workbook, adapted to be context-specific and culturally relevant for each disaster in which the methodology is used. "My Earthquake Experience: 5/12 Wenchuan Earthquake," a Chinese-language workbook for use by children in Sichuan, has been produced in record time thanks to extensive collaboration between Mercy Corps, the Children's Psychological Health Center, the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance and dedicated volunteers.

Today's training was attended by more than forty psychologists and psychology graduate students, many of them who have been counseling children in Dujiangyan, one of hardest-hit areas. In Dujiangyan, the earthquake reduced much of the city to rubble, and hundreds of students died when schools collapsed. Consequently, the trainees had been confronting tough questions and difficult behaviors from traumatized children.

One theme that surfaced repeatedly during the training was the question of how to discuss death with children. During a break, Professor Zhang Rili — a renowed psychologist on the Sichuan Normal University faculty — spoke forthrightly with Griffen about the issue.

Whether to tell children that their parents have died, Professor Zhang speculated, might depend on the age of the child. Griffen agreed that answers to children's questions must be age appropriate but, from her perspective, age-appropriateness must be balanced against the imperative to tell the truth. Being evasive or untruthful can undermine trust between the child and the caregiver. Moreover, Griffen emphasized that not knowing what has happened can be worse than the truth.

Professor Zhang agreed, but she clarified that she'd encountered two distinct situations with children. First, some children ask, "Where are my parents?" In that situation, Professor Zhang agreed that telling the children that their parents had died was likely appropriate. But some children don't ask. "Do you volunteer the information?" the professor wondered.

Griffen responded that children often ask for information when they're ready to receive it. But she also highlighted the importance of preparing children by asking them questions. "Do you know where your parents are? Do you want to know? Should we try together to find out where they are?"

Accepting Griffen's suggestion to prepare a child for difficult information with gentle questions, Professor Zhang further shared that — after hearing that their parents are dead — some children had then asked her if they would die.

"What's the appropriate age to tell children that they're mortal?" the professor asked. Griffen reflected that kids know people die.

"Death is not in our control," she said. "What's in our control is making a safe space for children, so that they can build a ‘new normal' existence after the earthquake."

Both Professor Zhang and Griffen agreed that, with respect to discussing death with children, the question was one of timing. Referring to the Comfort for Kids guidelines, Griffen offered that "My Earthquake Experience" recommends that children be asked if they know their parents' whereabouts about a month after the disaster.

As the participants' survey responses to the training made clear, the attendees valued the Comfort for Kids methodology in meeting the challenge of answering these tough questions of timing and child readiness to confront and accept death in the aftermath of the earthquake. They identified the "My Earthquake Experience" workbook as the most useful aspect of the training.

The participants could hardly have failed to notice that, on pages 14 and 16 of the workbook, is a series of questions both straightforward and heartbreaking: "My Earthquake Experience" asks children to check a box if their mother or father died in the earthquake.

June 8, 2008 8:47 am
A Different Game of Cat and Mouse

by Maya Alexandri

Mercy Corps' Moving Forward program uses sports and games activities to facilitate psychosocial recovery for disaster-affected youth. Conceptualized by Nike and developed by Mercy Corps in conjunction with CARE, Moving Forward has been used in two previous crises: helping children recover from trauma stemming from the 2007 Peru earthquake and from social unrest in Kenya surrounding its 2007 presidential election.

Although sports and games are universal, Moving Forward is adapted prior to each implementation to ensure that it's culturally relevant and accessible to the local population. Matt Streng, Mercy Corps' Program Officer for Health, Youth and Sports, has been working for the past week in Chengdu to adapt Moving Forward and ready it for use in the Sichuan earthquake zone.

Matt has gone to Sichuan University's primary school to determine what kinds of games are popular with the local children. In the school's "chatting room," he met six children — three each of girls and boys, ages 6-8 — along with the school counselor and the students' teacher.

The students described, and then demonstrated, a variety of local games. One game involved keeping a toy reminiscent of a hacky sack in the air with one's feet.

Another game, called chen qiu rong or "Chinese jump rope," required the use of a large elastic band. Two children loop the band around the backs of their ankles and stand facing each other, three or more feet apart, with the elastic band stretched between them. To get an idea of this, just imagine putting both your index fingers on the inside of a rubber band and stretching it taut.

A third child then jumps between the elastic bands in an elaborately choreographed pattern of moves. The elastic band can be raised, to the knees, waist, or even shoulders of the supporting players, to heighten the difficulty or change the challenges of the game.

The last game was a variation on tag, with a cat and mouse theme. A group of children, identified as mice, stand on one leg, supporting one another. They hop forward as a group, four times. Then a sole child, the cat, hops forward three times. The cat then pushes the mice, and the mice have to resist. If all of the mice remain upright on one foot, the game continues. But if one of the mice places a second foot on the ground, then that mouse becomes the cat for the next round of play.

Matt thought the cat and mouse game could readily be adapted for Moving Forward. "The mice are all standing on one leg, supporting each other, trying to resist a challenge posed by the cat — you can go anywhere with that," he said.

Here's how it could work: after the children play the game for several rounds, the caregiver could call a break and ask the children how they feel. They know that they have to resist the cat, but also know that they can rely on the other mice for support. What if they had to resist the cat on their own? And what's the significance of the fact that all the mice stand on one leg? Can the children think of other examples from their own lives about how they might be "standing on one leg" in some way, but that they have support from their family or community to compensate?

Matt incorporates local games, like the cat and mouse version of tag, into the Moving Forward activity guide that he's been preparing for use in an upcoming training of Moving Forward master trainers (that is, people who will train the caregivers who work with children). By design, the caregivers themselves will continue this process of adaptation.

The Moving Forward program met the approval of at least one youngster at Sichuan University's primary school. After hearing Matt give a brief overview, this girl piped up, "That's a good idea. I prefer playing games and sports to talking to the counselor in the chatting room."

"Besides," she added, "after you play sports, you're tired, and it's easier to share your feelings."

May 23, 2008 9:47 pm
Thoughts from Half a World Away

by Joy Portella

The last place I visited in Sichuan Province was Juyuan Township middle school. Its story has been told in the media countless times but no news segment can convey what it's like to be there.

Up to 900 children died in this school. When the quake hit, it splintered into slabs of concrete and infinite bits of debris; nothing is left except a lonely four-story staircase. The surrounding buildings are all still standing.

The piles of rubble are strewn with flowers, both real and paper, and makeshift memorials. The day I was there, three young volunteers huddled around a small fire, feeding it steadily with scraps of paper.

I asked my Chinese colleague what they were doing. She explained that many Chinese believe that a dead person gets a second life but must first spend time in heaven. In the Chinese version of heaven, a person needs all of the things she would need on earth. So friends on earth burn paper replicas of money, food, even cars to send them up to heaven.

I like the gesture. It gives the living the satisfaction of providing some comfort to the dead.

I left China today to return to the United States. I thought I'd be eager to get out of the earthquake zone — away from the stress of aftershocks and the human misery. I know that more Mercy Corps colleagues are on their way to help but still I felt hesitant to leave.

I can't stop thinking about the people I met and wondering how they'll get by. I see the faces of grieving parents and homeless families when I close my eyes. If I concentrate hard enough, I can smell those burning papers swirling up to heaven.

Returning to the States, my thoughts remain half a world away, back in China.

May 21, 2008 10:13 pm
Meeting China's New Homeless

by Joy Portella

In the past week, the homeless population of China has jumped by almost five million people. Shelters varying in quality from REI-style pop tents to curtains of blue tarp tied to trees are everywhere you look in Sichuan Province. They line the sides of roads, fill stadiums, and congregate under bridges. I even saw one elderly man reclining in a lawn chair on a highway toll plaza, seemingly oblivious to the traffic whizzing by him.

Today we set out to meet some of China's new homeless and hear their stories.

We first visited a large temporary shelter camp — a kind of tent city — in Dujiangyan county. Set up by the Chinese military, this crowded field of 500 blue tents houses approximately 3,000 people.

We met a group of people peeling and chopping vegetables near the entrance to the camp. They told us with pride that the army built these tents all in one night. Each family receives food and cooks on its own — woks and makeshift stoves abound — and soon a large kitchen facility will be built. They say they have adequate bathrooms, though a glance at the bathroom tells a different story. There are, however, no showers.

I asked if any of them knew each other before living in such close confines. "No, we are new friends." replied one woman, smiling.

But not everyone in the tent camp is wearing a smile. We ran into several women who expressed deep worry. "The government is providing food and water for us now, but what will we do in the future?" one woman asked us. "I don't have money to buy a new house, and I can't grow crops in my field any more."

Outside of the tent area, a provincial government agency has set up a station where displaced people can register to find work. Information on people and their skills is collected, and information from employers and their needs is being gathered at the same time. Hopefully there will be matches, but the process could take months.

I met 45-year-old Wang Fuqin as she stood in line to sign up for work. She hasn't had a job in 15 years but the quake, which heavily damaged her home, has sent her back to the employment line. She explained that she and her husband must take care of their extended family of twelve. "I can just do housework, nothing else," she told me. "Going to work is the only way for me. The government can't help us forever."

Just a few kilometers away is a temporary housing development being erected by Chengdu Jiangong Corporation. Working with donated materials and time, the team of 100 workers and many volunteers expects to build thousands of temporary homes in just 20 days. Each home will be a room of 15 square meters, and each group of 20 homes will share a kitchen, toilet and shower. They are said to be earthquake resistant.

We talked to a 22-year-old graduate student, Wang Senwei, who is interning with the company. He told us that Chengdu Jiangong has halted all other construction projects to focus on helping earthquake survivors. "After the earthquake, many of us were disappointed that we couldn't be on the front lines doing rescue work," he said. "This development provides us the opportunity to directly help earthquake survivors."

We left the scene hopeful for China's new homeless but knowing that much more has to be done to help these people build new lives.

May 20, 2008 8:53 pm
Losing Sleep

by Joy Portella

Last night the Chinese government issued a warning of a 6- to 7-magnitude aftershock. The streets of Chengdu filled up like a giant, panicked block party. People dragged out chairs, tents and mattresses to sleep outside of buildings they feared would collapse.

I'll admit that I joined the panic and slept alternately on the street, in my bed and under my desk. My colleague Guo Xin slept in the hotel's first-floor restaurant area. The aftershock inevitably came (they're constant) but it was much smaller than expected.

I don't function well without sleep so I was slow and irritable all day.

We headed out early to the city of Deyang in Shifang County to meet with our partner, the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), in their temporary disaster relief office. We found their office to be more "temporary" than we had expected. With the aftershock warning, CFPA staff were working outside and sleeping in their cars.

I talked to Wu Peng, who is usually the vice director of CFPA's monitoring and research department and is now supporting the Sichuan relief efforts. He explained that CFPA, with Mercy Corps' support, has been providing short-term relief like food, water and blankets to displaced people in hard-hit areas.

While CFPA remains active and interested in distribution, particularly of certain food (rice, vegetable oil) and clothes that the government is not yet providing, their focus has shifted to rebuilding communities. They are particularly keen to adopt select communities and provide interim housing for one to two years until people can be permanently resettled. CFPA is also getting involved in rebuilding schools and helping orphans.

I asked Wu Peng how much sleep he's gotten in the past week, and that made him laugh. He admitted to about one hour a night, with the exception of the blissful five hours he got in his car last night.

We left Deyang to go to nearby Jiandi Township, which has been heavily damaged by the quake. We passed streets of one- or two-story homes and storefronts that appear to have been stomped upon by a giant on a rampage.

We went to a high school where about 60 students were killed. A tearful middle-aged man on the street stopped to talk to us. "We're so sad to lose the children," he told us. "This shouldn't happen to the children."

The next township over is Longju, the site of another school tragedy. This time we visited an elementary school that collapsed and killed 60 young students.

I wandered among the wreckage, identifying the objects of children: a knapsack here, a notebook there, a small pink shoe a few feet away. Parents standing nearby told their all-too-familiar stories in a tone that can only be described as wailing - a deep, mournful crying like I've never heard in my life.

The Longju school will be rebuilt with the support of CFPA. I was there for the announcement of the 3 million RMB gift (a little under $500,000) that will make rebuilding possible.

Even in such a bleak scene, there is hope for the children of this devastated area. Mercy Corps is honored to be involved.

May 19, 2008 7:07 pm
An Epicenter of Tragedy

by Joy Portella

Today, Mianyang's main stadium holds not spectators but survivors of China's largest natural catastrophes in recent memory.

Approximately 20,000 people of all ages are crowded into the inside halls or scattered on the outside plazas: children running and playing, adults talking, eating, some reading or playing cards. Many people are strewn listless on blankets, just trying to get a moment's peace.

In fact the entire city resembles a giant refugee camp. Makeshift tents of plastic sheeting and tarp line the streets and are tucked under bridges.

The epicenter of last Monday's quake is just 60 miles east. Today it seems as if this city is the epicenter for stories of human tragedy. They are countless and moving, and many come from young people like Xiong Fujun.

Xiong Fujun is 14 years old and hails from the Ren jia ping village of Beichuan County. When the quake struck, he was sitting in seventh-grade history class. His teacher led the class out onto the playground. Xiong Fujun saw the building next to his school collapse. Then he looked back, and saw that his school was gone as well.

Xiong Fujun was one of 1,000 students who waited on the playground overnight to be rescued. A thousand more are buried under the school, and all are believed to be dead. One of them is his older brother.

Xiong Fujun and the other survivors were bussed to Jiuzhou stadium, where his parents found him after frantically searching a list of survivors.

With his home and village destroyed, he has no idea what the future will hold. "Here I don't get enough to eat and I'm always tired," he explained. "I need to find a school to continue my studies."

Some children at Jiuzhou were already going back to class. A temporary school housed in two enormous white tents opened today. It's quickly become a place of healing and recovery. On one wall in the elementary-school tent hung oversized sheets of white paper decorated with colorful post-its and drawings in magic marker. The wall is part of a "psychological assistance" program. Children are encouraged to write what they feel on post-its and press them to the wall.

The tone of the messages varies widely: "Smile and everything will be alright again" to "I h