The Wuzhi Project Faliure

I have a little over two weeks to go before I travel to Shanghai to meet up with my friend Alan. In the scheme of things, two weeks is nothing and will pass in the blink of an eye. It sure does not feel like that right now though.

I feel as though I am wasting my time here at this project. There is not much for me to do. Even when I do teach English it is for 2 hours at most in one day. The rest of the time here is spent trying to think of things to do which could occupy my time so I do not go crazy. The problem is, I do not have much energy and things that I could be doing I do not feel like committing any time or energy to. I could be spending a lot of my time trying to learn Chinese, like I was hoping to do before I came here to China. At this point though, I feel it would be a waste of time. I do not foresee myself coming back here to China after January and I also am not interested in teaching myself to learn a language. I have been spending a considerable amount of time learning Tai Chi in the early hours of the morning and in the evening. I find this to be a good experience. I do not particularly care for the ideas or philosophy behind Tai Chi, but I find it to be a good way to wake up in the morning, stretch, and keep my body in a healthy condition. I think I have been overdoing it a bit though; my left leg is currently injured. It started out as a small pull and eventually then complicated some other parts of my leg as well. I choose not to do any Tai Chi last night or this morning and I probably will not do any tonight either in the hopes that my leg will be well enough to wake up for some Tai Chi tomorrow morning.

Overall this volunteer project is not what it is said to be. It has potential to be a great volunteer experience and benefit a lot in the local community, however, the people that are currently running the program (which is Yao as far as I can tell) seem to be focused only on what can make the program money which at this point is just teaching English to a few school children. Yao is trying to liaison with others in the community here in Jiaozuo to expand the number of students that are taught, but it does not seem to be going very well. There are many other things that volunteers who come to this program could be doing to help the local community, but it seems that if it is not making any money for the project, Yao is not interested in it. This project seems doomed to failure if this trend continues as it certainly will not attract any foreign volunteers and people here in China are not even familiar with what the word volunteer means. Working for nothing is not a concept that Chinese are familiar with so the likelihood of finding people here in the community that would be willing to volunteer are slim to none.

I have to hand it to Yao and his girlfriend, Wangsha,though for their very kind nature in letting me stay with them. Even though I am doing very little for the program in terms of volunteering, I am staying with them for free. Wangsha cooks food for me on many days and they even just bought another computer because I was spending so much time on their laptop. Actually, they take care of so much for me, I am becoming quite lazy in a lot of ways; a feeling that I hate and is contributing to my not wanting to be here at this project anymore. I would leave this very instant if it was not for the kids that I am teaching English. There are two kids in particular that I have been teaching which are very keen to learn as much as they can. When I leave, I will miss them both and I hope that my time and effort in their English education will help them in the future. I do hope that one day they will both be able to venture outside of China to an English speaking country to see what the West has to offer them.

This experience in Jiaozuo at the Wuzhi project, coupled with many previous experiences with regards to volunteering and finding a volunteer project, has given me first hand experience with the difficult nature and, at times, all consuming task of finding a volunteer project that best suits me. Yao's project does not really suit me, and I know that now, but only after coming here and experiencing it first hand. These experiences have given me an idea for a website that, if successful, will make volunteerism a much easier and manageable task for not only would be volunteers like me, but for projects who are trying to find people as well (even here at the Wuzhi project). I have been spending a considerable amount of time writing up a project proposal that I will be submitting to Google's Project 10 to the 100th. If you have not heard about it, check it out here.

Many of you who read my blog on a regular basis have already seem some version of my project proposal. Thank you all for your feedback and input on the proposal. It is hard taking a step back and looking at my idea from an objective standpoint and you all have helped me in doing that, so again Thank You! I will be posting a blog with the final version of my proposal once it is finalised for all to see. With luck, my project will be chosen by Google as one of the 100 ideas that will be voted on by the public starting in January. I am hoping that with the exposure through Google's project, this website will become a reality and finally make it easy and fast for people to find volunteer projects and for projects to find the people that they need regardless if it is a domestic or international project. I am very excited by the possibilities of what this website has to offer volunteerism everywhere. The hard part will be convincing everyone else of what it can do and that is why I have been spending a lot of time trying to get my proposal just right.

It was bound to happen, and I suppose I am lucky that it happened now instead of earlier in my trip. My camera has died. I am sad to say that I will probably not be posting any more pictures from my time here in China. This is quite unfortunate since I will be traveling with Alan in Shanghai and Beijing. The great wall, the birds nest, the temple of heaven, the summer palace: all places that I will not have pictures of. Hopefully Alan and his mom will have a camera and I can take some shots that I can post after my return home. For now though, enjoy the last of the pictures:

China