Merrily We Roll-A-Sewer

Great Day, Man!

"Yesterday was a great day, man." We've all been repeating this today. Like a mantra.

Yesterday we woke up and grabbed some bikes with Sebastian and Chelsea, the latter being a 'World Teacher' who Frank is familiar with, the former her boyfriend. As a group we are far from expert planners (and proud of it), and so we decided to just head east, sure that we would reach ErHai lake.

Crossing the highway that connects Dali's old and new cities we rode along a cobblestone road that cut through countless plots of leafy green vegetables. The farther we went the worse the road's condition, but we continued on until we reached a construction site where workers were extending the road into a small village.

After conversing, and then trading cigarettes with the workers, our little band started off into the village. Tight alleys with oddly angled walls and hidden intersections created a maze for us to explore. We kept heading east and eventually we spilled out onto a small rock 'pier' that extended some twenty feet into ErHai lake's flooded banks.

We were greeted by a few old ladies washing vegetables and clothes in the dirty water. Was it a marvelous temple? A popular tourist destination? A well maintained vista viewpoint? NO! But there is no way that I would have preferred any of those locales over the simple stone pier that we stumbled upon.

We lingered for a bit and then we reentered the maze with the goal of heading south. After a few wrong turns we found ourselves on another elevated road bouncing through the countryside. Eventually we came upon a group of villagers who were also trying to further extend the pavement into their town. The current task was to move a massive cement pipe (you know, the ones that they build sewers with).

I was the first in our group to reach them and I jokingly asked if we could help. A tired looking woman stopped struggling with the pipe and nodded that any help would be appreciated. The man who seemed to be in charge laughed "dui, bang bang mang wo men", surely thinking that I would just ride past. The four guys in our group hopped of their bikes (I didn't even put the kickstand down) and we replaced the women on the pipe. Chelsea whipped out her camera.

There were several obstacles and a very bumpy stretch of rode between us and our goal some 15 meters away. We were aided only by two long 2 x 4's that kept leapfrogging the pipe. The next bit was a blur of Chinese instructions, English instructions, and laughter... lots of laughter. I was giggling like a four-year-old for ten minutes straight. With one final cheer we rolled the pipe into the ditch that would soon be a road, and not long after that we were back on our bikes and back in a maze of village side streets.

I think everyone involved will have a hard time forgetting the day the crazy foreign people helped roll a sewage pipe into a ditch on the outskirts of a tiny village on the banks of ErHai lake.
C. Johnson



(sent via email on Monday, January 24, posted Friday, January 28)