The Offering

On June 26^th, we were fortunate enough to attend an offering ceremony, which occurs once every lunar month. The men of the village gather around a tower of prayer flags built on top of a grassy hill (as guests, Sara and T Fishy were also allowed to attend). Everyone brings some sort of gift, such as grain, cloth, or food, which is then burned as an offering to the mountain gods. The offering ceremony also serves as an occasion to discuss village issues, so it was an ideal time for us to begin talking with villagers about our project.

Elvis’s cousins

Amidst a crowd of curious and engaged men, we met with village leaders, Elvis's father, and Chozan. Chozan previously trained with a Chinese mechanic, where he gained motorcycle knowledge, so he was the ideal candidate to run our shop. We discussed tools, parts, common mechanical problems that occur in the mountains, and potential obstacles to the success of the shop. We also learned that every household owns at least one motorcycle. With 300 motorcycles now in the village, bikes have replaced horses as the standard mode of transportation. While we didn’t hammer out all the logistical issues, we were pleased to finally meet Chozan, as well as so many other helpful and excited people.

Discussing the motorcycle shop with men from the village

The next major step in implementing our project was to decide on a building site. We went with Elvis's father to the center of the village, where he owns one of the ten or so brick and adobe buildings that stand there. Since land is at a premium in the village center, and since Elvis's father was willing to lease the building for free, we felt that we had found a good location. Our options were either to renovate the old building that Elvis's father owns, or to tear it down and build a completely new shop. Elvis's father recommended building a new brick and cement shop because the current adobe structure was unstable and leaky. We took measurements using a coil of rope borrowed from an onlooker in order to estimate the amount of materials we would need. The measurements and pictures we took would later be given to a skilled worker from T Fishy's village, who would use them to buy supplies. With introductions done and a construction site in mind, we moved on to management and training issues.

Bright and early the next morning, the four of us woke up to find a respected village monk sipping tea and chatting away with Elvis's father in the other room. Embarrassed to keep him waiting since he had come here to meet us, we hurriedly pulled on clothes and scarfed down our tsamba. Soon after the meeting began, it became apparent that the monk’s vision of the shop differed significantly from ours. The monk hoped that the shop would benefit the village by providing parts at an equal or cheaper rate than available in X county town. Unfortunately this plan required us to pay yearly salaries to the mechanics, since they obviously would not be making much money. While we understood his wishes, we hoped to establish a shop that could be self-sustaining. We hope that its location would still make the shop a cheaper alternative, even if its services were not so discounted. Right now, if a motorcycle breaks in the village it must be towed to the nearest repair shop. This trip is time-consuming and expensive. Eventually the monk and Elvis's father agreed that a profitable and self-sustaining shop would be better. This would ensure that the mechanics would both work hard and not seek other sources of income.

Our second difficulty arose during discussions about training. The monk hoped to have the training completed in the village, but we wanted the shop mechanics to train in X county town where they would gain more hands-on experience fixing bikes on a daily basis. While the monk agreed with this in principle, the summer is an especially busy time since most villagers are herding or digging caterpillar fungus. At this point we also had not discussed this with the future mechanics, and all of us agreed that the decision was largely theirs. We realized that further discussion was impossible without Chozan present.

Three hours later, we learned from Chozan that because of family commitments he was unable to give up herding to run the shop. We all felt a little deflated. Luckily Elvis's father came to the rescue. Over the course of the afternoon he searched throughout the village for replacements. This was tough because we had all agreed on a strict set of criteria for potential mechanics:

1-Young

2-From a large family (so they would have fewer obligations towards herding)

3-Doesn’t drink, fight, gamble, or smoke.

4-Literate

5-Interested in running a shop!

At the end of the day Elvis's father returned triumphantly with Zhou La (age 26) and La Jie (age 21). Both are from respected families in the village, and fulfilled most of our criteria. Most importantly, they were enthusiastic about running the shop and grateful for the opportunity to train in Xinghai. We quickly arranged the terms of their training:

1-Training in Xinghai lasts for 30 days.

2-Living and food stipend (850 RMB/$120 each) will not be spent on alcohol, cigarettes or gambling (T Fishy was adamant about this, and the men nodded obediently).

3-Upon successful completion of training, approved by the T mechanic we selected, each will receive 500 RMB.

They agreed readily to these terms. We also discussed the possibility of donating a percentage of the shop’s profits to fund scholarships for girls in the village. Pentok has already established this project, and has sent several girls to school. We hope that this is another way the shop can benefit the community. All present were supportive of the idea.

In the end we were surprised that our most important meetings of the trip took less than two days. We settled on a building site, decided on construction materials, found interested trainees, and determined the terms of the training program. Elvis's family was getting ready to move to their summer pastures, so it was time for us to return to X county town.