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Life Originates From Accidents And Roots In Inevit
浏览次数:1207次 更新时间:2019-10-31


By Ma Yanwei from For Better Land Ecological Farm




 

1.

 

An unexpected trip fifteen years ago changed the course of my life.

I was still studying in Beijing. I happened to see a place named Alxa on the internet, and a public welfare organization was recruiting volunteers with an ecological background.

 

Two hours after filing the application, I received a phone call. They told me to buy that nights train ticket , they were short of hands, and I was the man for the job.

 

Just like that, I, who just returned from field research, hopped on a train with a bag of dirty clothes and arrived at Alxa after sitting in a train for over twenty hours. After a short break, I was brought to the deepest part of Tengger Desert.

 

The sun was bright and dazzling, golden dunes were one after the other, everything I saw was hot, and this was my first impression of the desert.

 

I was working at a scenic spot in the desert, and I mainly had two jobs. One was to build a pavilion to observe birds, and the other one was to search species of the plants and animals in the lake with two young works.

 

The first job was time-consuming, and I had to design the pavilion, get the material, and built it using reeds by the lake. Two young workers at the scenic spot were always late and loafed on the job sometimes, so I had to touch them by making myself as an example and finish the job as fast as we could.

 

I let myself bath under the sun every day, and I was a lot darker, but my heart melted in the enormous desert as well.

 

That year was 2014, a month after I had arrived at Alxa, I found myself.

 

 


 

2.

Half a year later, I joined this environmental organization and started to work full time at Alxa.

 

Most of the times, I would go on business trips to villages and pastoral areas. I lived in the villages and my time was typical disequilibrium, sometimes slow and sometimes fast.

 

Once a villager assembly was held at a project site, we talked about the development, protection, and future plans for the committee, the assembly lasted till midnight. Villagers were discussing passionately under the dim light in the house of the village committee, and the meeting went well.

 

At three or two a.m, colleagues and I drove back to the city. On the way, one of the misters opened the car window and yield, stars above the sky will all sing for you!

 

We laughed...

 

After the villager assembly, we started to work vigorously at the project site according to the plan we discussed. We repaired the road, raised cows, built methane-generating pit, built a water-conserving facility, discussed committee fund, and etc. with villagers.

 

At that time, the villagers gave me a vacant house to live, and I made an arrangement with them to eat in every home in turns. I would also provide present money when there were weddings or funerals and drink alcohol and brag with friends in the village in the ceremony hall. I slowly figured out who were families, and who were enemies, which family were wealthy and which were poor. The key to the villages development was how to let villagers be aware and participate orderly in group decision-making and actions.

 

Every day was new, and many information flushed in.

 

That year was 2005, the first year after I arrived at Alxa, my youth burned transparently in the promising village.

 






3.

Ten years passed without noticing, and I have become Alxa people. I made another critical decision that I wanted to become a real peasant and farm.

 

Two friends and I started the ecological farm and named it For Better Land after Wang Yangmings For Better Self. We found an eco-friendly and sustainable planting method in the desert, and this is the conscience we understand.

 

The unreasonable farming method is the primary cause of desertification, so we wanted to find a reasonable way for the local farms to profit reasonably without damaging the environment.

 

Even though we spent the first ten years ran around villages, but farm yourself and being supportive were two different majors. The three of us did not hire any people, did everything ourselves, and learned on the job to get hold of the essence of ecological agriculture fast and also to save money.

 

 

At the first year, we faced difficulties and uncertainties every day.

 

We had to finish irrigation as soon as possible, so we pulled all-nighters. We set a schedule and worked in turns. At first, we thought all we had to was taking a shovel and dig every two hours, and block one ditch and then open another one. But the reality was not easy, the water velocity in the ditch was fast, so the mud we dropped would be gone immediately.

 

We did not know when the footpath in the water would burst, and when it happened, we need to jump in the mud and mend the tear like anti-flood fighters. We had zero time to care about our shoes been soaked and covered in mud. Fixing the tear of the footpath was our priorities.

 

During this mess, the sky turned dark, stars would show up, and the sky turned bright again. That was when I knew there were so many colors that I could not name between dark and blue.

 

That year was 2015, I had been in Alxa for ten years, I was thrilled and lost on my farm.

 





4.

It had been five years since we open the farm.

 

The species, technology, management has been improving, except that we had not profit yet, more and more familiar and strange friends come and experience. Some people became temporary female employees, and some people were onlookers with melon in hand.

 

The people from the outside would be awed by the changes of nature, they could find various beauties in everyday sunset, how plants grow every week and how things and climate change every month

 

I need to see the invariable side, I need to foresee what will happen new hour, where will have problems and what kind of preparation I need to be done.

 

The most important thing is that even though the sense of freshness had passed, the field and nature still bring surprises and calm me.

 

In the spring and summer of 2019, it was extremely rainy in Alxa. At some moment during sunset, I heard frogs. There had never been any frog before, and this made me smile genuinely.

 

Maybe we are finally near to accomplish the goal we set five years ago —— for better land.

 

This year is 2019, 15 years after I arrived at Alxa, I see hope and strength in the changes and stability of the farm.


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