Poverty prose suffocating in Zhuanbao mountain village

After the instructor of the new rural team in the village was sent to the village office, another colleague and I settled down in Zhuanbao village and began to do some preliminary village investigations. The Geng branch secretary's family tolerated our two uninvited guests with the greatest goodwill and took care of them in every possible way. Early the next morning, I rushed to the side of the mountain to shoot the sunrise in the sea of clouds, and took a crazy shot in the cold wind for a while. My colleagues who came with me couldn't help getting cold and kept urging me to turn around and go back to the village. I turned around reluctantly and saw that the golden sunshine had covered the small village where the village office was located and the hill with the cell phone tower on my back. According to the agreement of the night before, that colleague will walk to Suo Mountain, but it is a steep mountain road to cross the cliffs of Jigong Mountain. Mr. Geng's son will take my colleagues to Dashanbao in a mini-car, and the secretary can also take me to visit a small village called Spur Land and take a photo of Rong Village in Zhang Cun. Back in the village, Mr. Geng made all the preparations, just waiting for us to take a bus to the branch after washing in his house. The morning went as smoothly as planned. After saying goodbye to my colleagues, Teacher Geng took me to a slightly downward sloping sidewalk. The soil on the sidewalk is very soft, the sidewalk and the hillside can't distinguish the boundaries, and every step is dusty in the cold wind. After a while, I walked to the spurs. Just entering the village entrance, I saw several shabby thatched houses, some broken walls and messy haystacks. Secretary Geng told me that there are two villager groups in this natural village. Originally, there were 34 families in * * *, but due to the deep poverty, more than 20 families have gone out to work, and the remaining population in the village is only 50 people, large and small. This situation is very common in Zhuanshan Bao Village. More than half of the families in the whole administrative village are working hard outside. Although the income from leaving my hometown is meager, it is at least a way out compared with farming in my hometown. It is more and more difficult for Zhuanbao village, which is sparsely populated, to rely on the weather for food, and the survival problem of surplus labor can only be solved by labor export.

While speaking, a man came out of the village, the leader of the 18 villagers' group, named Jiang Zhongquan. After exchanging pleasantries, he took us to the village for a walk. Broken, messy and gloomy became the only theme found in this village. On hearing the noise, Jiang Zhongguo, the captain of 17 team, went out to meet him. Looking at his dirty clothes and long messy hair, I still can't associate him with the title of team leader. At Jiang Zhongguo's kind invitation, we came to his house and passed the oldest straw house. The foot of the wall and the top of the grass were damaged. It is said that it has been converted into a stable. Jiang Zhongguo told me that this was their original house. In recent years, with the help of poverty alleviation projects, their family has built a new house next to it, and people live safely, but livestock are still in danger at any time in such a house. We walked into Jiang Zhong's new house and sat around the fire. This season, the mountains are full of flowers, but we still have to make a fire in the villagers' homes in Zhuanbao to keep out the cold. I noticed that the lighting in this new home is not very good. The darkroom is roughly divided into two parts. The first half is the venue for people's activities, and the larger area behind is used to pile potatoes. It is roughly estimated that there are at least tens of thousands of kilograms. In the conversation, I learned that last year, in the year of drought in several southwestern provinces, God seemed to care for the cold Liangshan area. Potato production is particularly high, with an average increase of more than 3 times in most places and even 5 times in good places. The negative effect of the general increase in potato production in the main producing areas is that the price cannot be sold. In the past, it was difficult to sell high-quality potatoes with a unit price of more than one yuan, and the labor for handling and transportation was not counted. Many farmers can only pile it in the house and watch it sprout and rot, but there is nothing they can do. In addition to human and animal consumption, there is no proper sales channel.

The four of us sat around the fire and started our daily life. From time to time, Jiang Zhongguo got up and went to the corner, rummaged around for quite a while, and even found a bottle of wine. Then he went to get some wine glasses and scalded them with boiling water, poured each of us a glass of wine, then went out to talk to his wife for a while, and then came back to sit down and drink and chat with us. Not long after, Jiang Zhongguo's wife cooked a dozen eggs in an antimony pot with boiling water and sent them to the fire. I realized that the whisper just now was actually to arrange boiled eggs, which may be the most popular entertainment in this family. The branch secretary and I couldn't refuse. Finally, we ate some eggs and drank the wine in the cup. Without saying anything, we got up and walked out the door while avoiding it. Some villagers heard the news and came to the branch secretary, saying that a pool next to the village had hidden dangers and must be reinforced as soon as possible to avoid any accidents in the future.

A few of us took the road to get there and came to the reservoir to solve the problem of drinking water for people and animals in two villagers' groups in Quanzi Village. We really see that the seepage on the hillside is much higher than that on the farmhouse foundation. It is understood that this pool was built by the county women's Federation for funds. Due to the shortage of funds, ancillary works such as slope reinforcement were not completed during construction. After a long period of freezing in winter, the original re-foamed soil began to loosen. If the earth collapses, the exposed cement pool wall may freeze and crack, and the water in the pool will be poured into the nearby farmhouse, bringing unnecessary losses to the villagers. In the onlookers of the villagers, it is roughly estimated that if the masses invest in labor and labor, they need at least five or six bags of cement and a load of sand, which is less than RMB 1000. The secretary of the township party Committee said that he must fight for the village when he goes back and give the villagers a statement sooner or later.

Back to the village office, the branch secretary told me that I couldn't accompany you this afternoon and let me go to the nearby natural village by myself. This arrangement suits me very well. Just after breakfast, I walked along a village road that couldn't tell the boundary, and came to Shuangzidong Natural Village, which is the closest to the village station. Although the distance is not far, it is not easy to walk. This small village is hidden in a deep ravine, and you can't see the village unless the direction is directly upstream of the ravine. There is a gap on the service road leading to the village office, just to see the corner of the village. The branch secretary told me that this is a twin cave in his hometown, so I don't have to ask. As long as I walk in the right direction, I can always walk to the village. The hillside road outside the village is high and steep. Standing on the road, you can overlook the whole village. In this valley, dozens of farmhouses are scattered under the slopes on both sides, and nearly half of them have their roofs removed or bare wooden rafters. The village is quiet and lifeless, which makes people feel terrible. When I got down to the river, I finally saw three people washing clothes in a curved ditch. A middle-aged woman was completely dressed as a local peasant woman, and a young man and woman were much better dressed, probably because they had gone out to work and seen the world. In their confused eyes when they looked up at me, I saw the inevitability of breaking the deadlock as soon as possible, so I quickly went forward and asked some questions about the village. I didn't expect the other party not to respond to my question, and basically I didn't know what to do, which made me very disappointed. I thought I might have been dominated by my vigilance and regarded me as a criminal bad guy.

Since I can't ask, I can only feel it myself, so I walked down the thin river. Along the way, the passing farmhouse was old and shabby. Although one or two tile houses on the roadside are intact, judging from the locked doors and dusty courtyards, they are uninhabited all the year round. In addition to several courtyard walls, there are several pigs lying lazily in the mud, and occasionally one or two dogs can be seen. Different from Pingba area, the dogs in the village lie on the ground with their eyes half open, which makes people wonder how to prevent them.

The small village is not big, and it will soon cross the village. The whole feeling is burnt and the silence is daunting. There are many ruins in the suburbs of the village, and there are also many broken walls in the densely populated areas. Several houses with obvious residents nearby are either covered with plastic sheets or hung with bamboo baskets or farm tools. The roads in the village are mainly small beaches, and the surface is covered with a thin layer of soft dust, which is dusty when there is a slight wind. There is still no obvious boundary on the village road, and there is no trace of grass in the gravel layer. Although there are thorns by the river, there is no green at all because it is still early spring. Return to the original road when you leave the village, and come to the intersection when you enter the village. I found a figure swaying in front of a high farmhouse, and there was a simple driveway next to it. I hurried up and saw a middle-aged peasant woman putting fertilizer on the plate. I hurried forward to say hello, explain my purpose and ask for directions on the way to the next village. This peasant woman is much more practical. She answered my question in a way that she didn't understand. She also called another peasant woman in a distant farmhouse to discuss with her. Generally speaking, I understand that there used to be about 70 households in this natural village, but now it is almost less than half. Some people who demolish or lock houses move out to work, and some are resettled by immigrants from other places. The foundation occupied by the residual wall indicates that these families will come back in the future. As for no one in the village, it's because people go to the hillside to farm or graze, and the local people prepare for spring ploughing earlier, mainly because the sowing date of the main local potatoes is earlier than other crops, and it takes more labor to plant the hillside with extensive planting and poor harvest. During the conversation, I gradually relieved many doubts in my mind. Finally, according to the instructions of two peasant women, I walked into the ravine along the simple driveway and went to the scheduled next goal.

Dahaizi Natural Village is only two or three kilometers away from Shuangzi Cave, and it is necessary to climb a ridge and go down to another more open deep valley. The word "Haizi" refers to a place with wide terrain and water, which can be a stream or a grassland, not necessarily a place with water. On the way to the ridge, I met an old man in rags with a bamboo basket on his back. After a short communication, I learned that the Twin Cave that I just walked through is actually a village group of 1 and 2 in Zhuanbao Village, and Haizi is a village group of 3 and 4. There are more than 50 families in the village, and only 20 families are left at present, which is equally vast and sparsely populated, and most of them are deeply poor. Farewell to the old man, I came to the highland overlooking the village. I think this small village is no different from the Twin Cave except for a wider valley and a loose farmhouse. When I entered the village entrance, I felt strangely empty and quiet around me. Fortunately, there is a place where several families are adjacent, and a horse is tied to the poplar outside. This is the only life I see. Due to the scattered houses, the damaged farmhouses are not as eye-catching as when they were first seen, but there is still an ominous feeling. Although I have been to Zhuanbao several times in the last 20 years, this is the first time for me to face the fallen village alone, and I can hear my heart beating suddenly. Walking along the relatively flat river dam in the middle of the village, I saw several busy figures on the hillside around the village from a distance. I was also surprised that none of the village dogs in front of the farmers got up to bluff. Maybe these dogs lost their prestige when their owners were away. I finally understand why lackeys always bully others.

I walked through three natural villages in Zhuanbao, plus the 14 villagers' group of the village office, and I walked through seven villagers' groups in one day, and what I saw was roughly similar. Low-key, poor, barren land and cold climate have brought the people here the ultimate living environment. I remember a villager said that day that as long as the weather at the foot of the mountain is good, it will be cold and rainy on the mountain, and the land output will undoubtedly be greatly reduced. It is difficult for the agricultural economy to support the whole village to embark on the road of poverty alleviation. What I saw and heard made me feel particularly heavy, and even made me forget the fatigue of running around all day. When I returned to my residence, I began to look at the village appearance taken that day, and my inner feelings for the local people were sublimated. As a mountaineer, how should we grasp the boat of our own destiny and catch up in the current tide of the times? It is obviously impossible to rely on the low-end agricultural economy. We must jump out of the shackles of primitive farming, choose a road of industrial development that combines geography, develop and create according to local conditions, and strive for a fantastic future.