Kids After the Quake

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Children living in a Mianyang stadium after the quake

The photo on the right is from the Nanhe Sports Center in Mianyang, where thousands of people left homeless by the May 12 earthquake are living. I like it because it has smiling kids, something that's been in short supply. Lin, photographer Ian Teh and I went to the stadium to find volunteers, but I spent most of the time dealing with the horde of children who wanted to see the Ronald McDonald-looking foreigner. At one point there were a few dozen kids swarming around me to ask me about America, tug at my hands and try to rub the freckles off my arms. Every time I turned around there was a tiny person wanting me to pose for a picture or handing me a piece of paper to autograph. Not wanting to hurt my Sichuan fan base, I obliged.

The swarm made it impossible for me to report, but I didn't mind. The kids seemed bored silly, and if it took a goofy foreigner to entertain them, I was prepared to be that person. And I learned a few things too. Like the Sichuanese way to say, “Resist the earthquake; provide disaster relief”—the popular post-quake motto. Mu Hong, the girl at the back left of the photo, taught me that. I also learned that these kids are pretty resilient. All have been through a difficult week and have a lot of uncertainties about their future. The camp isn't bad, but there's no privacy, little to do all day and the diet is a lot of cookies and instant noodles. Yao Wenwu, 10, the pudgy-cheeked kid at the top right, has stitches in his head from an injury sustained when his elementary in Beichaun collapsed. He walks with a limp, but it doesn't stop him from wrestling with his friends in the camp. (He's got a few pounds on them, which helps.)

We've seen some traumatized looking children over the past week. There are many who have seen classmates die, have lost their houses and family members, have had to walk past bodies in the streets. Some of that they'll carry for the rest of their lives. But for a couple hours Tuesday, it was nice to see kids looking happy.