An Orphan “Princess”
A Girl from the Yi Minority Might Get a New Home – But Not a Family. By Beate Engelen
The photo of a big-eyed girl captures my attention when Ajia Rebu, a local official in charge of orphans in Butuo county, hands us some files as we are sitting in the back seat of the car. He hopes that Amity will decide to support some of “his” girls, who have lost both parents. Their numbers are rising in the area.
Zizuo is a 13-year-old girl from the Yi minority who lost her parents to AIDS.
As our rusty four-by-four turns into a reddish dirt road and right onto a narrow bridge without a guardrail, the car starts bouncing and I grip the handle tighter. In Butuo, an impoverished county of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Region in Sichuan’s mountainous south, few roads have tarmac and bridges look like they will collapse at any moment. But as I have decided to visit members of the Yi minority in the mountain villages, I have to defy the potholes and brave the sight of water torrents below the car windows. This afternoon, it is the big-eyed girl I want to meet.
With Gong Sheng and Yue Yaomeng, two of my colleagues from Nanjing, I take a week-long trip to visit Amity projects in a region gripped by severe poverty. Covering an area about the size of Ireland, Liangshan has a desperately low economic profile and Butuo is one of its poorest counties. Average per-capita income is around US$ 90 a year. The high valleys and mountain ridges of Butuo with their pine forests and waterfalls offer stunning views – but little to feed the local people.
As I look out the dusted car windows while we are spiraling up the mountain, straw-thatched earthen houses roll by. Passing through a village, the driver keeps hitting the brakes and pressing the horn in a futile effort to scare away families of pigs, sunbathing dogs and sleepy cows. Beyond the scramble of huts, where the terraced fields begin, peasants walk behind their wooden ox ploughs, which are still commonly used among the Yi. Women and children stumble after them, breaking up the bigger lumps of soil with hatchets before corn or buckwheat is sown.
In Butuo, people use horse carts instead of cars.
A satellite dish perched on the roof of a mud hut here and there indicates that modern life has not entirely passed by Yi villages; but except for electricity, modern-day amenities seem completely absent. Mobile phones are hardly known and instead of driving cars or riding motorcycles, people use carts. They are pulled by sturdy horses the size of large dogs. On the face of it, life out here has a laid-back charm.
Drugs and AIDS
Yet this peaceful atmosphere is deceptive. The downsides of modern life, like the use of drugs, have long entered this pre-modern world, with AIDS following in its wake. Butuo is located at one of the major transit routes for narcotics, which connects the poppy fields of the so-called “Golden Triangle” with the underground markets in Gansu Province and beyond. Many of the locals are affected by this, especially the young.
In Butuo, the gateway drug is not marijuana but – heroin, which is generally considered the most devastating drug of all. According to a local official, 40% of the villagers use it. Most of them are men but the number of female addicts is rising. Estimates are hard to verify because drug use is still considered a serious crime and people are reluctant to admit they are addicted. However, the temptation to “get hooked” is great in an environment where a first shot of heroin costs little more than US$ 1. “Where drugs are cheaper than medicine,” says Yang Huiming, Amity’s local partner in Butuo, “people will choose heroin to kill their pain.”
To save money, heroin addicts usually share needles – not aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS. Most of the 2700 orphans of Butuo, says Ajia Rebu, lost their parents to AIDS. Nevertheless, most people in the mountain villages have never even heard of the disease and, as a consequence, do not take any precautionary measures. Unsurprisingly, the number of AIDS orphans is increasing.
One of these orphans is the big-eyed girl from Ajia Rebu’s files. She is the daughter of an Yi family. Her name is Zizuo, we are told, and she is 13 years old. First she lost her father, who was a drug addict. Some years later, she lost her mother, too. Both parents died of an unknown disease. Very probably it was AIDS. A rich donor from a major church in Zhejiang, a well-off coastal province, has pledged to support an orphan by covering her living expenses and, if necessary, having a solid hut built for her. It is now our turn to get to know her and make sure that she really needs outside support.
Meeting an orphaned girl
The sun is setting when we arrive at the village. At the end of a narrow path in front of an earthen wall, a young mother and a group of children sit on a pile of corn stalks, basking in the last rays of the winter sun. A pretty girl, small and shy, is introduced to us: Zizuo. She is so embarrassed that she hardly dares to raise her eyes. But even though her thin cape looks drab and dusty, she wears it with the grace of a little princess. I immediately feel drawn to her.
We are invited into her tiny, windowless room, which has a bed, a small desk and an open hearth. Here, she lives all by herself. A sister of her late mother keeps an eye on Zizuo but this aunt is obviously not in charge. Officially, Zizuo does have relatives who are responsible for taking care of her. Her father’s older brother was appointed her guardian after both parents had passed away. But this uncle and his wife have long since left in order to live as migrant workers further east. Only once a year do they return for a short visit.
Meanwhile, Zizuo does her washing, cooking and housekeeping without anyone’s help. When she comes back from school, she does her homework and then collects firewood and food for her aunt’s pigs. What is her favorite food, I ask her – “Meat, just meat, any kind.” Meat is what she never gets. Her meals consist of noodles, potatoes and vegetables, which she stores on a small shelf next to the hearth. We regret not having brought any food for her, but at least we have some other small presents: a little notepad and a few colored pens.
Curious children look at Zizuo
These are things seldom seen in the village – much less in the hands of an orphan. From behind, a crowd of children press into Zizuo’s shed, craning their necks to get a glimpse of what is happening inside. Seeing so many young children, Gong Sheng asks Zizuo if they are her friends. But Zizuo hides her face behind her patched-up cape and keeps silent. “Orphans,” says Ajia Rebu in her place, “don’t have many friends.” And an orphaned girl is at the very lowest level of a society which values boys and family networks.
Future prospects
Zizuo is struggling to overcome her embarrassment as we are taking photos. Watching her, I wonder about her uncertain future. Girls from poor villages in Sichuan are often married off to some moneyed men in the east, who can afford a higher dowry than the prospective spouses at home. Little does it matter how girls feel about this kind of marriage transaction. Grinding poverty shifts people’s priorities. Zizuo could be one of those married off for a good price. Moreover, who knows for sure that she will not be driven to join the rising wave of migrant women who head for the big cities? Sex workers are more than welcome in the growing entertainment industry in places like Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. What if Zizuo is given an initial free dose of drugs by a dealer who is looking for new customers? Many addicts in Butuo make a living and finance their addiction by selling drugs to other young people, even on the local school campus. If nobody tells Zizuo about the dangers of addiction, she may well be drawn into the shadows of the drug business.
However, Zizuo’s future does not look all bleak. Her monthly allowance and a new home will help her a lot to carry on and eventually find her own place in the community. Maybe she will find emotional warmth, attention and care, too, despite the fact that she has no family. As we wave the villagers goodbye and return to our car, I glance back at the scene. Some of the children have already grabbed the new notepad from Zizuo’s hands. Will they return it to her? For the other children, she is just an orphan, not a princess.
