The flag has sunk half-mast. So has the basketball board. The school is closed down.
The man minding the premises explains that the road from Maduo was too unreliable a supply line. It passes straight through a swamp, often is not passable. Then staff and students ended up without provisions.
A case of idealism overtaken by reality.
The retreat of ‘development’, civilisation’ or whatever you like to call it may be temporary though. China 2012 is determined not to let nature obstruct its countless infrastructural projects. On a low ridge on the horizon bulldozers and heavy trucks are moving about.
Five years from now? Who’s to say? A tourist bus on a short stop at a small school, ten kilometers of asphalt to go to its destination, the head of the Yellow River?