Water Hope's Tracy Tomkovicz - Trip to China - First full day at Sechen Monastery

 Water Hope Founder and President Tracy Tomkovicz took an amazing trip to China.  Here are her emails in blog post sections.  This one was the second one sent on September  9th:    

We actually slept well. Better than I expected. My toes got cold and I had to wake Steve up every time I to go to the bath room. As you have probably guessed the bathroom facilities leave much to be desired and the are a few very unfriendly dogs that live outside the guest house that you have to give a very wide birth. The dogs are fed by the monks even thought they are mean because the monks believe the dogs were bad monks in a previous life. For these reasons I am not going to the bathroom in the middle of the night alone.

We had a nice breakfast of oatmeal with raisins and sugar and a cup of Pete's coffee (bless the Lord in Heaven!). At about 9 we set off for our trek across this small valley to the school. We were greeted by there beautiful, happy faces and warm greetings, tashi delek in Tibetan. The kids and monks all laugh when we say it to them.

We started right into our work because we only have 6 days to complete all of the projects that need to be done. Alison, Eva and I are working on a mural (that is a surprise for Dick Grace so don't say anything to him if you know him)  for the main hall/dining room and Steve is working on installing a tank, sink, faucet and drainage system in the same room with a great man named Jim or Jim-Bo. We took one 20 minutes break to have a gourmet lunch of salami and crackers, peanut butter and jelly followed by some dark chocolate. I was in heaven!  Although the Chinese food is great, it is really hard to eat every meal, every day.

The children love having their pictures taken and seeing it on the viewing screen. Most of them have probably never seen a picture of themselves. They are more friendly now and getting more bold about approaching us. The girls seem to be more bold than the boys.

Late in the afternoon a large supply truck arrived and all of the older children helped to unload and put away all of the supplies. It was like Santa's sleigh pulling up in the town square. The children were overjoyed to carry in the sacks of rice and sort through the eggs like they were each a precious Christmas package.

We broke for the day at 5:30 and made great progress. The monks and children are very impressed by what we have done so far on the mural. The first few children used the new sink with the clean filtered water in the kitchen. It was a glorious sight. I don't think they know how much that system will change their lives. They seam to be more impressed by the mural.

Steve, Ali and I made the trek back to the guest house to beat the pending rain. We are now all cleaned up and feeling exhausted but satisfied with a hard days work. We will sleep well tonight.
Take care you all!  Anyone have an In-n-out burger handy?