Traveled to three historic villages

• Tao Hua Tan  – Very beautiful!  Water is still considered clean and unpolluted
• Wan Jia- Small area near Tao Hua Tan
• Zhangdu – Former military port.  Possible water contamination

Spent the first half of the day working on my Chinese and preparing for the field surveys.

In the late afternoon I biked to the southern areas of the city and discovered where people from the old part of the city were being relocated.

During the morning we finally had a meeting with the staff and interns to discuss an upcoming project and determine what my role would be.  Originally I was going to help with water sampling near the headwaters of the Qingyi River, but plans got changed.  Instead I would be accompanying the staff on field surveys of ten different villages that had historical significance along the river.  The project would be simply for gathering general information at each site to prepare for a more in depth series of surveys for which they would be utilizing many volunteers.  Unfortunately it would be taking place after I had to leave.

The NGO also wanted me to give a presentation for the general pubic at a special cafe in the city.  They wanted me to talk about how environmental NGOs in California work with the public and the government.

I spent the rest of the day working on this presentation.

Nothing was planned for this day and no work was available so I spent the day biking around the city and hiking through one of the largest parks.

• Attended a presentation about waste sorting at a local library that my supervisor was giving for kids.
• Afterwards helped with activities for the kids that included planting vegetable seeds
• One of the interns of the organization gave me a tour of Anhui Polytechnic university afterwards

Similarly to many areas of American, many people in China do not bother to sort their garbage from their recyclables.  Raising public awareness about recycling is one of the things that the NGO works on.

6/29/2014  Saturday

I was excited for Saturday because we were going to go to the old part of the city, an area that many Wuhu residents don’t even know exists. It is tucked away in an area surrounded by construction, and quickly disappearing as the city, like many in China, is racing to destroy, rebuild, and modernize…

Also explored the city center…