May 15. Oversleepernight bus.

We still try to do something here in Kunming, but things don't get easier overnight. Sadly, the experience of organizations hanging up the phone, or offices hidden in some impossible to find backstreet remains associated to China non-governmental organizations. But of course! The government is doing everything here. We've learned that in Chengdu and wonder what we are doing here.
We have a last straw: the "windows on Yuanyang", a beautiful destination for travellers and photographers in a quest to capture one of the most stunning agricultural sights: the ricefields around the hill village of Yuan yang. Now this is supposed to be a small organization that helps needy families and enables their children proper education to get out of the circle of poverty.

We check out and drag our backpacks through the heat. A last minute arrangement blesses us with the company of another CS member who joins us for lunch and tells us about his volunteering experience. It's a nice exchange and the highlight of the day; we have to take an urban bus, wait at a pole for another one to get to the south bus station.

The bus station is huge, and a friendly English speaking woman helps us to locate our sleeper bus to Yuanyang. This is the first time for me to be in a bus with berths rather than seats. There is not much space to get cosy, but the road is fine and we arrive without bruises.

May 14. They have moved three years ago.

The guidebooks are right: Kunming is the most relaxed metropolis in China. We hope to encounter better luck in finding small-scale charities here, and gahter a list of phone numbers and addresses. After a while we manage to make an appointment with an ecological ngo called greenwatershed, and we figure out that it is actually just across the street from where we are living. But first we have breakfast in a very place, and we order some dishes by pointing at them, a task not too easy because we had to make clear exactly which dish we desired without dipping our finger in another guest's bowl. We ended up eating something very bitter and greasy, along with a bowl of sweet doughnuts that were big enough to point at on the other customer's table. Despite the unusual taste I eat up and feel strong enough to tackle our task.
With the help of a local, we find the correct building and walk up seven floors to the roof, where we see a little office. We ask the few curious Chinese about greenwatershed, and they think for a while. Then the answer comes:
"They have moved three years ago..."

-"Three years... and where are they now?"
"In another building, about twenty minutes by bus."
It is darn hot and we don't feel like pursueing this any further (why don't they care about publishing the correct address on these websites, 3 years after moving? I think, do they have a PR person?), so we hop on a bus that takes us to the Hump hostel. We check in and it's business as usual. We are surrounded by cheerful backpacking youth and a friendly bearded Californian coin collector with a consistently mellow appearance. We tell him about our concept and he seems to like it.
Is it impossible to find a supportable ngo here, are is it just us having bad luck? I call PEAC, a very promising initiative fighting pesticide use in China, and they hang up on me - several times. Some other foundations cannot be reached either, and we end up walking around Kunming.

May 13. Kunming spirit.

Kunming is just another metropole, yet decidedly less intense and crowded than Chengdu and, from what we've heard, Chongqing. We do what we are good at and sit down in a dark coffee place, waiting for our couchsurfing host, slurping black coffee as we bend over our tiny computer screens.

Julia, our host, works for a small ngo established by a German with strong ideals, but for the moment they have run out of projects. She really helps us in finding an alternative ngo that let us support them hands-on, and she comes up with a number of interesting alternatives. PEAC, an ngo that aims to abolish pesticide use in agriculture doesn't pick up the phone. It's a pity because they seem very promising.
We have dinner together in a crowded place with a very low ceiling. The food tastes really delicious. And then we went home. And then we did sleepy-sleepy. Okay, I know what you think, where has the spirit gone? This guy is enjoying himself in Kunming and so what? You're right, a little more of that vibrant straight from the spinal chord writing would do good. Or at least an impressionist description of the park we visit, with lely-covered ponds and people to stroll between them. You could rent a duckwaggon to wheel and waddle your way through the winding park roads. About the diligent butterflies roaming the flowerbeds and the shining pagoda replicas crammed with merchandise. I take a picture of three women on a bench and like the composition, not the technique though. I would have loved to shoot this one with a very serious lense.