Jamie and Anna visited San He village on 30 March 2007 to investigate  the proposed bridge project.  A summary of the situation is given below:

• Da Ying County is 60km away from Zi Yun County.  It took us one and a half hours to get to Da ying from Ziyun since the road is good. San He village is 8km far from Da ying. From Da Ying we crossed the small river on stepping-stone, as there was no bridge. We walked and climbed the mountains and hills for two hours to reach San He village. If the local people have no horses, they have to walk and carry goods of 40kg to 60 kg to the nearest town to sell.
• There are 243 families in San He and the population is 1,040.  Most of them are illiterate and do not speak Mandarin.  Only a few of them speak Mandarin. There is a new school constructed by the Local Government.  It is the best building in the village.  They plant rice, sweet corn, vegetables and fruits. They need horses to carry heavy loads. Due to the difficulty of transportation, the market price of their products is lower by half in comparison to that in the nearest town.
• The government installed electricity three years ago but they do not have water supply yet.
• The villagers realized that they would have hardship life if they do not have the road.  So the villagers themselves contributed 100,160.00 RMB to construct the road.  They couldn’t construct this road by themselves, as heavy equipment was needed to build the road.  The road under construction is contracted for the sum of 224, 000.00 RMB.  They are short of about 123,840.00 RMB.  They appealed to the Local Government to help cover the balance of the amount. But there is no guarantee they could get the money from the Government.
• According to the village head, the proposal for the bridge project, which was submitted by San He village was prepared by the county chief. This proposed bridge is near to the school where the river is 6 meters wide.  There are two rivers near the school.  If the proposed bridge is built across this river, then another bridge would have to be built as there is another river.  After much consideration, they decided to propose the construction of one bridge that would be further down where the river is 15 meters wide. From here they could go straight to the school and need only to cross one river.  In order to link Da Ying Township to the San He Village road, they needed to build two bridges.  The only request they made to us is to build one bridge near the school, as they really have no money to build the bridge. Due to the construction of the road, even some of villagers have already sold their cows to meet the financial need.
• Once they finish the road and we help them build the bridge, not only will it benefit San He village but also the other two neighboring villages with about 3,000 people. This will help them develop their economy and also help the sick people to get treatment faster. During the rainy reason, the students cannot go to school as the river water level goes up as high as 7’ or 8’.  When the water is not high, the teachers have to carry the students one by one from one side of the river to other side.
• We asked them to get an Engineer to estimate the construction cost and design the bridge and report to us