NovelEnglishShaking off Gail’s arm, Debbie walked a few steps away and said coldly,
“That’s none of your business. Remember not to drag the whole team down with you.”
Among the fifteen students, ten were boys and the other five were girls. Debbie knew most of them, except two or three students. She usually met them at school and sometimes greeted them on the campus.
So she was excited about going with all of them. ‘It’s like going on a trip with friends!’
At Southon Village
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtJumping off the bus, Debbie quickly ran to the edge of the road and began retching.
To get to the Southon Village, Debbie and her schoolmates had first taken a two-hour ride on a high- speed train. Then they transferred to a bus, which took them seven hours. By the tthey arrived, it was already dark. The bus had bumped all the way along the rugged mountain roads, jolting the passengers on it badly. Debbie never had carsickness, but this time, she couldn’t help but feel dizzy. She bent down on the roadside and retched a few times, but didn’t vomit.
A few of her schoolmates had begun vomiting as soon as they got off the bus.
The pungent smell of vomit and the disgusting sight of it only made things worse for Debbie. Just when she felt she was safe, her stomach churned violently, and in one loud retch she threw up.
Dixon opened the lid off his water bottle and handed it to Debbie to wash her mouth.
“There’s no hot water right now. Just take a few sips of this bottle of water first,” he said.
Debbie took the bottle and rinsed the taste out of her mouth with the water. Now that she felt much better, she was finally in a mood to appreciate the scenery.
As they stood up high and Looked around, the students could see the small village in the distance- dozens of houses Lined up at the foot of the mountain. Most of the houses were smallish one-storey houses, with the tallest standing only three-storey up.
Still feeling exhausted from the journey, Debbie stretched herself. It was refreshing to finally breathe the clean air of the countryside.
But the biggest problem was… the piercing coldness in the mountain area.
A gust of cold wind blew over, threatening to freeze them into icy stumps sticking out of permafrost.
Although they all cin warm clothing, they were not prepared for biting cold. The girls soon began to complain. Even sof the boys found it worse than they had expected.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmOnce the villagers learnt of the students’ arrival, many of them, especially children, stood at the entrance of the village to welcthe group. As Debbie and her schoolmates walked towards the villagers, they were shocked to realize that the children’s faces and hands were turning red from exposure while they waited. And it really gripped
Debbie’s heart that the kids wore old, worn-out cotton clothes, which were far from enough to keep them warm in such harsh weather. Worse still, sof the children wore thin, baldly beaten shoes.
With wide eyes, the children stared curiously at the visitors from the big city. Expectation and eagerness to learn about the outside world were obvious on their faces.
Behind the children, there stood a group of old or middle-aged women, wearing genuine, welcoming smiles on their tanned faces. They raised their gnarled hands and waved enthusiastically.
The scene moved most of the students close to tears. Born and brought up in affluence, they were jolted, coming face to face with such abject poverty for the very first time.
Even though they had already mentally prepared themselves before they came, the squalid Living conditions here were way too unsettling
The donated relief supplies would arrive at the village tomorrow, so the students would start their work from tomorrow. After greeting the students, the village head led them to the host families, where they would spend the night.
Since there were fifteen students in total, they were assigned into smaller groups for accommodation in different villagers’ houses. And swere in individual rooms. When Debbie saw the room that was arranged for her, she gave a helpless sigh
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