Penn student working to help quake-ravaged China

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

When Meg Ferrigno got word that the west China prefecture of Yushu had been devastated by an earthquake, her thoughts flew to the people she knew and loved there:

The children she had taught. The men and women with whom she shared work and food.

It was evening before she managed to reach a friend by phone. He told her that the school was undamaged, and that their mutual friends were unscathed. "But everyone else is dead," he said.

The April 14 earthquake, which killed 2,220, has faded from the headlines, but not from Ferrigno's heart and mind.

She lived 21/2 years in Yushu, which covers the southern third of Qinghai province, drawn to the Tibetan region for reasons spiritual and humanitarian. While teaching grade school she coordinated aid projects before being kicked out of the country with other foreigners ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Since the day of the quake, she's been phoning and e-mailing friends in Yushu.

"They're still getting out to monasteries that are remote and finding that there are more people dead," Ferrigno said. "The roads are not good, and there are so many monasteries, and help is spread so thin."

Ferrigno, 28, is education coordinator of the Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative, part of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. The initiative teaches children how to improve community nutrition and health.

On May 17, Ferrigno will graduate from Penn with a master's degree in international educational development. She plans to go to Yushu in August to help.

She's also organizing Tibet Fest, a fund-raiser and cultural celebration to be held Sunday at Clark Park in University City.

"She's really interested and supportive of the people in that region," said Karma Gelek, president of the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia.

Susan Darlington was Ferrigno's faculty adviser at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and among a small group that traveled with her to Yushu in August.

"It's amazing to watch her in action there," said Darlington, a professor of anthropology and Asian studies and director of the Tibetan Studies Program. "Things would go wrong, and she was like, 'Well, we're going to make it work.' She's made very, very strong connections with these people. And watching their connections to her, she's not some benevolent outsider come to help. She's part of their community."

Qinghai borders Tibet to the south. It contains Qinghai Lake, China's largest, and is where the Yellow River originates. The gigantic province is sparsely populated, home to only about five million. The district of Yushu is 97 percent Tibetan.

Ferrigno's path to Yushu was circuitous. By any measure the place is high up and far away. In a sense, her journey began in high school, in Brockport, N.Y., with an interest in human rights, particularly in Tibet. Upon graduation she enrolled at Drexel University, then transferred after a year to Hampshire.

She finished three years of courses in two years, including trips to India and Nepal.

After graduating in 2001, she spent two years studying Buddhist philosophy in Dharamsala, India, home of the Tibetan government in exile, then traveled to Nepal to study two more years in Kathmandu.

A religious instructor told her that he needed someone to teach in Yushu, an impoverished area that, according to the official Xinhua news service, has 238 monasteries and 23,000 monks.

In January 2005, Ferrigno found herself in Gargon, a remote village of 600, mostly herdsmen. The area was defined by rocky mountains, rolling hills, and a lake on the valley floor. The landscape was fairly barren, save for juniper trees and the medicinal flowers for which Yushu is known.

The village had no electricity, no running water, and no cell phone service.

"I had no idea what I was getting myself into," Ferrigno said.

She also had no way to talk to people, because although she had studied classical Tibetan, the people she encountered spoke a local dialect. Still, she had a place to live, quartered in a Buddhist temple, and people who needed her. She taught English, science, and art; created an environmental club; and helped plant a garden at the 110-student school.

During free hours, Ferrigno said, she would wander, taking in the beauty of the mountains or gathering animal dung to burn for fuel. Sometimes she'd hunt for interesting-looking rocks.

A lot of time was devoted to basic tasks, like gathering water from wells and collecting wood for fires. She worked toward learning the dialect.

"I consider it paradise," Ferrigno said. "The people are incredibly generous though they're deep in poverty. . . . It's a really inspiring place, with lots of energy, spiritually, geologically, and politically."

It was politics that sped her departure.

In March 2008, the 49th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, protests erupted in Lhasa and spread to Tibetan regions of China, including Qinghai. With the Olympics near, the government expelled large numbers of missionaries and teachers, Ferrigno among them. She asked friends: Where could she find a job and work on a master's? They said: Philadelphia.

So she came here, all the while knowing that at some point she would return to Yushu.

Today, the government there has shifted relief efforts from search to reconstruction. The quake leveled tens of thousands of buildings, including homes and schools.

The death toll continues to rise. More than 12,000 were injured.

Ferrigno is helping spread word of where people can donate money to help, including through the Office of Tibet in New York, which represents the government in exile.

"I was able to contact one family that I consider family. They're all safe," Ferrigno said. "On the ground, it's still looking pretty bad."