By Lindsay Beck
DA'AN, China (Reuters) - Aid has finally come to Da'an, atiny village in China's earthquake-ravaged Sichuan province,but the help is at the bottom of the mountain and Zhao Mifanglives at the top.
"I can't go down there! If I go down the mountain, who willlook after my pigs? They're worth a lot of money," she said,gesturing to a pair of hogs grunting and snorting nearby.
Nestled in the hills, Da'an is hard to reach at the best oftimes.
Since last month's quake, the village can only be accessedon foot, the mountain track leading there strewn with giantboulders that came crashing down in landslides triggered by themagnitude 7.9 tremor that killed more than 69,000 people.
So while most have moved to the bottom, where there is acamp of government tents squeezed into a narrow bit of flatland, a few holdouts remain in the village, living undermakeshift tarps beside the piles of rubble that were once theirhomes.
Angry relatives say the local government has paid theirvillage little attention.
"Our mother was up there for days. I called the localgovernment to ask them to check on the situation, but nobodydealt with it," said a man surnamed Feng, who had earlier leftthe village to work in the city.
"It's only after we came back and began demanding thingsthat they started to do things for the people left here," hesaid, adding that he thought the local officials were tooafraid of more landslides to venture up.
Villagers said a bulldozer clearing rubble was being drivenby a volunteer, not by a government team. Further up the track,a local man was fiddling with a stick of dynamite, preparing toblow up the boulders himself.
The nearby county seat of Anxian is a world apart.
Nearly three weeks after the quake, the tent city there iswell-established, with rows of numbered blue tents, toilets andshower facilities, and outdoor basins for washing clothes.
One tent has been transformed into a small pharmacy.Another is a "library", stacked with donated books anddecorated with children's pictures. At another, a generatorhums and tent-dwellers come to charge their mobile phones.
The residents, all from a nearby town whose houses havebeen uninhabitable since the quake, know they are doingrelatively well in the aid game, but still there are grumbles.
"When we came here, we had nothing and now we have clothesto wear and food to eat," said Yin Xiaoli, 36, a basin of wetlaundry under her arm.
"But nobody here is very happy. It's so hot here," shesaid, gesturing at the area that was once corn and watermelonfields, where there is not a tree for shade in sight.
Others say the problem is simply that there is nothing todo.
"We might go to the city to look for work," said ZhouMengyu, 38.A lot of young people had already left, she added."There's a lot of old people here now."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
