Just after we finished distributing relief goods to the Mongolian herdsmen, a heavy rain suddenly poured down on the arid steppe. Every one of us was delighted over the heaviest rain of this year. As the sun was setting, a rainbow appeared across the prairie sky as though saying good-bye to us with this beautiful view. What a blessing to us all!

The Chilei River flows past
the foot of Mount Yin,
and the sky is like a big domed tent
enveloping the steppe in all directions.
On the vast green prairie
under the boundless blue sky,
we can see flocks of cattle and sheep
when the grass bows with the wind.

--Song of Chilei, Northern Dynasty

This is a popular ancient song describing the vast, beautiful view of the Mongolian steppe under the foot of Mount Yin thousands of years ago.

However, in the last few decades, the grasslands have gradually disappeared due to overdevelopment and excessive grazing. We can no longer see green grass stretching all the way to the horizon--only endless loess and sand instead. For many years the land was devastated by droughts, creating a serious shortage of forage for the livestock. What made matters worse were the blizzards and sandstorms that hit the area last winter, killing off livestock and directly jeopardizing the livelihood of the herdsmen.

Before our airplane landed in Huhhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, I looked over the scenery through the small windows. The barren mountains and hills offered sparse vegetation, and there were only occasional tracts of green land scattered in the giant swath of loess. Obviously, the problem of desertification has been getting worse.

As members of the global village, the Tzu Chi relief team shouldered the mission of providing humane care and offering basic assistance to people who had been ravaged by endless natural disasters and the deteriorating environment.

While members of the relief team were busy distributing relief goods under a scorching sun outdoors, doctors were just as busy at the free clinic indoors. At the free clinic at Shaerying Village, the temporary consulting room was fully packed with patients.

"Sir, your blood pressure is a bit too high. You really shouldn't smoke anymore!" Dr. Wang Ying-wei, director of the Family Medicine Department of Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, examined an old gentleman and urged him to take care of himself.

Dr. Wang jokingly asked a patient waiting nearby, "Please keep an eye on him for me--don't let him smoke again!" That induced laughter from everyone present.

After diagnosing patients for a few days, Dr. Wang discovered that most herdsmen suffered from sore waists and aches in the knee joints. Gallstones and hypertension were common illnesses, too. Dr. Bai Wen-hong, a physician from Mengkang Hospital in Huhhot, observed that most local herdsmen had suffered from chronic diseases for many years, but would not look for medical treatment due to the shabby regional medical facilities and the inaccessibility of hospitals.

You would be wrong if you thought that these two doctors' hands were only able to hold their stethoscopes and write prescriptions. When the free clinic was closed for the day and the distribution of relief goods was still going on, they would immediately take off their white coats and help carry sacks of flour.

"Do you know where we're from?"

"Taiwan!" Clear, sure replies uttered in different accents rose from the crowd.

How lucky it was that people from Taiwan and Mongolia could meet here, and yet how unfortunate it was that the ravages of natural disasters had brought us together.

At the distribution sites, we often saw Tzu Chi volunteers, wearing their uniforms of blue shirts and white pants, using simple Mongolian to greet herdsmen who came to fetch relief goods: "Ta sainbainu? (How are you?)" The herdsmen in their traditional Mongolian costumes warmly shook hands with the volunteers to show their appreciation.

The volunteers amicably treated the herdsmen like long-lost friends, and the herdsmen responded with their simple, unadorned nature. When we were making home care visits later in the afternoon, 37-year-old Batu expressed his feelings in faltering Chinese: "I was quite moved at the distribution site this morning and was thinking of going up on the stage to share my feelings with all of you. I never thought I would have a chance to meet you people. Thank you so much!"

At the distribution site, Wang Tuan-cheng, vice president of the Tzu Chi Foundation, said, "Geographically, we are separated from each other by a long distance, but psychologically we are neighbors when we treat each other with love."

After making numerous turns on the endless, sandy, dry prairie, we finally found this family. In the yurt, only twenty-year-old Aotegenbatar and his eighteen-year-old sister, Sarentuya, were at home. Their mother and older brother still had not returned from the Tzu Chi distribution site in the village. Aotegenbatar said that when he was a child, grasslands surrounded their yurt, but he could not recall when the grasslands had been replaced with vast tracts of loess.

Just as we were about to leave, a truck drove towards us from afar. It turned out to be their mother and brother coming back after picking up their relief goods. A neighbor who lived several kilometers away was kind enough to give them a ride home.

Once the truck was stopped, everyone unloaded bottles of cooking oil and sacks of flour and animal feed. They bustled back and forth several times, stowing everything in a small yurt that was used as a storeroom. Sarentuya put a first-aid box given by Tzu Chi into their main yurt. While everyone was unloading the relief goods, the mother opened a sack of feed and spread a handful of corn on the ground. Several lambs immediately crowded around to enjoy the feast.

After everything had been unloaded, the truck drove away in a cloud of sand. A few moments later, it disappeared on the horizon. The mother invited us into their yurt with a big smile on her face.

It was most satisfying to personally see these herdsmen immediately putting the animal feed to use.

On the return trip from a distribution in the village of Aqituwula, a flock of sheep were bending their heads and grazing on the nearly barren prairie. The sky on the other side of the horizon was covered with dark clouds, and apparently it was raining heavily.

There is a saying about the prairie: In the sixties, the steppe was covered with luxuriant, knee-height herbage, and the herdsmen would proudly say, "Our sheep only eat the tops of the plants, nothing else!"

In the seventies, the number of livestock gradually increased while the supply of grass became more limited, and the herdsmen conceded by saying, "Our sheep only eat grass stems, nothing else."

In the eighties, there were even more livestock and not enough grass for all, not even stems. Hence, the herdsmen changed their statement to "Our sheep only eat green feed, no hay."

In the nineties, even hay was at a premium, and the herdsmen then said "Our sheep eat only hay, no fodder."

Nowadays, the livestock haven't enough fodder to eat and the herdsmen have nothing to say.

This process indicates how the natural environment in Inner Mongolia has changed over the last few decades, and how this deteriorating environment has affected the local herdsmen, whose livelihood relies on the grasslands.

Overherding has quickened the pace of desertification and decreased the quality and quantity of grass. The frequent occurrence of droughts and snowstorms has only made matters worse.

Looking far off at the distant rain, I felt the relief goods we brought in could only temporarily resolve the problems of the local herdsmen. What they urgently need is to rehabilitate the ecosystem and revive the greenery of the whole area. Only in this way can the Mongolians resolve the predicaments that severely threaten their livelihood.

While we were preparing to leave Sunit Barong Khshow (West Banner) after the completion of all our distributions, it suddenly rained cats and dogs. The deluge was so heavy that it blurred our view while we were driving and rapidly created large puddles of water on the dried-up land on both sides of the road.

According to our driver, it was the heaviest rain so far this year. Local officials smilingly said that the Tzu Chi people had brought this timely rainfall. Everyone was delighted to see the rain and hoped that it would revitalize the drought-ravaged prairie.

On the way back to Huhhot, sun and rain took turns. It was close to dusk when we passed Siziwang Khshow (Banner) and it started drizzling again. When I happened to look out through the window, I glimpsed a rainbow hanging above the horizon. Popping my head out of the car window, I saw the complete rainbow arcing across the sky above the steppe.

The steppe waved good-bye with this beautiful view, as if the rainbow had been bestowed upon us by Mother Nature.

Herdsmen and flocks of sheep moved slowly on the distant grassland. If it were not for the consecutive natural disasters of the last few years, this beautiful scene could have remained unchanged for thousands of years. The prairie joins with the blue sky and white clouds at its very end, which may be the place closest to Heaven from this mortal world.

The voice of Teng-ger, a famous Mongolian singer, filled my ears with the song, Heaven:

The blue sky, the clear lake, and the green meadow--
This is my homeland.
The galloping horses, the flocks of white sheep, and my girl--
This is my homeland.
I love you, my homeland,
My homeland, my heaven.

I guess in the hearts of the people who live on this steppe, no matter what disasters or changes they have faced in the past or may experience in the future, this land is and will always be their heaven.

Note: To relieve food shortages after years of natural disasters in Inner Mongolia, the Tzu Chi Foundation distributed three months' supply of relief goods to nearly twenty thousand herdsmen in ten townships of Tumot Zhon Khshow (East Banner) and Sunit Barong Khshow (West Banner) between June 18 and 21. A second distribution was carried out in September of this year.