How much of your life would you spend to carve into not one, not two but three sheer, rocky, mountainside cliffs to find and bring water to your village? A determined man called Huang Dafa spent 36 years of his life carving a 10-kilometer water channel. He kept on going even after some of his efforts failed, and people called him crazy. He is currently a famous figure in his community at his 82 years.
Huang Dafa was once scorned, but he’s now a local hero.
People made fun of Dafa when he first thought of cutting into a mountainside cliff in Caowangba in China’s Guizhou Province with hand tools. Everyone called him a fool. Locals feared that he might be crazy. Now they compare him to the legendary figure, Yu Gong, whose perseverance was so profound, that it said it caused the Gods to move mountains for his sake.
When Dafa first tried to create a mountainside irrigation channel failed, he managed to create a tunnel through the mountains and make it easier for locals to pass through it.
This 10-kilometer tunnel was carved to bring water to 3 different villages.
He found out that he lacked the knowledge to complete his project successfully, so part-way through he gave up on his efforts temporarily after having convinced some other villagers to help him chip into the mountainside at last. He then left, determined to study engineering.
Workers had to lower themselves from the highest cliffs to chisel away at rock.
When he came back, he had a more detailed plan. Workers frequently slept in mountain caves to complete the carving, high above and far away from their families.
This time, Huang and the villagers began from higher elevations and rappelled down the mountain. Ropes were tied around their waists like a special-forces team- despite the fact that they were just farmers armed with only rudimentary tools. Some of them reported that their legs “melted” from all the hard work.
Huang Dafa is now called a living Yu Gong, after the mythical figure who convinced the Gods to move mountains.
Dafa couldn’t even be present to his own daughter and grandson’s funerals who died while he was working on his plan. However, the project worked.
Dafa’s irrigation channel cut into a mountain face currently supplies 1,200 people in his tiny village with water and 3 others that were along the 10-kilometer canal. The village can now also grow more than 400,000 kilograms of rice each year. The village now has electricity and a new road which was built due to his efforts.
He began his ambitious project in 1959. It required 36 years of hard work to complete, but his village is now thriving. Dafa is now a local hero, worthy of the mythical status of Yu Gong.
Images' credits: Oddity Central, Inhabitat
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