Forests heal deserts
Letters heal hearts
In the vast Tengger Desert, there is a themed post office covering only 15 square meters, which is called the loneliest post office in the world.
Because of the poor signal and confusing environment, few tourists can cross the desert to find it on their own.
But interestingly, for the past two years, people have been able to receive letters from this desert. In December alone, more than 20,000 postcards were sold here.
Why is there a themed post office in such a desert? Who is sending these postcards?
Looking at the day stamp with the words "Desert-themed Post Office", I was very curious to explore its story.
01
Abandoned 35 years later
See the world again
The desert-themed post office is located in the hinterland of the Tengger Desert in the Left Banner of Alxa.
It is said to be a theme post office, but it is actually just a small bungalow with a length of 5 meters and a width of 3 meters. In a desert with a total area of 43,000 square kilometers, its presence is obviously less than a grain of sand.
To ask how long it has been independent in the desert, even the herders around it can't remember.
I only know that the people who lived here in the past were closed to traffic, and only relied on this small post office to establish contact with the outside world.
Later, perhaps because of the popularity of desert buggies and more access to the outside world, this post office was abandoned 35 years ago.
Lemon was the first to propose the reopening of this post office.
She likes to write letters, and her original dream was to open a relief grocery store. For work reasons, she often travels to and from the desert. When the herder told her that there was a very dilapidated and abandoned small post office in the desert, she knew that the opportunity to realize her dream came.
If you can restart this post office and connect with the outside world in the depths of the desert, why not be a special relief grocery store?
Lemon's colleague Lao Meng knew about this and hit it off with her.
Old Meng is a native of Shaanxi and has lived in the desert for more than ten years.
Seeing that the post office hut had fallen into disrepair and was run down by the wind and the sun, Old Meng and Lemon decided to rebuild a new desert-themed post office on the original site. Along with them, there were seven or eight young people.
Building a house here is not an easy task.
The first problem they encounter is transportation. Driving in the desert is called "sand rushing", which is difficult to drive and high in transportation costs.
Initially, they wanted to build houses inland and transport them into the desert as a whole.
But the size of the house is too large, the car can not pull in, even if it can be pulled, it is likely to fall apart in the process of sand flushing.
They had to transport the building materials into the desert in batches, and then hire seven or eight workers to work on site.
The desert environment was harsh, and it took them 20 days to set up the hut.
When I painted the logo on the roof, I was afraid that the paint could not dry, and I had to operate according to the weather conditions, and I painted it for 3 days.
In the desert, it's not enough to build a house. If you want it not to be buried by wind and sand, you must refer to the traditional Chinese method of sand control - wheatgrass square.
Without wheatgrass, they chose to use calcareous root canals, a material that can be found directly in the desert.
They hiked for a long time, picked up the calcareous root tubes, and spread them neatly around the whole house, achieving the effect of windproof and sand fixing.
The reconstruction process of the desert-themed post office took two or three months before and after.
Many of the things inside were personally completed by Lao Meng himself, including the three green mailboxes outside the door, which he also typed by himself.
The desert-themed post office we see now is surrounded by wooden structures, and there are three small windows on the front of the house, and the general staff sits in the small windows and talks with visitors.
The roof was covered with a green tin sheet, and all four corners were fixed to the ground with ropes to avoid being blown away by the wind.
After application and review, the Desert Theme Post Office became one of more than 700 theme post offices in the national postal system.
02
Nothing is
One letter can't solve the problem
Recently, in the news of CCTV's report on the epidemic in Shanghai, Lemon saw a volunteer who happened to be holding a postcard in his hand, and recognized at a glance: "It was sent from us." ”
Most of the desert-themed post office letters were handled by lemons, and she was quite familiar with them.
Others say that nothing is something that a hot pot can't solve, but in Lemon's view, nothing is something that a letter can't solve.
The desert-themed post office was geographically isolated, and when it was first opened, there were almost no guests.
The wind rises and falls every day, and its loneliness is scattered in this huge desert.
Lemon soon realized that if the desert theme post office wanted to play a greater role, it would have to start an online ghostwriting business.
In this way, people who want to send letters from the depths of the desert can do it without having to come to the scene.
This romance from afar has attracted many people, especially during the epidemic period when it is difficult to travel, and they think it is a very special expression of the heart.
Some people want to send it to their lover, someone wants to send it to themselves, and some people want to send it to their children after 10 years.
At first, the volume of letters was not much. Lemon will communicate with the sender about the current mood, status and style that he wants to embody, carefully help them conceive the content of the letter together, and then ask colleagues with beautiful handwriting to help write it.
During last year's examination and research season, many people poured out their hearts to the desert-themed post office, hoping to receive encouragement from the desert.
Lemon herself had not succeeded in her own two years of graduate school, and she still remembered the collapse of that stage, so she could understand the difficulties that these students were experiencing.
In the letters sent to them, in addition to comfort and encouragement, she always reminded: "Keep the love of life." ”
"There are some things that a person must experience in the process of growing up, and he may have to suffer a loss, suffer a little, and take a detour. When he was crying and collapsing in his emotions, if he could receive a handwritten postcard from the depths of the desert, that was the warmth and companionship we could give. ”
After this, Lemon felt more and more that the desert-themed post office had a power to bring inner support to others. She decided to run a desert wishing bottle campaign to make the most of this power.
After the event was announced, Lemon received hundreds of wishes from across the country, far exceeding her expectations.
"Born free, loving and fearless."
"Good health, peace and joy, go ashore!"
"Lose weight! Make money! Find someone! Be a super writer! ”
……
These wishes are written into a wishing bottle and then hung uniformly in the desert-themed post office, swaying with the wind.
It's not just a sense of ritual, she says, it's a hope people give themselves.
Recently, Lemon has received a lot of letters from Shanghai online.
Someone wrote to himself in the form of a wish: "I hope that the epidemic will end as soon as possible and our lives can return to normal."
Someone also wrote to a long-distance partner: "Miss you so much, we can meet after the epidemic." ”
Are these letters and wishing bottles really of any use? In the hearts of the people who receive the letters, they have their own answers.
03
In a desert oasis
Plant 40,000 trees
Old Meng stayed the longest at the desert-themed post office.
Since the restart, he has stayed in late spring every year and did not evacuate until November.
In the harsh desert environment, the climate of about -10 degrees Celsius in November is already difficult to live, and Lao Meng can only wait until the next year when the weather is warm and then return.
Lao Meng's main job was to maintain the desert-themed post office. But in addition to that, he has been planting trees systematically in the past two years.
Five kilometres from the desert-themed post office is an oasis with many rare birds and wild critters such as sand foxes and hedgehogs.
As the oasis continues to shrink, the Desert Theme Post Office has launched a tree planting initiative. As long as you pay for adoption online, you can have a tree that bears your name.
They plan to plant 40,000 jujube trees in the oasis. Compared to the more common thrush trees in the desert, the jujube tree can grow taller and create a better forest environment.
But at the same time, the planting of jujube trees is also more difficult. They had to bring back saplings from the town of Kelantai, 180 kilometres away, transport them to the edge of the desert and then rush them to the oasis in a six-wheel truck.
It is difficult to plant trees in the desert, it is even more difficult to maintain, and the biggest difficulty is watering. To this end, they need to drive water to water, 2 to 3 times a month, the maintenance cost is very high.
By May 10 this year, the Desert Themed Post Office plans to plant more than 10,000 trees that have already been adopted.
In the future, whether they adopt it or not, they will continue to plant.
They say that they did these things in the first place to say the word "cure." Forests heal deserts, letters heal hearts.
Today, the greener the forest, the more frequent the letters.
The desert-themed post office may soon be no longer lonely.
Text, Editing/Slipping
The person in the article is a pseudonym
Image from Desert Post Office
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