Imagine living in a huge cave, with bats and swallows circling overhead and water dripping from 80 feet above.

Some children in southern China's Guizhou region do just that. They live in a rock hollow called Middle Cave, a large hole that stretches 250 yards into a mountain. At night, they use flashlights to find the community bathroom outside. By day, they attend the village school -- three classrooms in the back of the cave.

Although fewer than 100 adults and children live in Middle Cave, more than 150 kids attend its school. Many come from the surrounding area. Eight students live far away, so they stay in a shack in the cave during the week.

Like some of our ancestors, the cave-dwellers tend mountainside cornfields and raise pigs, cows, goats, ducks and chickens. They collect water that drips from the rocks for drinking, and they gather firewood for cooking.

But modern comforts are not unheard of. The village has refrigerators, a telephone, computers and even satellite television, much of it paid for by a Minnesota businessman who visited the cave and offered to help.

Change hasn't come easy to the village. In 2002 the local government paid to build houses outdoors, but most villagers preferred their thatched-bamboo cave dwellings. "It's what I'm used to," said Wang Fengguang, 57.

Principal Yang Zaide, 55, said he needs more classrooms and has trouble keeping teachers.

 

Wang Lian, 23, has taught in the school for two years. She grew up nearby and tried life in a booming coastal area before moving back to Guizhou, one of China's poorest areas. "This is a chance for me to repay the people who helped me," she said.

 

-- Associated Press