A break today, dear reader, about a story that will get you thinking how much we take our lives for granted. Let me take you into China, deep into the land of the Yi. A project funded by the Nature Conservancy is making change, albiet slowly, for the good in China.

The Photovoice project was created to put simple point-and-shoot cameras into the hands of the villagers who live in the Yunnan province. There lives are simple, but hard. Putting control of the images there in the hands of the villages is unlike outsiders who might come in and take pictures. The pictures can be tools of change, here, and show in a most intimate way the way of life high up in China's mountains, where the Yangtze, the Mekong, the Irawaddy and the Salween rivers all cross. Only about 3 million people live in this ares, the size of West Virginia. The Nature Conservancy wants to turn this beautiful part of China into a vast nature preserve, and is using the Photovoice project to document the people living there.

The story, from the Washington Post and hosted by MSNBC is here. Read it carefully and I hope you'll be filled with the same feelings I have about the Yi and how revealing this simple project is becoming.

I'll be back later, with the latest news on Hurricane Isabel.

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