The houses all had electricity but no running water. The water had to be fetched from a well. The way that they cookedwas by burning wood in a wood burning and sometimes coal burning stove. The toilet is a hole in the ground. It is like this in Xining as well.
People just throw their garbage on the ground or near a construction area that has ditches.
They speak mostly Qinghai dialects in the rural areas around Xining as well as different dialects of Tibetan. The common language in this area is Qinghai hua or Qinghai dialect and everyone in Guide studies Chinese. Older people in Guide may only know the Qinghai dialect because the education standards at one time were not as high as they are now. In comparison to Xining, Guide is a rural area. Xining is an up and coming city.