Trip to Henan - Visiting More High School Students

May 25, 2006

Summary: With the help of local residents in DingLou Village and teachers at NaDaWu Primary School and ChengNan Middle School. I have visited 22 poor families, 19 families are impacted by AIDS.

I visited Nie XL's family in DingLou Village this January. From her father, I knew there were many high school students in DingLou Village, so I visited family Nie again and asked for help.

Graves hidden in the wheat field

DingLou Village consists of four natural villages: SanGuanMiao, JinJingWu, ZhangLou and DingLou. There are about 2,000 residents and so far about 200 of them passed away due to AIDS and 400 of them are HIV positive. Like HouYang Village, most families have 2 to 3 children, some even have 5 children.

Family Nie is in SanGuanMiao natural village, after visiting two families in SanGuanMiao, Nie's father took me to Family Zhang in JinJingWu village. With the help of Family Zhang, I visited another 9 families in JinJingWu.

Stories here are all similar: Parent(s) is HIV positive or passed away due to AIDS, two or more children are still students, which means that the family expenditure is high while the family income is low.

Kitchen of KN's home

Among these families, I was deeply impressed by Wu KN's bitter experience. Wu KN is a grade three high school student at ShangCai No. 2 High School. His parents both passed away due to AIDS within several months last year, his older sister has married to an also very poor family.

When I asked KN's uncle, whom KN can stay with when he is off from school, who provide KN's living costs in the school. His uncle answered “himself”. I can hardly believe my ears. In the countryside of China, high school students usually have to study more than 14hours everyday, how can he make money after 14 hours studying? His uncle said KN sold the grain his parents left to make money.

I don't know how much KN can get by selling grain, but I can imagine how hard life is for this orphan. His parents passed away within several months when he is in grade three when both material and spiritual supports are most important. What's more, he can hardly find help from his relatives, even his sister.

KN told me he was not confident in the coming college entrance examination. He would make money in this summer vacation and retake class for next year's examination.

I do not know what to say when hear KN's plan. I just wish he would have a bright future because I believe it is the rewards for every NEVER GIVE-UP HERO.

On my way to NanDaWu Village which is another AIDS Village with the similar conditions to DingLou Village, I met a local teacher working in NanDaWu Primary School. When he knew my work, he wrote the students name lists for me which helped me so much, otherwise, I had to ask many villagers to get the information.

Computer room in NanDaWu Primary School

NanDaWu Primary School is so excellent in hardware conditions comparing to other village schools. There are computer room and multimedia room in the school. The headmaster told me that because this school was a key primary school in the county. Many officials from government visited this school that is why the facilities here were so good. However, nobody in this school knows how to use computer and multimedia, so all the machines have to be put in the room, collecting dust. They also have English books but also no teacher can teach.

The headmaster said it would be great if we could teach them English and Computer during the summer vacation. It would also be great for us since it was a good place to train villagers who might be our volunteers.

After the nice talk at NanDaWu Primary School, I went to ChengNan Middle School where we donated 70 beds for the students. The teachers in the office recommend some prominent but needy students to me. Family Li is special among the lists though it is not an AIDS impacted family, for that there are two students at ShangCai No. 1 High School , the best high school in the county, which is unique in all the family I visted.

Interior of Family Li

Li SZ and Li San-Jiang, these two are brothers, both are studying at ShangCai No.1 High School and both are top five students in their class.

Li SZ is studying in class twenty-eight, grade three, and Li San-Jiang is studying in class twenty-six, grade one.

Their father is 54-year-old, working as a building worker in ShanXi, their mother is 52-year-old, working as non-technical building worker in the village. Their oldest brother is handicapped and is making a living in Guangzhou himself. The old couple can earn RMB7,000 one year at most but the expenditure for two high school students is more than RMB8,000 one year.

Their older brother married this year, but because the family is so poor that there is no room for the new couple. They borrowed house for the new couple's to live in.

The parents even persuaded their third son Li San-Jiang to give up his study, but Li San-Jiang is the top student and he loves study. The old couple had to work harder though they are not suitable to so such labor work in their age.

I was wordless when the mother said in tears “Some children in rich families dislike study but they are forbidden to, my children love study but we cannot afford. Why the fate plays tricks on us?”

Every time, I met the similar stories, every time I was shocked, depressed and touched. I don't know how many times these stories have repeated, are repeating and will repeat in how many families, but I know the more we do, the less the tragedies happen.

Submitted by
Jill Ji
HuaQiao Foundation
www.huaqiaofoundation.org

Tel: 021 62085514
Mobile: 13816945273
Email: hellojihui@gmail.com

Back

HuaQiao Foundation