My luck of being able to step into the St. Joseph Charity School seated in
Waw of Sudan started from an E-mail sent to us by the human rights institution
of the 2nd Theater of the UN Special Mission to Sudan. The e-mail reached our
duty office in one afternoon when I was on duty and it was from Mr. Louise, an
official of the human rights institution of the 2nd Theatre, and it read that
the St. Joseph Charity School was undergoing expansion and asked the Chinese
peacekeeping engineer detachment to help them transport one truck of sand.
When detachment leader Bai Yong was noticed of this, he stated right away:
There's no shirking the responsibility for the Chinese peacekeeping troops to
offer help to the Sudanese people! In the following morning, the Chinese
peacekeepers, accompanied by Louise, were on their way with a truck of sand to
St. Joseph Charity School situated at the northwest corner of a fairly big
compound in Waw city.
Headmaster Ms. Grace was very glad to see the arrival of the Chinese and
put her palms together to give her regards.
School classes were not suspended though it was the dry season vocation
time, and nearly 1800 students were heard reading aloud. Then, Ms. Grace said
dumpishly: "War and poverty deny a large number of children in Waw the chance of
going to school. Despite of the fact that our school only charge a tiny fee for
buying books, it is a matter of frequent occurrence to see children dropping out
of school because of extremely poor family conditions and in the meanwhile we
were not able to do much due to our very tight budget." Then, she said with
confident that with the help of the Chinese peacekeeping engineers, things would
improve after completing the expansion of the school and the clinic."
On the way back, deputy detachment leader Zhao Xiaowu began to consider
making donation to the school. The issue was confirmed after a few days of
coordination with relevant sides. On the day when the donation ceremony was
held, Ms Grace especially mentioned the selfless help offered by the Chinese
peacekeeping troops in her speech. She said that the Chinese peacekeeping
engineers to Sudan were good friends of her school and they built a road leading
from the school to the downtown of Waw. "Now, you have donated stationery and
other articles for study for the students. Thank you very much!"
Portion after portion of colorful pencils, pencil sharpeners, rulers,
rubbers and writing cases in various shapes--that were made in China, were
handed out to those needy children who were anxious to learn knowledge, which
made them unable to conceal their inner joy and started to grin from ear to ear.
Looking at those innocent smiling faces, my heart was suddenly shocked by the
reality: The war has destroyed their homeland, but can't erode the mankind's
yearning for good life and the pursuit of love and liberty. Any people with
conscience should treat our friends with universal brotherhood, in which lies
the only approach to promote common progress of the mankind. Isn't this the same
objective for us-the Chinese peacekeeping servicemen who came all the way to
Sudan making light of traveling from afar?
By Shi Xiaomin
(Sept 3, PLA Daily)
