Good times always fly by. The seven-day summer camp has gone in the blink of an eye. Although I am a little tired, I had a very happy and fulfilling time.

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu and Yunnan provinces and provides financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.
 
Rong Zhi is a 7-year-old girl of the Yi ethnic minority group. We were fortunate that her parents can speak Mandarin. They acted as my translator when I talked with Jianhong’s mother. Thanks to them, my communication with Jianhong’s mother went smoothly. 

Rong Zhi and her parents arrived in Kunming in the evening. At that time, it was raining in Kunming, and the temperature had dropped. The family of 3 walked for about half an hour to get to the hospital. It was late at night when they finally arrived. When they submitted their paperwork, they were sent to another sector. The long drive made Rong Zhi homesick.

When I visited them the next day, they were checking in. When the doctor asked Rong Zhi's mother how much money they had brought with them, she said, “1,000 RMB ($150 USD),” which surprised the doctor. The mother explained that the amount was for daily expenses. The doctor wrote some notes and said they would check in at 2:00 pm. It was the doctor’s first time to be in such a situation. According to the regulations, the patient has to pay part of the deposit before they check in. Fortunately, Rong Zhi successfully checked in that afternoon. 

Rong Zhi is pretty, and she was curious about the new environment and me. She was not doing very well, and her face was yellow. She kept quiet when I was talking to her mother.

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. We provide financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, we provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.
 
Xiao Ma’s family of seven people lives in the Zhang Jia Chuan county of the Gansu province in a large remote mountain. When Ma was about seven or eight months old, she was diagnosed with congenital heart disease. The doctor told them that surgery would cost 10,000 Yuan RMB. Because they were unable to raise that much money, they had no choice but to give up the surgery. The next year, Ma’s grandfather had intestinal obstruction so the family got a loan for his surgery. The family was in poverty.
 
In 2011, Xiao Ma’s father heard that the Civil Affairs Bureau could provide financial aid for Ma’s surgery, so he applied. However, when they went to the hospital again, Ma’s condition had become too complex and the funds provided by the Civil Affairs Bureau weren’t enough for treatment. Ma’s father was disappointed and broke down crying on the hospital ground, hugging Ma tightly. In this moment, he happened to run into one of Little Red Scarf’s employee- Ms. Liu. Ms. Liu cried when Ma’s father told her about his family’s situation. She said, “Why did God have to give you a suffering child like Ma? Your family has been suffering too much. Do not worry, Little Red Scarf will help your family”. Xiao Ma, four years old at the time, then got her surgery with the financial assistance of Little Red Scarf.
 
Originally we thought that the family’s situation would become better as Xiao Ma recovered. Who would have thought that in 2013, Xiao Ma’s grandma would be diagnosed with bile duct cancer. After Grandma received surgery in Lan Zhou, the chemotherapy that followed was abnormally painful for her. In the end, she didn’t make it past the chemotherapy stage; she passed away because the treatment was ineffective.

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. We provide financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, we provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.

Xiao Cui, Yigai’s daughter, is a 19-year-old girl with congenital heart disease and patent ductus arteriosus, which is a condition in which the ductus arteriosus, a vessel that circles around the lungs and which usually closes after birth, remains open. In third grade, a school-mandated physical examination revealed that she had congenital heart disease, but because her family was extremely poor, she went three years without receiving any treatment. Finally, with Little Red Scarf’s help, Xiao Cui underwent surgery at Kunming Hospital on July 15, 2016.
 
Yigai doesn’t understand Mandarin Chinese, and so our communication was all facilitated by Xiao Cui, who acted as our translator. The family is of the Wa ethnic group and resides in Lincang County, Yunnan Province. Yigai was married at age 18 and gave birth to three daughters in succession. A few years after Xiao Cui’s birth, her father fell ill and never recovered for three years until his death. That year, Yigai was only 28 years old.
 
Just like that, Yigai was left as a single mother residing in the mountains and caring for her three young daughters. They had nearly 10 acres of land, but the mountain soil was infertile and harvests were not plentiful. Every day for the last ten years has entailed the same familiar routine for Yigai: waking up at the crack of dawn to plant tea, tobacco, corn, and vegetables, and staying up late into the night.
 
Just like this, she slowly paid off debts accumulated for her husband’s medical treatment, all the while raising her three daughters into grown women. She never remarried, and the wrinkles on her forehead are a testament to her strong will and the resourcefulness and efficiency of her younger years.
 
Xiao Cui said that her mother has a fiery temper, but gets along with her daughters harmoniously. The family appears to be a group of four sisters, not a mother and her three daughters.