Chapter 679: Kindness Makes People Feel Distressed

No matter how future generations judge education, going to school is the only shortcut to success for children from mountainous areas or poor families, which is beyond doubt.

But the poorer the place, the more ignorant the parents are, or rather, they are more realistic. It is undoubtedly a double whammy for families that are not rich to pay for their children's tuition, and children not going to school and doing farm work at home can also reduce the family burden.

You can't accuse these parents of being short-sighted, after all, when they are still hungry. You can't expect him to have too many fantasies about the future, and filling his stomach is their first need.

Therefore, in poor mountainous areas, supporting Hope Primary Schools is not just about building a school and finding a volunteer teacher. If you can't get nearby parents to send their children to school, then the built school will be meaningless.

For each Hope Primary School built, how to recruit students is a major difficulty in the volunteer teaching project, because even if tuition and miscellaneous fees are waived. Many parents are still willing to let their children work at home or herd cattle, and are unwilling to send their students to school.

As for the nine-year compulsory education stipulated by the state, in their view, as long as they don't kill anyone, it's not illegal. The legal cognition doesn't have much deterrent power. It's their own children who have the final say, even if they beat them to death, it's justified.

After more than four hours of trekking through the mountains and rivers, Yang Dongxu, Yu Yi and others finally arrived at a place called Xiaotun Township deep in Liangshan. It's called a township, but it's actually a slightly larger village with a population of thirty or forty households and a small market.

After walking through the market for about ten minutes and going up a gentle slope, you can see the Hope Primary School with red bricks and white walls. The five-star red flag flutters on the flagpole in the center of the school, but the school, which originally gave people hope at first glance, has some signs of demolition on the wall to the west. Now the gap is blocked by a wooden fence and looks like a scar on the white snow.

"What's the matter?" Panting, Yang Dongxu put down the heavy package he was carrying, which was very heavy with exercise books, pencils and stationery.

"The villagers demolished it." Yu Yi sighed.

"Hmm?" Yang Dongxu raised his eyebrows. He had personally participated in teaching and Hope Primary School projects. He knew about some conflicts and even encountered some of them, but it was the first time he heard about demolishing a school.

"A villager's house collapsed. He saw that the school was built solidly, so he demolished some of it and went back to build the wall. He demolished it secretly at night, and it was already like this when he found it. The school negotiated with the village cadres and wanted to take back the bricks he stole to rebuild the wall, but he disagreed. It's not worth carrying bricks from outside, so we can only make do with this." Yu Yi sighed and said.

It's not easy to build a house in the mountains. It's a big problem to use local materials and polish stones, and it's very troublesome to build a building. So when building Hope Primary School, because of the different roads, the whole school was built for tens of thousands of yuan. Bags of cement and steel bars were carried or lifted from outside the mountain by manpower.

So in order to fill such a hole, it's not worth it to bring bricks and cement from outside. And even if you carry them, you may not be able to use them to repair the wall.

When the school was built, the originally calculated building materials were used up by nearly one-third more than expected. Why did the original accurate calculation exceed so much? Naturally, they were stolen by nearby villagers. It was not uncommon for them to even hire nearby villagers to carry these building materials back to their homes instead of delivering them to the construction site.

In their cognition, since it was donated, it made sense to use it to build a school and build a pigpen for their own home. It was not until later that after negotiating with local village cadres that it was a government project and that stealing was illegal and would be executed that the evil wind of petty theft and profiteering was suppressed, but from time to time some things would still be lost in the school.

You can't blame anything for this phenomenon. For these poor households who are still hungry and digging for food in the fields, it is useless to preach big truths. When the granaries are full, they know etiquette, and when they have enough food and clothing, they know honor and disgrace. When they are still hungry, the only thing they think about is how to make themselves full. Everything else is meaningless to them.

When Yang Dongxu arrived at the school, he did not see his brother Zhang Guorong. After asking, he learned that three more children from the deep mountains had dropped out of school last week. After waiting for several days at the school but not seeing them come to school, the brother went to the village dozens of miles away to persuade the children's parents in person.

"No, no, how can you charge money for things your own children use for school? If you charge money, you will be stabbed in the back." Several men who looked very thin and had wrinkles on their faces with traces of time, but who were burdened with the burden of a family, waved their hands, gave up the money from Yu Yifa, and left in a hurry without waiting for Yu Yi to say anything else.

Some people like to take advantage of public things, and some people are so kind that people feel distressed. Maybe they are not well fed or clothed, but when the reason is explained clearly to make them understand that going to school is for the good of their children, so that their children can have a better future in the future, and even be able to get out of the mountains and have enough food.

No matter how hard or tired these parents are, they are willing to grit their teeth to support their children to go to school. Some people secretly go home with construction materials on their backs. Some people don't want a penny to build a school for their children, as long as they can drink water.

"Next time when you don't have to carry things, treat them to a meal in the city." Yang Dongxu waved his hand to stop Yu Yi from chasing after him.

"It will get better in the future, right?" Yu Yi turned her head, and for the first time, Yang Dongxu felt not the coldness and unique charm in her phoenix eyes, but the hope for the future in the trembling fear like a frightened little beast.

"It will be fine, as long as this generation can read and write, and go out of the mountains to see the outside world. Then their lives will not be nailed to the land, and their children will live better and more hopeful." Although the funds are allocated to the Runyu Fund every year, and more and more every year.

But there are some things that you don't see with your own eyes and experience in person. You will never feel the heart-wrenching feeling. Although he hasn't seen his brother yet, Yang Dongxu seems to understand why such a big star would not want to leave after coming to this isolated mountain.

The conditions of the school are very difficult. Although the school has been built, there are only three teachers assigned to teach now, plus his brother, who came to help on a voluntary basis, there are only four teachers, but they manage five classes.

One teacher teaches in this classroom in the first half of the class, and six students study by themselves in the second half of the class. It is normal to go to another classroom for the first and second half of the class.

When Yang Dongxu and Yu Yi arrived, it was the afternoon when the children were having physical education class. Looking at the smiling children chasing a football on the playground, one of them wiped the football and put it back in place after the physical education class.

He couldn't help but feel a little sour in his nasal cavity, and looked up at the blue sky. He seemed to have a deeper understanding of the fact that the top leaders had to develop the economy even at the cost of great sacrifices. Poverty is a disease that entangles a country. Only when this disease is cured can you have the capital to talk about other things.

When it was getting dark, the elder brother rushed back from dozens of miles away, with three children whose clothes were a little torn, but whose eyes were very clean so that people could see their reflections clearly.

"When did you come?" Seeing Yang Dongxu, the elder brother was stunned for a moment, then smiled and asked the children to go back to the dormitory and walked over.

When building the school, considering that children in mountainous areas often need to walk dozens of miles on mountain roads to go to school, which is very dangerous, the school built student dormitories and cafeterias to minimize the time children spend on the road.

"Just arrived this afternoon."

"This batch of stationery arrived just in time. The children's pencils are almost used up, and there are not many chalks left. If I hadn't gone to the mountain today to persuade those parents to send their children to school, I would have carried them to the town outside the mountain." The brother smiled and patted Yang Dongxu's shoulder.

Compared with the handsome Leslie Cheung on the screen, the handsome brother at various award ceremonies and commercial performances. Now he is wearing a Zhongshan suit that looks a bit old, with slightly longer hair lying on his head. His handsome face does not have that kind of charming chic, with an unconcealed tiredness and fatigue, but the smile on his face is so from the heart.

"Didn't you arrange someone to deliver it regularly?" Yang Dongxu frowned.

"There are not many ways for people in the mountains to make money. If there is such a fixed income, other people will have opinions on who to share it with. Some parents are kind-hearted and don't want to accept money. It's not good to always trouble others without money. After all, they still have a lot of farm work to do and have to support their families. So when I have time, I will carry it myself. Anyway, it only takes one day to go back and forth, and one time is enough for a week."

The elder brother smiled, "What do you want to eat in the evening? I have learned several good local dishes, especially the yellow sesame leaves and the villagers learned to be delicious."

In addition to being a teacher for students and a coolie who travels dozens of miles on mountain roads, he is also a chef in the school cafeteria. With his not-so-good cooking skills, he occasionally adds some dishes to the children who bring steamed buns or sweet potatoes from home as a week's rations.

"Well, it tastes very good, especially when making big dumplings." Yang Dongxu suddenly felt that it was a bit redundant for him to persuade his brother.

"Expert." The elder brother turned around and looked at Yang Dongxu unexpectedly.

"Don't look down on me, I'm also a child from the countryside. If you ask me how to pickle yellow sesame leaves and wild vegetables, I'm sure I'm better than you. I helped my mother do these things at home." Yang Dongxu rolled up his sleeves.

Yu Yi and the two hired village women began to wash and pick vegetables. In addition to a large number of stationery and books, they also brought hundreds of kilograms of flour to school this time. Today, the children can have a good meal of white flour and vegetable dumplings. How to find a way to make the children eat well is also one of the key points that the school pays great attention to.

It's just that this subsidy fund is too huge, even if Yang Dongxu increases his investment in the Runyu Charity Fund every year. The expenses of building schools, paying the salaries of teachers, freeing all expenses for poor children, various books and stationery, etc. are getting bigger every year. So in terms of how to ensure the three meals of the children, we can only do our best, but we can't guarantee it completely.