Worthy man
It might seem difficult to plant a tree. But in fact it takes a lot of effort. A man, for example, even an adult and in good health, needs strength to dig a hole, then to fill it with water, finally to put a sapling into the hole and to throw some earth on top. What about people with poor health or the elderly?
Today our story is about a man who has planted about 17 000 trees despite his age and health limitations.
Ma Sanxiao is 70 years old, he lives in Mayu village and has been engaged in a very noble activity for 20 years. He plants trees. Over the years, Ma has planted a whole big forest.
As a child, Ma wanted to become a soldier. Immediately after leaving school he joined the army. But he served only three years because an infection got attached to him. And after a while Ma developed septicaemia.
He returned home, started working as a teacher and then took up farming. Gradually, the infection did its worst: Ma had to have both his legs amputated…
Ma’s family had a lot of debts at the time. After all, a lot of money had to be spent on his treatment. The family still hoped to save one of Ma’s legs…
But Sanxiao was not discouraged. He decided to help his family pay off the debt. And he started to plant trees.
On a regular basis since 2000, in the early hours of the morning, while the sun is just rising, a Chinese man gets on his moped and goes to work outside the village. He carries a shovel and pickaxe with him and food for the day. Once there, Ma unclips his prostheses, slips on his gloves and crawls off to plant trees.
Apart from being difficult, it is also dangerous. Once a man was working on the side of a mountain and couldn’t hold on, he fell. Both stumps were crushed as a result. Other time he lost his little finger.
Sanxiao’s noble activities became known to local government officials. They paid off all the loans of the Ma family. But he did not stop planting trees.
Now, however, the man is doing it as a gesture of gratitude. And he says he intends to increase the number of green spaces until his last days.
Of course, when the time comes, Ma will pass away. But his memory and these thousands of new trees will live on forever. Give a big hand to Ma, a simple yet spirited man!
