Monba pioneer pays back her people on plateau

Village person

In August, Luo and her colleagues drove more than 800 kilometers in two days through mountainous terrain to Kibu village to help serve the needs of the local residents.

Luo and her four-member team were scheduled to stay until December, and chief among their aims was to help the locals understand and use a new stable electricity supply.

All but four of 40 village households had been connected to the new power supply.

"Most villagers only knew how to use solar power, so I conducted power usage training for them and I instructed the villagers how to safely use electricity," she said.

Luo's team also proposed to the Tsawarong township that they provide 400,000 yuan ($57,300) so that the village could set up a supermarket and a teahouse.

Rescue mission

Kibu is located in steep and treacherous terrain, and when two of the villagers fell ill in August it was up to Luo to get them to a hospital.

A woman in her 40s had had a stroke, while a 7-year-old child was suffering from loss of bladder and bowel control.

They hired a van to take them from Kibu to Dongshan county, Yunnan province, from where they took buses to Kunming.

In all, Luo and the two patients traveled more than three days to get to Kunming for medical treatment.

"From 6 am to late in the evenings, for one month, I helped the two patients in everything, from interpreter to traffic guide," Luo said.

"It was really hard to get all the things done by myself in a strange place, however, what I did was really worthwhile as the two of them have almost recovered now."