How China connections delivered hope to Spain

For Bermejo Gacia, who had just returned to Madrid because her mother took ill before the outbreak, there was only one answer.

She asked around among her Chinese friends in large Chinese businesses about their experience in managing international donations and also began looking for donation recipients through Spain's health authority and via personal networks.

That led her to two hospitals treating COVID-19 patients in Madrid that gratefully accepted the timely help from China. Old school friends also made suggestions, with one person's mother working as an intensive-care nurse in one of the hospital and the father serving as a director of internal medicine at the other.

"I really want to thank the Chinese companies that sent the personal protective equipment to our hospital to help us in the difficult time that Spain, and especially Madrid, has experienced," said Isabel Zardoya, the ICU nurse from the Clinico San Carlos hospital. "Your kindness helped us continue working to save lives."

And she recited a line from Don Quixote, the iconic character in one of Spain's most celebrated literary works, printed on the boxes carrying the donations: "When faced with communal difficulties, our minds will become closer and friendship will be strengthened."

Since the middle of April, Bermejo Garcia has produced a series of video blogs to record life amid the pandemic in Spain, and much of the record relates to her work in facilitating the donations from China.

She said many of her friends from China sent messages after seeing the postings online. "They were concerned about the situation in Spain and Europe, asking about my family and for my address to send me masks. You can see people's kindness springing up in the hardest of times," she said.