Jia Wenqi, age 53, has lived most of his life with both arms amputated. Jia Haixia, age 54, has been blind in both eyes for almost 20 years. Together, these two men have spent over a decade planting thousands of trees in rural China.
Every day, Haixia holds Wenqi’s empty jacket sleeve as Wenqi leads him through the forest to a 20-acre plot of land populated by trees that they have already planted. They must cross a river, so Wenqi carries Haixia on his back to protect him from losing his balance in the strong current.
“I am his hands, he is my eyes,” Haixia explained. “We are good partners.”
The land, much of which is riverbank, used to be desolate. Haixia and Wenqi have spent the last 13 years planting as many trees as possible in the area to help the environment and prevent flooding.
The two went to school together as children in the same small village of Yeli.
Wenqi lost both of his arms when he was only three years old. He touched an unprotected electric cable lying on the ground. Because he was so young when his arms were amputated, he doesn’t miss or remember life before his condition.
“Growing up I just used to play normally with the other children in the village,” he explained. “Whatever they did I followed them. I swam with them, I tried to do work with them.”
It helped that his village always looked after him. They made sure he attended school and he was assigned to work for the local forestry team after he graduated in 1976. It was this position that allowed him to cross paths with his childhood friend many years later.
Haixia was born blind in his left eye due to a cataract. He became blind when a shard of stone shot into his right eye during a factory accident in 2000. His wife was ill and they had a four-year-old child, so the family’s only source of income was lost with his vision.
“At first I felt very depressed,” Haixia remembered. “and I just sunk to rock bottom.”
It was the year 2000 when Haixia became completely blind. Wenqi had forestry experience, so the two decided to start planting trees in order to make money for themselves and their families. The local government supported them, paying them a small but livable income to do the work.
Both have become passionate about their jobs.
“For me it’s not complicated,” explained Haixia. “I’m disabled and don’t want to be a burden on my family, so I plant trees. After ten years, the trees will grow and I will get money.”
The work isn’t easy; Haixia and Wenqi must take cuttings from pre-existing trees (many of which were also planted by them) in order to plant new ones. That means Haixia has to climb on Wenqi’s shoulders and take his instructions to find and trim suitable cuttings.
This and many other aspects of the work made many of their fellow villagers cynical about whether the pair were up for the job.
“They didn’t believe what we were doing was possible,” explained Haixia.
But the cynics were wrong. Since they started, Wenqi and Haixia have planted over ten thousand healthy trees. They’ve earned the respect of their community members, many of whom have started to help fix their tools and water their trees.
While they may have different strengths, Wenqi and Haixia are in agreement about how they’ve been able to reach such success:
“When we work together, two become one.”
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source: BBC
