Hello all,
Allison, Jason and I wanted to send an update to everyone who had
donated money, advice, and/or contacts to Zhao BaoQin in Guangzhou.
Zhao's sister XiaoHong was very, very happy for the help.

As you know, we first read about Zhao BaoQin, a 45-year-old, divorced
mother of a 22-year-old college student, in the English newspaper The
Guardian. Ms. Zhao had fallen off a bridge in Guangzhou, where she'd
come in part to raise money for her daughter to go to college, during
the snow disaster in southern China early last month. She nearly
immediately received two surgeries, one to set her broken arm and
another for her broken leg, but still needs one surgery to correct her
shattered femur and broken pelvis. Otherwise, she will be bedridden
for the rest of her life in rural Gansu.

In the week between our visits to Ms. Zhao (the first March on 2-3,
the second on March 9), her mental state seemed to improve
significantly, so she was no longer muttering incomprehensibly but
instead could answer questions nearly completely coherently, though
she did have a tendency to ramble. She said she was happy to be
getting better but really missed her daughter, who hasn't yet been
told the seriousness of her mother's injuries.

In long conversations, we learned that Ms. Zhao's younger sister
XiaoHong and her younger brother HongWei took the train from Gansu to
visit her hospital in Guangzhou.  It seems to be the first time either
of them have left their rural home, and neither of them can read past
a fourth-grade level, let alone know anything about medicine or
raising money. They sleep on the metal benches or on the floor or
their sister's hospital room and hear often from doctors and nurses
who want money they still owe from their sister's first set of
surgeries.

Because there's little hope of raising the 70,000 RMB required for Ms.
Zhao's next surgery (the one that will allow her to walk) and to pay
back her medical bills, the three Zhaos will probably return to Gansu
by next week at the earliest. Between our monetary efforts, government
help, donations from a student in Germany who also read The Guardian,
donations from a Catholic priest who lives near Guangzhou, money
netted through the blog of a Beiing journalist, and the Zhaos'
fundraising efforts, our calculations show the family has gotten at
least 45,000RMB, much of which has already been spent on previous
surgeries.  Allison, Jason and I are working hard to find a sponsor
for the next surgery, maybe in Hong Kong. In the meantime, we're
working with the Institute for Civil Society at Sun Yat-sen University
in Guangzhou for local NGO mainland help and will contact a lawyer in
Beijing.

If you have any questions or advice, please let us know. Also, if
you'd like to contact the Zhaos, please let us know because there are
other nuances to this story that are too complicated to spell out in
an email.

Thanks again. Barring an unforeseen twist in the story, next week
seems to be the deadline for helping Ms. Zhao in Guangzhou.
Best,
Kelly
Allison and Jason

---------------------------

Kelly Proctor 凯丽
Fulbright Scholar 2007-2008
Environmental Journalism, People's University of China
Cell: +86.135.5210.6525
Skype: bu.kaili