"My son married his wife and bought a gold ring for only 3,000 yuan." After thinking about it, Zheng Jinheng's mother expressed the most positive evaluation of his son's marriage.
Zheng Jinheng's home is in the central western and western Shanxi Province, on the east bank of the Yellow River , a place located on the Luliang Mountains of the Loess Plateau, called Shilou County . It has always been one of the top few poor counties in the country.
It is extremely difficult for a girl from another place to marry here. Because of this, the local bride price that needs to be given to the woman has become a headache for many young men.
So Zheng Jinheng married his wife for 3,000 yuan, which really saved the two elders a lot of effort. In 2017, the two elders of the Zheng family completed the most important thing in their lives at home.
But my mother is not completely unworried. Her daughter-in-law comes from West African . She is a "black girl" who can't recognize many Chinese characters and is not decent in Chinese. Can you live a good life in ?
Country of Blood Diamonds
In March 1991, far away from the earth, in the far western Africa, a country called Sierra Leone , a corporal Fodi Sanko, who had been a photographer and an army soldier, raised the banner of "democratic reform" and formed a " Revolutionary United Front ". and the Liberian National Patriotic Front of neighboring Liberia launched a military rebellion against then President Joseph Momo.
Sangke does not have any political level or grand ideals to help the people. He just knows that in rural areas, the people's dissatisfaction with the corrupt government and uneven wealth has reached a boiling point.
The source of all this lies in the mouth-watering diamond mine buried under the ground of Sierra Leone.
In 1972, the Kono River Sand Mine in Sierra Leone once dug a "Sierra Leone Star" weighing 968.8 carats. It was the third largest diamond in at that time and still maintains the position of the fifth largest diamond in the world.
Even if it is just a simple population average method, relying solely on exporting diamonds every year, the lives of the people of Sierra Leone should be no less than that of oil countries such as Saudi , which also rely entirely on resource exports.
But in fact, Sierra Leone has never been in the top 200 internationally, and it should be noted that the United Nations has only 193 member states today.
All the huge profits of the diamond industry were taken away by large Western companies stationed in the capital Freetown and government officials in power. Futy Sanko urgently needed to overturn the table in order to win himself the opportunity to enter.
Sangke has a particularly fierce army, which are the black child soldiers recruited from rural areas.
However, before joining the Sanko team, these baby soldiers will be forced to humiliate their mothers, sisters and other close women, and then shoot them in person. This is to cut off their inner concern for all their feelings.
Sangke's approach was very successful. In just one step, he completed the operation of turning a person back into a beast. Once it fell into the hands of the baby soldier, the enemy could be dug out his heart and quickly seek death.
The big Western companies with bright and beautiful appearance not only did not keep a distance from such rebels, but instead took the initiative to contact Fudi Sanco's United Front in order to reduce supply costs, because the other party could force a large amount of manpower to dig diamonds in the river, and the digging of diamonds was directly used to pay for the arms payment.
Around 1994, Fudy Sanko, who was behind the back of major Western companies, began to leave the countryside and expand his activities to big cities, vowing to "drive the military regime out of the capital Freetown and completely eradicate the presidential election system."
Due to the interference of Western forces, the actual implementation of the United Nations peacekeeping mechanism failed. It was not until Fodi Sanko was arrested and lost power in 2000. This tragic "blood diamond" tragedy was fought for 11 years before it ended.
This is the background of Havanatu, a Freetown girl born in 1991. It can be said that her entire childhood was spent in the bloody civil war.
When she was 5 years old, on May 25, 1997, Colonel Koroma launched a coup, overthrew the Kaba government last year, invited the "Revolutionary United Front" to the capital Freetown, burned, killed and looted, and about 10,000 women were raped.
Dismembered corpses are everywhere, because there are too many corpses that cannot be buried, so people simply throw them on the street and pile them up everywhere, emitting waves of stench.
It is hard to imagine the little girl's psychological shadow at that time, but after all, Havanatu survived successfully. As for the number of other people who died in the civil war, it is impossible to calculate.
Meet a Chinese
In 2016, Havanatu, a female college student studying business administration at Milton Magai College in Freetown, learned about a magical mobile app from China. Soon after, she had a friend named Zheng Jinheng.
Zheng Jinheng is an seafarer in a seafood company in Dalian. On the coast of Sierra Leone, it produces famous aquatic products such as tuna , yellow croaker , and prawns that can be sold in China at sky-high prices. It has a reserve of about 1 million tons. Freetown itself is also a good port along the Atlantic coast and is an important hub for the repair and supply of fleets in various places.
However, domestic agriculture in coastal countries such as Sierra Leone is still at a very primitive stage and is unable to develop at all. Zheng Jinheng's ship ran back and forth between Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Zheng Jinheng is a born in the 1990s. He was born in 1992. He has been in contact with this seafarer job for less than a year. The intensity of his work at sea and the loneliness of not being able to return to China for a long time are unbearable.
But Zheng Jinheng also needs the generous rewards of seafarers. In Huoyangzhuang, Luocun Town, Shilou County, where he was born, the cave at home had only simple adobe mud and tiles when he was a child, and he had no chance to make a fortune since he was a child.
Later, the state established a file and card for poor households like Zheng Jinheng, and provided poverty alleviation policy assistance every year. Relying on the government's interest subsidy of 95,000 yuan in poverty alleviation loans, Zheng Jinheng's parents saved some money in the chicken farm, built a cave with ceramic tiles for their son, and bought some necessary home appliances.
Thanks to WeChat's translation function, An African girl who can't speak Chinese and a Chinese guy who can't speak English actually successfully made a conversation and established stable communication.
Zheng Jinheng and Havanatu met on WeChat for the third month. He happened to go to a hospital in Freetown to recuperate due to heatstroke.
Havanatu bought a bag of apples to visit this Chinese, and she knew that compared to local African fruits, Zheng Jinheng still likes to eat this.
Not long after returning from the hospital, Zheng Jinheng came to Havanatu's school. Needless to say, Zheng Jinheng's income is a sky-high price in Sierra Leone. After learning that the African girl was facing some difficulties in her life, Zheng Jinheng contributed money and efforts to solve many problems for her.
This boy is diligent and considerate, which makes Havanatu feel very secure.
For Zheng Jinheng, with Havanatu, Milton Magai Academy seems to have become his own unique stronghold in Africa, giving him the belonging and warmth he needs most after wandering outside for a long time and in his intensive work.
Back and forth, both of them gradually developed feelings for each other and quickly developed to the point where they could not extricate themselves. Zheng Jinheng also followed Havanatu and met her family.
A less than a year have known each other, and the thin window paper is pierced. Zheng Jinheng and Havanatu received a simple but legal marriage certificate in Sierra Leone, and have become husband and wife since then.
In Sierra Leone, the only considerable expense for the entire wedding was Zheng Jinheng spent 3,000 yuan to wear the gold ring on his wife's hand.
At the end of 2016, Zheng Jinheng bought a flight ticket to China for Havanatu, and sent his wife back to his hometown in China first, and he had to stay until July next year before the contract was ended.
Although Havanatu had not completed all her studies in college at that time, the couple no longer cared about it.
Shilou Black Girl
"Transnational Love", "Black Man", "Do Not Speaking Chinese". When I learned that my son's relationship was beginning, the two elders of the Zheng family were not happy. These problems all touched their hearts, and the two elders could not accept such a "foreign wife".
But Zheng Jinheng, who is at sea, doesn't care about his parents' objections and tells them that he has married in Sierra Leone.
I heard that my son spent 3,000 yuan to buy a ring to get such a big thing done, and his parents' thoughts began to change a little. "As long as my son can watch it, we have no objection." The father made a compromise, and the mother could only accept the facts in the end.
When the daughter-in-law was sent to her home, in order to adapt, they only called her daughter-in-law half of her name "Hawa". Hawa and his parents-in-law were crowded in the same room, but they couldn't understand a word from each other. The whole family was looking forward to Zheng Jinheng coming back early.
However, Hawa is not completely unable to communicate. She and her in-laws also maintain the communication method like her husband, which is to chat with each other through translation on WeChat.
Hawa is also a female college student after all, she has a good mind and knows how to study. She is like a preschool child. posted a pinyin picture for children in her bedroom and started to learn Chinese by herself.
Because Sierra Leone was once a British colony, Hava could speak standard and fluent English. Zheng's parents once wanted her to find an English training job in the county town of Shilou , but in fact, due to the daily work, Chinese was required, and this wish was not realized in the end.
In July 2017, the whole family finally came to an end the drift at sea. Her husband Zheng Jinheng, who returned to his hometown, arranged to register for the marriage in the stone building and added a lively Chinese wedding .
For a time, the only African black daughter-in-law in Shilou County became a hot topic on the streets and alleys in the local news and newspapers. As for Huoyangzhuang, Luocun Town, the whole village caused a sensation for a long time.
The Road to Development in China
In 2022, Hawa has settled in China for 5 years. Her daughter was born 4 years ago and has been in the middle class of preschool in Shilou County this year.
Hawa had high hopes for her daughter who was still in preschool. Compared with the nightmarish bloody and turbulent hell of her mother's childhood, full of killing, war and misfortune, the country where her daughter was born was full of light and security, and she would have a completely different future.
"I hope she can get an education in China, so she can go to a good university in the future, and find a good job, so she no longer has to worry about survival." Hawa said.
From Sierra Leone to China, Hava has truly seen what an economic miracle is. In the extremely painful civil war turmoil of her childhood, Sierra Leone's GDP hovered in a single-digit range of $600 million to $900 million all year round. The civil war ended in 2002 just exceeded 1 billion.
After 20 years of rest and recuperation, Sierra Leone's national GDP has also reached only US$4.2 billion, and it has to deal with the attacks of Ebola virus . As for dealing with the new crown epidemic, there is nothing we can do. In comparison, Hong Kong, which has a population similar to Sierra Leone, has a GDP of US$368.1 billion.
China's development achievements reflect that ordinary families like Zheng Jinheng, It was two years ago that Shilou County announced its poverty alleviation and is promoting rural revitalization.
Since the epidemic, because he is not very skilled in Chinese, and needs to take care of his young daughter, Hawa has not gone out to work now, but just stays at home.
But did not cause trouble for Zheng Jinheng. he worked as a courier in Shilou County. With good epidemic prevention policies, Shilou County's express business maintained steady growth.
html monthly income can reach 5,000 or 6,000 yuan. Including parents' farming and working, the annual income of 80,000 yuan is more than enough, which is already in line with the poverty alleviation standards in the local area.
Not only does her husband not ask Hava to go to work as soon as possible, she also asks her to remit money to her family and her younger brother who is in high school from time to time to solve family difficulties and improve her life.
When Hawa has time, she can also come to her husband's logistics company to help and earn some pocket money.
Zheng Jinheng's work involves a famous online shopping website like Taobao JD . Hawa quickly learned to buy the products he likes without cash without using it. Then his husband can hand it home with his own hand. Hava has never been able to put down this convenient life that is simply unimaginable in Sierra Leone.
Zheng Jinheng's home is not wealthy, but the windows are bright and clean, the cave is covered with ceramic tiles, and there is a huge cement yard. The home has all the appliances such as color TVs, refrigerators and gas stoves, which are clean and warm. In Sierra Leone, this is already a device that only high-ranking people can own. Hava fell in love with China hopelessly.
When I was in Sierra Leone, Hava was also a skinny beauty with thin figure, , , and she loved to wear fashionable clothes.
Who knew that after spending five years in China, Hawa's figure has become plump and dressed more like an ordinary Chinese woman.
China can produce everything the world needs, and it needs a lot of talents and manpower in all walks of life.
Hawa hopes that her Chinese proficiency can improve as soon as possible. When she can communicate fluently, she will try to find a job that she is satisfied with, enjoy the opportunities for China's development and create a better life for her family.
