Guardian of hope

On Wednesday, one day before the Teacher's Day, the 38-year-old teacher received many greetings from her students.

"Students in the mountainous area were simple and intelligent," said Yan Fuchun, teacher of Chinese literature in the Qingping school of Mianzhu, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Qingping boasts rich minerals and beautiful scenery, but the village was ravaged in the devastating May 12 earthquake last year. Altogether 278 people were killed in the disaster, while another 190 were seriously injured.

In retrospect, the teachers believed they were lucky. "Our school building didn't collapse," Yan said.

After they escaped, the teachers realized that the paramount issue then was food. She recalled that there were two bags of peanuts in the dormitory and soon went back to the cracked building.

On the next day, while taking care of her students, she heard that her daughter's school building collapsed.

"I went to the field at night and cried my heart out," she said. Fortunately, she later learnt that her daughter survived.

On July 30 last year, classes resumed in a makeshift house.

It was a rainy day and the floor in the house was muddy.

As a teacher of Chinese literature, Yan assigned her students to write a composition as the first lesson. The topic was the most touching moment in their lives.

"Reading their stories, I was moved," she recalled. Some students wrote about doctors, some about teachers, some about volunteers, while one said, "we met with aftershock while leaving and rocks rolled down mountains. A soldier was killed for saving me..."

This semester, students moved to the new building.

"Each classroom was equipped with televisions and kids had sports lessons on a plastic playground." Yan said this used to be just the hope of students in impoverished mountainous regions.

In fact, the students had another hope -- to go to good schools and enter colleges. Teachers like Yan were guarding their hopes.

Talking about their own hope, the woman smiled. "I just want them to grow up safely."