Catching Geese
Liannan Village had turned over its best-equipped reading room. More than a dozen people lined up across the cement floor, sweeping with huge brooms, while someone behind them sprayed water from a hose.
Others carried buckets and rags, wiping everything down. They waved dusters to clear away cobwebs and clinging goose down.
When they heard the Medical Team was coming, the villagers had mobilized plenty of people to clean the place and prepare the site.
That was only the bare minimum. After the Medical Team arrived, they would still need to disinfect the place again.
Qiannan Province lay in southwestern China, where the weather cooled down later than in Jiangnan. Even after winter began, temperatures remained high, and there were still plenty of mosquitoes.
The Medical Team had the snake scale Li Bai carried, which could easily drive away all kinds of insects. But given the village's livestock industry, bringing out the scale would likely frighten many of the poultry to death.
They had no choice but to spray insecticide throughout the entire site, inside and out, then light several coils of mosquito incense. Only then did the mosquitoes buzzing all over the place finally dwindle.
Under the lead doctor, Sun Shuhui, the Medical Team soon got down to work.
When they saw that Section Chief Lin from the County Poverty Alleviation Office had really summoned the Medical Team with a single phone call, everyone in Liannan Village was delighted.
Though the doctors had suddenly become a prize in someone else's poverty alleviation contest, they didn't mind. Their work was assigned by their leaders. Whether they treated people in this village or another, it was all the same. They'd have to see these patients sooner or later.
Compared with truly impoverished villages, Liannan Village was better off economically.