A swan

A retired postman from Turkey and a beautiful white swan have been always together for nearly forty years, and the story of their friendship has warmed the hearts of millions.

In 1984 Recep Mirzan was in a car with a group of friends, when he saw a swan that appeared to have a broken wing in an empty field.

Mirzan quickly realized that leaving the bird there was the same as signing its death sentence, as meat-eating animals would have most likely eaten it, so he stopped the car and took the bird with him. He kept it in the car until evening, when he took it home and started nursing it back to health.

“Since I love animals, I said to myself that I should take her home instead of leaving her as dinner to foxes,” Mirzan said, “We got used to each other. We never separated.”

Even after the swan’s broken wing healed (痊愈), it didn’t try to fly away. Instead, it acted as a friend to the other animals on Recep’s farm, and decided to stick around. Recep named her Garip and now she has been with him ever since.

“She comes when I call. Since 1984, she has never left me, not even during the river floods,” the retired postman said. “She used to be stronger, but she has grown old now. If she dies, I will make her a nice grave (墓穴) here, but I hope we live more together.”

During the day, she is busy following her human friend around, either during his daily chores, or on his evening walks.

After his wife died a few years ago, Recep Mirzan started spending more time with his animals, and since he has no human children, he regards Garip as his child.

How’s everything going? We are going to do something great next Sunday morning. We are going to have a 【小题1】. We decided to sell things we 【小题2】 use.

Daddy will 【小题3】 his football shirts because he hasn’t played for 【小题4】 now. To be 【小题5】, my brother Jim was 【小题6】 because he has 【小题7】 the train and railway set since his fourth birthday. And he 【小题8】 it almost every week until he was about seven. And he also didn’t want to 【小题9】 his toy monkey, either. He slept next to the monkey every night when he was a child. It has special 【小题10】 to him.

【小题11】 me, I would like to sell some of my toys although I felt sad to 【小题12】 them. We will give the money to a children’s home.

What are you going to do next Sunday? You’re welcome to our yard sale.

Yours,

Linda

Yang Bingjun has taught in Xiaozhai Pimary School for more than twenty years. He is widely considered as the founder (创建者) of this small school in Dongdi, one of the poorest towns of Guizhou Province.

The man worked as a teacher shortly after he graduated (毕业) from middle school in 1995. “After graduation, I decided to work outside for half a year before continuing schooling, as my family was poor,” Yang said. He then went to Guangdong Province. One day when he found a child playing the piano in the big city, he decided to do something for the kids in his hometown. According to Yang, almost 90 percent of the people there couldn’t read a letter at that time, and most of the children were busy with farm work.

He went back and set up a “school” in 1996 together with a man. They used an old house from a family as a classroom and made desks and chairs themselves. “After school, I had to visit families from door to door, trying to persuade (说服) parents to send their children to us,” said Yang.

He has always encouraged his students to study hard so that they can walk out of the deep mountains. Yang will continue to stay in the village as long as he is needed. “I hope the children can live a life different from mine in the future,” he said.