"At first," said Dr. Duan Chuanxin, "I thought about putting up a fight.

    "But because I was with a female colleague, I hesitated and I thought that was maybe too dangerous."

    So Dr. Duan reached into his pocket, but before he handed anything over, he could not resist directly addressing his two young assailants in English.

    "Why are you robbing me?" Duan recalls telling them. "I am a Chinese doctor who came here to help you guys."

    The robbers stopped, turned and fled.

    "I guess there must be honor among local thieves," he joked.

    Looking back on his 2003-2005 stint in the mountainous kingdom land-locked within South Africa, today's director of the Ear, Nose and Throat Department of the Maternity and Pediatric Hospital in Hubei Province, central China, said, "People trusted Chinese doctors and regarded us as 'angels sent by God' or something."

    SUN

    Before she traveled to Conakry in Guinea to work as a first-aid nurse, Ding Ying pictured Africa as a place of scorching sun, malaria and poverty.

    "But in fact it was no wasteland," said Ding, 44. "Basic medical equipment was available. Most local people were conscious of disease prevention."

    During her two years at the emergency center, Ding even grew watermelons and cucumbers with seeds she had brought from China.

    She attributes her relaxed working conditions to others' hard work, quoting the old Chinese saying "qian ren zai shu, hou ren cheng liang": one generation plants trees under whose shade another generation rests.

    A steady trickle of medical teams have been coming to the continent since 1963, when the newly independent Algeria asked for international aid to relieve the former colony's scant medical service.

    Helping African nations build railroads and hospitals has long been a part of China's diplomatic policy towards Africa. Evolving in the late 1950s and early 1960s, China-Africa relations have been cemented through pragmatic economic and political means.

    Late Premier Zhou Enlai ordered China's first team to Algeria, thus launching more than 40 years of medical cooperation during which nearly 20,000 medical workers have traveled to 47 African countries and regions, treating more than 200 million patients, according to the Chinese Ministry of Health.

    Forty-five Chinese medical workers have lost their lives helping African health, according to Ministry of Health statistics.

    Even during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), China offered a helping hand from the principle of internationalism, says Cheng Yuanmeng, 65, a Swahili translator for the fifth medical team to aid Zanzibar, Tanzania during the 1970s.

    The wiry old man still smiles as he recalls the 13-day journey by dhow across the Indian Ocean bringing penicillin, vitamin and foodstuffs to people in Zanzibar.

    The 400,000 people of Zanzibar had one hospital, he said. While Indian doctors earned 4,000 shillings a month, Chinese doctors accepted their 200 shillings from the government in the spirit of friendship.

    "The medical team project has been a key part of China's comprehensive diplomacy," says Professor He Wenping of the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

    "The non-utilitarian motive, humanitarian solicitude and the continuity of aid cemented China-African relations and made the two support each other in international affairs."

    Prof. He asserts that unlike western nations, China honored African nations' sovereignty, delivering aid with no strings attached.

    BLOOD

    Temperatures averaged about 46 degrees centigrade where Liu Guizhi worked in Cameroon from 1998 to 2000. The 43-year-old gynecologist from the northern mining province of Shanxi, said not only was the food boring, but the medical facilities were poor. And many patients were ignorant.

    "Most women won't see a doctor until their problem become unbearable. And normally that means it's already too late," says Liu, who lived off potatoes and onions with her team of 12 medical workers in Guider County, northern Cameroon.

    "I learned a lot professionally from performing 974 operations, and treating 9,786 women patients with diseases rarely seen in Chinese women."

    Her most challenging moment during those two years came in the form of a nine-month pregnant woman arrived at theater with a baby in an extremely rare and dangerous position outside the uterus.

    "When we delivered the baby, blood burst forth so violently that I used up seven cloths. After an exhausting three hours, I thought we could at best only save the baby.

    "It's a miracle that the mother endured too. I was so overwhelmed when the mom gazed at me with her big black radiant eyes 10 hours later."

    Such demanding conditions brought the best out of Liu.

    "It's rewarding for a doctor," she said. "The numerous intricate cases challenged my ability. And because of this challenge, my professional skills were greatly enhanced."

    Like many other medical workers before her, Liu still feels a special bond.

    "Though hustling and bustling all day, I feel my life in Africa was substantial and meaningful. As transient as life is, the experience was something to treasure."

    She now works as director of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Maternity and Pediatric Hospital of Changzhi City, Shanxi, which has cooperated with Guider County for 30 years.

    DEATH

    Incidence of HIV/AIDS is 40 percent in Guider. AIDS, malaria and cholera continue to haunt the continent.

    "It sometimes feels like life is hanging by a thread," said Liu.

    Dr. Duan experienced something of the same feeling firsthand when he cut his finger with a scalpel during an operation on a potentially HIV-infected person.

    "It was mental torture, alternating between terror and hope. I thought if I am AIDS infected, I will stay here and work until my death comes."

    The blood test came out negative. Enditem