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A Box of Masks from Sarajevo

Published Time:2020-02-14 Views No.:

"The people in my second hometown are suffering. How could I enjoy my holiday with this?!"

The voice of anxiety was from Marijana Oljaca, a Ph.D. student from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Eastern Europe, who is now majoring in Management Science and Engineering at School of Management, Jiangsu University. She missed the outbreak of novel coronavirus in China as the earlier leave for visiting her father who was ill at home. Facing the report from the media about the rapid increase in the number of infections in China, she was anxious all day.

"Since I am not in China, what else can I do besides praying for China?"

Marijana asked her supervisor, associate professor Zhiwen LI at School of management via WeChat. After hearing that the masks in China were in extremely short supply, she came up an idea of "maybe I can offer help on masks".

In the next day, Marijana called the Chinese Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina without any hesitation to express her willingness to donate masks, and was responded that the donation could be done through channels such as the Red Cross. However, the media reported successively in last few days that masks in Russia, Canada, Australia, France and other countries had sold out. "If the selling out is about to occur in Bosnia and Herzegovina, can masks be bought? Is it still the quickest way to donate the masks through the Red Cross?" Marijana ran in hurry to several pharmacies. When finding out that either masks were sold out or a long queue was over there waiting to buy masks in front of the store, her heart sank. Fortunately, hard work paid off, she bought finally a full box of masks after waiting a long time in the queue! She took a long sigh of relief and smiled.

Next, how would the masks be shipped to China? The first thing Marijana thought of was the Post Office, and she ran there without any stop. However, another trouble occurred. Due to signs of global out of stock, the possibility of cross-border premium selling enables the local post offices to suspend masks delivery. The alternative ways of express delivery were either stopped or with extremely high expense. After thinking for a while, Marijana figured out two plans. First, ask the help of Chinese tourists in Sarajevo, there may be one of them with the recent return to China. Second, ask the help of WeChat groups in the mobile phone, there may be people in the group who will recently travel to China. Although going through twists and turns, Marijana found successfully the best "Hump Route" to deliver the mask package to China!

"Please JSU donates the box of masks on my behalf to the frontline doctors and medical workers in China to fight against the epidemic!" Marijana sent a WeChat message to her supervisor. "Wait for me, China! I will come back shortly to be a volunteer to fight against the epidemic!" She sent a WeChat voice message later with choking and sobbing voice.

 

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