Healing touch

"Leprosy destroys peripheral nerves so that patients won't feel any injury," he says. "One patient didn't realize his calf had been burnt until his wife saw that a piece of flesh was already gone."

People are often afraid to approach leprosy cases, but as long as the patient is taking the proper medicine, the disease won't be infectious within one week, Diarra says.

Last March while on a train bound for Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, Diarra heard a loudspeaker announcement asking for a doctor to help a diarrhea-stricken child. The doctor leaped to his feet and quickly went to work with his silver acupuncture needles on the 11-year-old boy, who was suffering sudden fever and convulsions. Immediately, the boy stopped cramping. "That is the magic of TCM," Diarra says.

Yang Mei, who married Diarra in 2001, says each of his weekly journeys means perils in precipitous areas in Yunnan. Several years ago, Diarra transported a vehicle of medicine to a secluded village in Yuanyang county in Honghe prefecture. The rain, trifling as it had appeared in the morning, started to pour down and trapped his car on a mountain slope, tilting the vehicle 45 degrees. Landslides worsened the situation, cutting the highways into interrupted sections. The volunteers were frightened and got out of the car to flee to safety. Local officials were ushering them at the other end of the road.

"As a wife, I hope he comes home safe every day. But I also know he loves to cure the patients, give them medicines, and help them build houses," Yang says.

In September 2012, Diarra rushed his old jeep to quake-hit Yiliang county in northeastern Yunnan with some relief supplies, using his rich experience driving rugged roads in mountainous areas. One old villager asked Diarra where he was from, and he joked that his black skin was sunburnt in the region.

His cheerful enthusiasm has won him much love. The villagers and volunteers celebrated his birthday with moon cakes and eggs. "Yunnan is a beautiful place and also diverse in landscape and cultures. The smile on people's faces encourages me to go on," he says.

Over the past 20 years, Diarra has mastered Mandarin like a native speaker and also picked up a dozen dialects such as the one widely spoken in Yunnan. In addition, he says his love of Chinese food make him much like other expats in the country.

"The time in Sichuan and Yunnan has trained me to get used to spicy food, especially in Yunnan where hundreds of 'weird' foods are served to guests. Some of them are not my favorite, but I like to try," Diarra says, displaying his white teeth in a big grin.

Li Yingqing and Guo Anfei contributed to the story.