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Musa was pleased to be there, but shocked by the badly equipped classrooms and poverty of the surrounding village. Eager to help, he offered to teach English.

It was a tough job to begin with because the students' standard was low, but Musa broke through any barriers that may have existed by making his lessons the liveliest in the school, with a mixture of speaking, gesticulating and drawing.

"I liked him at first sight," says Chen Ying, the school's head. "He made eye contact with the children very quickly."

Musa's teaching methods proved effective and now he often has to hide in his office before classes begin to escape groups of pupils wanting to talk to him. They also text him regularly asking about his life and send him greetings cards and boxes of sweets.

Many schools in the area do not have a foreign teacher and Musa believes the students at Chunmiao feel privileged and proud that they do.

Musa's charity work started in Nigeria, where as an undergraduate he taught at a school for children whose parents had moved away for work.

Musa says the motivation for that and for his work at Chunmiao is interest and love.

Last March, Musa was among 42 foreign students who organized a "foreigner Lei Feng volunteers team" with the aim of taking "action for public good". Those actions have included recruiting 105 foreign students to donate blood to Wuhan Blood Center and visiting nursing homes and orphanages.

Last year Musa was rewarded for his good deeds with the 2011 Hubei Province Man of the Year Special Award and this year he received the 2012 10 Stars of Social Work award.

His charity work has made him something of a celebrity in both China and Nigeria, but according to Musa he is just trying to follow in his father's footsteps, "to be a good man, do good things and stay with good people".

Zhou Lihua in Wuhan contributed to this story.

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