Dan Lai village is quiet on the last day of the year

(Baonghean.vn) -In the last days of the year, Khe Bu village (Chau Khe - Con Cuong) of Dan Lai community is still quite quiet. The lives of many people still depend on natural gathering and relief from the government and the community. There are also beautiful stories about overcoming difficulties and escaping poverty of young party members.

It's almost Tet but Khe Bu village is still quiet. Photo: Huu Vi

The road to Khe Bu village is still bumpy and rocky. The village atmosphere is strangely quiet on the last days of the year. A group of men and women load logs of acacia wood onto a truck. The villagers take advantage of the last timber harvest of the year to go shopping for Tet.

“How far is Tet, ma’am?” I asked a woman who had just stopped peeling acacia bark. “Tet is still thirty kilometers away from our Bu village.” The old woman waved her hand and pointed to the distant horizon. Khe Bu village is 30 kilometers from the district market center. The time of self-sufficiency is over, now all supplies, food, incense… for Tet must go to the district market center. After the trip selling acacia, the whole family has money to prepare for Tet.

Khe Bu village is located at the junction of a large stream, where the Nam Choang (Khe Choang) river meets the Nam Pu river. It has 172 households, most of whom are Dan Lai. There are only a few Thai households. Khe Bu is home to the largest Dan Lai minority community in Nghe An and is also the only place in Nghe An where this ethnic group resides. They have been here to establish villages since the government's sedentary policy in the early 1960s.

It was almost Tet, but the old man in his sixties still took the time to go to the fields to plow and plant the spring crop. It was said that the border guards had a great contribution in teaching the Dan Lai people to grow wet rice. It was a long story, but the important thing was that a new farming habit had finally formed. It seemed easy, but it took decades.

Village chief La Van Nam has a small house next to the newly opened concrete road. The border patrol road passing through Khe Bu village has become the most convenient place among most of the inner villages of Chau Khe commune. Mr. Nam seemed not to notice that a stranger had stopped by his house, his eyes still fixed on the newspaper in his hand. Putting down the newspaper, shaking the guest's hand, he said: "There is a lack of information here, so whenever I have free time, I read the newspaper. I read all kinds of newspapers that are distributed. I am a party member, a village cadre. I have to have information to tell the people so they will listen and follow."

It seemed that he was too familiar with the press, almost every month there were a few groups visiting the village. After a few minutes of getting acquainted and finishing a cup of tea, he immediately asked: "Do you want me to take you to visit some households in the village? Or just ask for information about the village?" I was interested because the village chief was a Dan Lai with a decisive style. Later, when the conversation became more intimate, I learned that Mr. Nam had been a village cadre for over 20 consecutive years. Since 1996, he was the Secretary of the Youth Union, then the deputy village chief, Party Secretary and then the village chief. He is now a member of the Executive Committee of the Chau Khe commune Party Committee.

The house of Ms. Le Thi Hue, the family that I first visited as a cadre of the Southern people, is on a hill at the end of the village. Ms. Hue has only two children, a mother and a son. The son just turned 18 this year, but both of them are often sick and their health does not allow them to do heavy labor. Meanwhile, the main livelihood of the mother and son depends mainly on the forest and relief funds from the government and benefactors. The 44-year-old woman's mother is from Son Tay (Hanoi), a rather special origin compared to this remote community.

Ms. Le Thi Hue's father is Dan Lai and her mother is from Son Tay (Hanoi) - a rather special case for this ethnic minority community.

“My parents were both soldiers in Son Tay. They met, fell in love, and got married in their unit. After my father was discharged, they moved their family back to Khe Bu village. I was born in Son Tay. There are still aunts and uncles there, but I haven’t had a chance to visit them for a long time.” - Ms. Hue said softly.

Sitting by the fire on the last day of the year, Ms. Hue spoke clearly about her past. Her jet-black eyes looked far away into the forest in front of her. Perhaps in the last days of this year, she felt like she was returning to her childhood in the "distant land of Doai". For her, it was a world thousands of miles away.

Leading me across the hill to a few more houses, the village chief Nam confided: In the village there are still many houses with similar circumstances to Ms. Hue. The main reason is still the lack of land for production and unstable jobs. Despite receiving attention from all levels of the industry as well as the border guards stationed in the area, changing the lives of the Dan Lai community is still a difficult problem.

Khe Bu La Van Nam village chief.

“But not everyone is stagnant,” the village chief said as he led me around and stopped next to the house of La Van Hai. The 31-year-old man was recently elected as a deputy village chief. At the end of 2016, he personally wrote an application to leave the poor household. Having lived on his own for less than half a year, he was still facing many difficulties, but he decided to “set an example” not to show off but to inspire the spirit of overcoming difficulties among young people.

Three years ago, Mr. Hai read the oath before the hammer and sickle flag on the day of his admission ceremony to officially join the Party and vowed to follow that oath of honor. “What I say is what I must do,” said the young party member, one of the first people in the village to finish high school.

It was late afternoon, I said goodbye to the village chief Nam and the young party member La Van Hai and headed back home through the steep pass. On the road leading to the village, groups of students were riding their bicycles home after school. A few years ago, bicycles were still a luxury for children here.

You are