Vang Mon dawn

(Baonghean) - Every time I go to Tam Hop commune (Tuong Duong), I often pass by a small village, which looks as beautiful as a landscape painting from above. That is Vang Mon village located in the valley, next to Cha Lap stream. Many times, going from Xop Nam village, the commune center, to Huoi Son and Pha Lom villages, looking down at Vang Mon basin, the roofs are close together like a small neighborhood, I wish I could stop there once...

It was not until the first day of the New Year of the Goat that I had the opportunity to visit this small village when the Chairman of the Tam Hop Commune People's Committee invited me to "visit his house". The Chairman of the commune, Vi Canh Toan, is also a resident of Vang Mon village. Having just traveled nearly twenty kilometers of rocky and gravelly roads from National Highway 7 to Tam Hop, my heart sank when I came across a smooth concrete road leading down to the village. However, after only a few hundred meters, when I reached the first house in the Vang Mon basin, the concrete road suddenly became a dead end. The Chairman of the commune said that this was a new rural traffic section of Vang Mon village. The village was far from the center, so building infrastructure encountered many difficulties.

Review before going to school.

It was late in the day, and a group of village boys gathered around the only pool table in the village for “entertainment”. Another group played volleyball next to the village’s community cultural house. As dusk fell, the small village in the basin looked both strange and familiar. Stilt houses were mixed with earthen houses, the style resembling both Mong and ancient houses in Vietnamese villages. The houses were close together. It was rare to see a house with an adjacent garden…

Mr. Vi Canh Toan explains the name of the village: The Cha Lap stream flows through the end of the village, creating a deep, round pool of water. In Thai, Vang Mon means round pool of water. The village was established in the 1970s when the district government moved the Quy Mo cooperative from the old commune center here. People from Tem village and Huoi Nhap village at the source of the Cha Lap stream moved in to live and form the current Vang Mon village.

During feudal times, the Tem people lived next to a hill not far from the new village today. The village leader was Mr. “chau hua”. This was a dignitary in the Lao Buddhist community during feudal times. The village was peaceful when one year an epidemic broke out. Many people died. Some left for other villages. At this time, “chau hua” ordered the village to be moved closer to the stream. From then on, the villagers’ lives were peaceful. Until the day of the coup, “chau hua” returned to being a normal villager. After a while, he moved to another place to live and passed away…

My footsteps accidentally led me to the house of the village chief Ha Van Nghe. He is 35 years old this year, has one of the largest wooden stilt houses in the village, and he proudly said: "Before now, Vang Mon was known as the studious village of the commune". Many people have become district and commune officials, teachers, and doctors. For a long time, Vang Mon led the learning movement of the whole commune. “Currently, Vang Mon village still has 9 students studying at Tam Hop Secondary School. Some others study at the district boarding school, and 1 is a university student. These are positive factors in the learning movement, while most of the young people in the village have left school early to work for a living. Some go to industrial zones in the South and the North, some work as construction workers at hydroelectric projects. Some, despite the danger, follow acquaintances to illegally go to China to work in small factories and workshops in the hope of finding a higher income. After Tet, the village is empty of young people again. Only a few stay home to help their families with the fields and plantations…

I left the house of the village chief Ha Van Nghe when night fell. While waiting for the son of the commune chairman to go fishing for stream fish for dinner, I took the opportunity to wander around the village. It was completely dark, and from the small house next to the chairman's residence came the sound of hammering and chiseling. I curiously stopped by. A woman around 40 years old was hammering and chiseling to build a cabinet. It was indeed a strange thing, because for a long time, few women in the mountainous areas were skilled in carpentry. She introduced herself as Lo Thi Hue, originally from Con Cuong district, and had been married to Vang Mon village for 15 years. She told me about her first days as a daughter-in-law. Back then, it took a whole day to walk from National Highway 7 to the village. There were many snails and leeches. When she returned to her husband's house, she also had to wake up early to pound rice and boil pig feed. After the Tet holiday, in the second and third lunar months, she started clearing the fields.

There were a lot of wolves in those days. Every few weeks or so, we heard that buffaloes and cows in the village were being eaten by wolves. But there were many nights when her husband was busy with militia training, and she had to stay in the forest alone. At night, she curled up and listened to the wild animals roaring. “If I get through the night without being eaten by a wolf or taken by an orangutan, I know I am still alive!” And she learned carpentry from her husband, and helped him make beds and cabinets to sell to people in the village and neighboring communities. She was not rich yet, but she had more than enough to pay for the education of her two children, one in secondary school and one in primary school.

Students of Vang Mon village on their way to class.

Yet for this strong-willed woman, singing is indispensable. During the 15 years she has been a daughter-in-law in Vang Mon village, Ms. Hue has also led the village's art troupe. She believes that while working all year round in the fields and forests, there must also be time for fun. During holidays and Tet, Ms. Hue and her sisters in the village art troupe practice and perform to interact with other villages and with soldiers at the border post.

The son of the village chairman returned with baskets full of cool fish. Our dinner was late because everyone waited to enjoy the cool fish from Cha Lap stream. Today's meal was full of the village's specialties: fried cool fish, some other types of stream fish stewed with lemongrass, and soup made from wild palm trees. It had been a long time since I had been immersed in the unique flavor of the mountains and forests of Western Nghe An.

Tonight, sleep came to me very gently. The house of the commune chairman is located next to the Cha Lap River, the sound of the stream lulls me to sleep. The call of the children calling each other to go to school woke me up. It was still dark. I threw the cow blanket off and got up, holding my camera to record the moment when the students of Vang Mon village went to class in the thick fog. The village is only 4 km from the school, so the students of Vang Mon village do not enjoy the benefits of boarding students. Saying goodbye to the children and returning to the village, I looked at the small footprints imprinted on the dusty soil on the path for a long time. There was a footprint without sandals, with small toes firmly gripping the ground. I remembered what Ms. Hue said last night: "The girls here, at thirteen or fourteen, are old enough to fall in love and get married. But I encourage you to study to escape poverty."

Leaving Vang Mon village at dawn. Looking down from above, the huts appear like a mushroom forest with a full spectrum of green, red, and yellow. The sun, like a giant ripe loquat, has just risen from the distant mountains…

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