'Tribes' of villages no longer on the map

(Baonghean) - Located next to the stream near the dormitory of secondary school students is a small "tribe". The small huts built in the style of low stilt houses next to the stream are the camps of parents who go to raise their children to study. Most of them are free residents living in the heart of Ban Ve hydroelectric lake.

Bending down to get through the low door frame, the tall and slender mother entered the temporary hut built in the style of a low-slung stilt house of the Thai people in the highlands. The house was part of a row of boarding houses for preschool and primary school students located close to the stream. The children were all young and studying far from home, so they needed the care of adults.

The row of boarding houses of Cha Coong village students is nestled in the middle of the dormitory area of ​​Huu Khuong Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities. Photo: Huu Vi

The row of makeshift, shabby-looking shacks, close together, all built of bamboo, was a strange sight compared to the dormitory next door, which was built quite solidly. There was a dining hall and a sports field. The row of shacks was like a small tribe in the center of the mountainous commune of Huu Khuong (Tuong Duong).

The young mother named Ngan Thi Van, 27 years old. She is the mother of two children studying at Huu Khuong Primary School. The mother took her children from Cha Coong village, 30 minutes away from the school by motorboat, to the boarding school. Late in the afternoon, she returned to the hut to cook for her two children. The older child is a girl in 2nd grade, the younger child is a 4-year-old boy in kindergarten.

For the past 4 years, Ms. Van has been an involuntary member of this strange “tribe”. The life of mothers in boarding houses raising their children to study is somewhat more leisurely than staying at home to farm and fish, but it is also extremely sad and boring. Ms. Ngan Thi Thoong, also from Cha Coong village. For the past 2 years, this 26-year-old mother has been taking care of her children in preschool. Ms. Thoong said: “Sometimes we don’t know what to do here. When the children go to school, we just roll over and sleep. When it’s time to eat, we just cook for them. In general, it’s very boring.” Since having children of school age, Ms. Thoong and Ms. Van’s life is no different from that of preschool and elementary school students. On Monday mornings, they take their children to school and stay with them. On Friday afternoons, they call their husbands to drive the boat to take them home. “We only get to stay with the whole family for 2 days a week,” Ms. Thoong said.

Children of Cha Coong village. Photo: Huu Vi

The row of huts, about a dozen or so, belonged to students from groups of residents named Cha Coong, Xop Lam, Nhan Mai, Nhan Nhinh, Huoi Hoc... The names of the villages no longer exist within the local administrative boundaries. They moved to resettlement areas in Thanh Chuong and Que Phong districts and then returned to their old villages to make a living by raising livestock and fishing.

The free-living communities in the middle of the hydroelectric reservoir are not managed by the government. No village has a school, so they have to send their children to other schools. Parents also have to follow their children to school to take care of their meals and, above all, their children’s safety. Life is hard, but most of the families living freely in the middle of the reservoir send their children to school at the right age.

Ms. Ngan Thi Van said: No matter how difficult it is, families try to send their children to school. “In the past, we had difficulty asking for our children to go to school. But then the local government agreed to let the children go to school,” Ms. Van recalled.

Being a hard-working person, even though she has to take care of her children studying far away from home, Ms. Van does not let her hands rest. For the past 4 years, she has used iron nets to create a small pen to raise pigs. During the time she stayed in the shed to raise her children, she sold 1 or 2 litters of pigs each year. In her free time, she also fishes to sell to agencies, schools and neighboring villages.

Ms. Ngan Thi Van and her two children in the camp. Photo: Huu Vi

Like other families with school-age children in Cha Coong, Ms. Van’s two children do not benefit from policies for students in the highlands. Families who are required to relocate from the Ban Ve hydropower reservoir but remain in Cha Coong are no longer under the local population management and therefore are not granted household registration. “Without a household registration, there is no basis for resolving the policy,” said the leader of a school in Huu Khuong commune.

For Mr. Lo Van Oanh in Nhan Mai village (old), whose child is in kindergarten at the age of 5, he is the breadwinner of the family, and his wife is raising a small child but still has to go to the boarding house to look after the child. “I am here but my heart is burning like fire. My parents are old and weak, and cannot look after the child. So I have to accept having full meals and hungry meals to give my child an education,” Mr. Manh confided.

The wish of those living freely in the heart of Ban Ve Lake is to register their household with a certain village or establish a new village. For them, living freely in the heart of the lake is more comfortable than in the resettlement area, but there are many worries related to the future of their children. However, it seems that the wish to have a household registration in the old hometown is still far away. Ms. Van said that recently, the local government also came to Cha Coong village to persuade people to relocate. "But they said that only if they leave Cha Coong village will it be accepted," Ms. Van said./.

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