Early year in the mountainous region
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| 4 students of Nam Can Secondary School on a bed |
It took us nearly 10 hours from Vinh city, on a makeshift motorbike, to arrive at Muong Xen town (Ky Son district - Nghe An). The weather here was like ice rubbing against our bodies, our faces were pale, our limbs were trembling even though our bodies were equipped with 4 layers of clothes, but the cold still cut through our skin and flesh.
After waiting for a while to warm up, the deep, bumpy mountain roads took us to the remote villages of the borderland. Riding a motorbike on these mountainous roads was like sitting on a galloping horse. The motorbike slowly carried us from Nam Can, through Muong Tip and then to Muong Ai.... Throughout the villages, there seemed to be few people, because the cold here, as the locals said, at night the temperature dropped to 5 degrees Celsius, and during the day from 8-10 degrees.
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| Two Khmu children (Muong Tip) innocently play in the freezing water. | Sharing the same red fire on the banks of Nam Giai |
According to the villagers, the weather here was like that 30 years ago, but this year the weather is too cold and the cold is uncomfortable, so most families take advantage of noon to go to the forest to carry sticks and wood to burn at night. Many families have not seen their buffaloes, cows, and pigs return to their coops, and the chickens are also depressed....
In Nam Can commune, the secondary school is where children from areas 20-30 km away from the commune center come here to study, because the commune only has one school for both levels. Most of the children who come here to study have to stay in people's houses, the rest stay in the school with the teachers.... Most of the children who stay overnight have only a thin blanket like bamboo leaves and an old, tattered sedge mat, each bed has 2-3 children sleeping together. Vu Ba Denh, grade 9, Nam Can secondary school, sat hugging his knees on the bed: "We go to school about 20 km from home, we go at the beginning of the week and come back once on the weekend. But now it's too cold, our clothes are not warm enough, we can't stand the road, so we have to wait until the weather warms up before we can go home. It's too cold, we don't want to go to school anymore...".
Leaving Nam Can, we arrived at Muong Tip, an area where the Khmu people are the majority. Many children aged 4-6 years old are still only wearing thin shirts. Similarly, in Tuong Duong and Que Phong districts... in Nam Giai commune (Que Phong district), primary and secondary school students after each class hour, both teachers and students light a fire and sit together... According to the teachers here, the flash flood after storm No. 5 last year left a lot of firewood and wood around the school... so teachers and students have enough to warm themselves during these cold days.
Nguyen Phe
