Burning torches to find words

(Baonghean) - Carrying torches to school before the rooster crows and returning home when the lights are on in every house, that is a very familiar image of secondary school students in Cam village, Cam Lam commune (Con Cuong district). Although this situation has existed for many years, as long as there is no road to the village, generations of secondary school students in this place will still have to walk, carrying torches to find knowledge...

To go to school, every day 70 secondary school students in Cam village have to wake up at 4am to clean themselves, prepare books, lamps, torches and gather at the village entrance at 4:30am to go to school together. Before 4am, we saw the wife of Village Chief Lo Van Dan wake up her son, who is in grade 6, to brush his teeth and wash his face to prepare for school. Following his mother to the water tank, his face still sleepy, but the 6th grade student quickly finished everything and went to school.

Students of Cam village (Cam Lam commune - Con Cuong) carry torches to school.

At exactly 4am, in the distant alley, we could hear the barking of dogs and the flickering lights of flashlights, torches, and the bustling voices of groups of students. The children usually waited for each other at the entrance of the village, about 7-8 of them in a group, and then went to school together.

Students in Cam village have to study by flickering oil lamps.

Following the children to class, we somewhat understood the difficulties and hardships of the students here on their journey to find knowledge. If their families had the means, they could use flashlights, but if not, they had to use long, dry bamboo sticks as torches to light the way. Usually, the boys would hold the torches and lead the way, while the girls followed behind. Sometimes, the torches would go out or run out, and everyone would have to stop to find bamboo sticks along the roadside, light their torches, and continue on.

The dirt road is quite long, steep and eroded by rain into large gullies, so every 1 or 2 slopes, the children have to stop to rest, bring rice balls, cassava, and sweet potatoes to have breakfast. Vi Thi Anh, Cam village shared: "Today the weather is dry, the road is dry, it is easy to walk, but when it rains, the road is slippery, falling and getting your clothes dirty is a common thing." Continuously passing 5 kilometers of dirt road, steep slopes, the children have to rest 3 to 4 times, while walking, picking up bamboo on the side of the road to use as torches. The children's laughter and cheerful innocence seem to dispel the fatigue and hardship of the journey to find words.

After the steep, slippery road, the children still have to cross the Xi Vang stream and go another 3 kilometers to reach the school. Xi Vang stream is about 100 meters wide but the water is quite deep and flows fast, so crossing it is not easy. During heavy rains, when the water rises high and flows fast, the secondary school students in Cam village have to stay home from school for a whole week.

For nearly 4 years, since Mr. Lang Van May's raft dock came into operation, the travel of Cam villagers as well as students has become more convenient. Arriving at the raft dock at dawn, the children board the raft themselves, slowly release the pulley to pull the raft across the stream, then turn around to pick up the remaining students. Ho Thi Hong (8A grade student, Cam Lam Secondary School) shared: "In the past, before the rafts came here, we rolled up our pants to choose a shallow stream and held hands to wade across. When the water was too high, we had to swim to get across the stream. There were days when we got across the stream, our clothes and books were soaked."

“The road to school is too far, the travel is difficult and tiring, for ethnic minority students in this remote and isolated Cam village, to attend school fully and move up to the next grade is already a miracle, let alone high academic achievement. However, 1/3 of the children in secondary school are still good students, advanced students. Currently, the village has 1 child studying at university…”, said Mr. Lo Van Dan, Head of Cam village. Talking to us, Mr. Nguyen Trong Minh, Principal of Cam Lam Secondary School, worried: “The children are still young, the way to school is too far, the hardest part is in the cold season, if they study all day, they have to pack their lunch and go home from dawn to dusk. Although the school has a boarding policy, it only helps the students to some extent, but in the long term, the school's Board of Directors is looking for capital to build a boarding house for 80 students (70 students from Cam village, 10 students from Son village) studying at the school to live in. However, the most difficult problem is the funding issue, if we build a boarding house for the above 80 students, we need about 500 million VND for 8 rooms, while Cam Lam is a difficult commune, so that is not a small amount of money”.

Cam Village is the most remote and difficult place in Cam Lam Commune. The whole village has 130 Thai households with 671 people (including 75 poor households). The people's lives mainly depend on going to the forest and farming, so most of the care for their children's education is very limited. To make the way to school less difficult, it is necessary to have the participation and cooperation of all levels of government and the whole society.

Duy Ngoi - Hoang Viet