“Red Seed” Dan Lai

(Baonghean) -That is Mr. La Van Yeu - Secretary of the Party Cell of Co Phat village, Mon Son commune, People's Council delegate of Con Cuong district (Nghe An). The Dan Lai people in the "land of sitting and sleeping" in the core zone of Pu Mat National Park always consider him a "treasure" of their tribe.

This year, even though he has turned 68, the cold and frosty age that easily makes the after-effects of war in him ache, he still continues to silently contribute to the Dan Lai people.

Leaving the "land of sleeping and sitting" to fight the resistance

Mr. La Van Yeu on his way to meet the Dan Lai people in Bung village (Mon Son commune, Con Cuong district, Nghe An).

Senior Lieutenant Trinh Xuan Vinh, Head of the Co Phat Border Station, said: “More than 45 years ago, Mr. La Van Yeu left this remote place to join the army to fight in the battlefields of Laos and the South. Now he is a devoted Party cell secretary to the village, taking the lead in preserving and developing the Dan Lai ethnic group here. Day and night, he walks with the border soldiers to propagate a cultural lifestyle. At the same time, he takes boats up the river to distribute rice to the Dan Lai people, teaching them to grow rice and cassava on the land along the banks of the Giang River. Mr. Yeu looks gentle and quiet, but when he speaks, the people of the whole village believe and listen to him.”

On the day Mr. Yeu was born, the Dan Lai people still had the custom of dipping newborn babies in the Giang River and sleeping sitting up. When the third child was born, Mr. Yeu's father left his mother and children to "go to heaven". The three brothers had to go to live with their uncle. When Mr. Yeu was 15 years old, a teacher came to "stay" in Bung village, and Mr. Yeu was able to go to school for the first time. At 18 years old, Mr. Yeu was one of the first people from Bung village to be admitted to the Youth Union. And a year later, Mr. Yeu followed his teacher to make a bamboo raft down the Giang River to the commune center. From the center of Mon Son commune, Mr. Yeu walked to Con Cuong district to volunteer for the army. In 1965, Mr. Yeu went to fight in the Plain of Jars, upper Laos.

In June 1978, after more than 16 years of participating in the resistance war, Mr. Yeu left the army with the rank of lieutenant. “On the day I returned from the army, many people advised me to stay in the center of Con Cuong district, where life would be less difficult than in Bung village. But I refused and carried my backpack back to the village, built a family with my Dan Lai people and have been a cadre ever since.”- Mr. Yeu added.

Mr. Yeu's house is located halfway up the mountain, the highest among the houses in Co Phat village. In the main room of the stilt house, he solemnly hangs the 40-year Party membership badge and many medals, certificates of merit from various levels....

Moving house to help the village

Two years ago, Mr. Yeu's family was still in Bung village - a 2-hour boat ride from Co Phat village across the rapids of Giang and Khe Khang rivers. Faced with the reality that Co Phat village still had too many backward customs and too many poor people, the district and commune appointed Mr. Yeu as Secretary of Co Phat village to help the village rise up. So after 30 years as village chief and Secretary of Bung village, Mr. Yeu persuaded his wife and children to move to Co Phat village to take up a new assignment. Currently, Co Phat village has 76 households with nearly 400 Dan Lai people, but only 5 party members, one of whom is a border guard stationed in the village.

Mr. Yeu confided: “In the past, where the Dan Lai people lived, there were many stream fish, bees, and wild animals, so the villagers did not lack food. Nearly 10 years ago, this forest still had saola and tigers, so people did not dare to go deep into the forest. But since 2002, Pu Mat became a National Park, and forest management was strict. People were only allowed to go into the forest to pick wild bamboo vines and collect wild bamboo shoots to sell to the Thai and Kinh people. The most difficult thing was to persuade the villagers not to migrate, cut down and burn the forest, and hunt rare animals. If we want to tell the people, we, as cadres, must set an example and do it first, then advise and propagate in a gradual way that will take a long time.”

In Co Phat village, there is no road and no telephone. Every time the district and commune invite him to a meeting, he has to send an invitation from the ferry boats. The boats come one day and the other day they don't, so he often has to leave one or two days in advance to stay with an acquaintance in order to be in time for the meeting the next day. Sometimes, after the meeting, there is no boat coming back, so he has to stay temporarily and wait for the boat. Each boat trip costs more than 100,000 VND. He said that working as a cadre in a place too far from the commune center and the district town, his wife and children sometimes ask him to take a leave to rest, but then he feels sorry for his fellow countrymen and can't bear to quit.

Ms. Ngan Thi Ha, Chairwoman of Mon Son Commune People's Committee, said: "Not only is Mr. Yeu a role model in all movements, but his children's family is also a role model for the villagers to follow."

Article and photos: Nguyen Nam Xuan