Huoi May: Carrying heavy worries of the new school year

(Baonghean) -How far is Huoi May? I took a night "wind car" from Vinh city to Kim Son - the capital of Que Phong district for 4 hours. And it took me almost that much time to go from the center of Cam Noc village (Cam Muon commune) to Huoi May, a distance that is only about 1/20 of the distance from Vinh to Kim Son. It seems that the remoteness and isolation of Huoi May is due to the primitive life of the Khmu people here and the uncertainty of education for their children...

Half an hour of first gear motorbike roaring up the steep pass for several kilometers, when arriving at Na Que, we had to leave the motorbike and walk to Huoi May. The path was like a thread in the middle of the green forest, occasionally interrupted by holes, gold mining sites with eroded rocks and muddy mud. Occasionally, a slope that made my toes "run out of breath" just as I reached the top; sometimes I struggled for a long time in a stream full of slippery "monk's head" rocks... The guide - Mr. Vi Van Lam, a teacher at Cam Muon 2 Primary School, occasionally stopped to encourage me: "This journalist is strong, he walks fast!". We arrived at Huoi May after 12 noon. At this time, I did not have time to meet and say goodbye to the "resident" teachers but quickly fell into a "recovery" sleep...

Huoi May has no roads, no electricity, no clean water, no village health center, no phone signal, and a few "school huts" that, if not for the blackboards built around the bamboo walls, would be considered abandoned shacks. Huoi May is exactly just a cluster of about 40 households along the Que stream with nearly 200 people. Administratively, it is a production team under Cam Noc village, about 30 km away. However, everyone is used to calling Huoi May "village" because there is a primary school here.

In the 2013-2014 school year, Huoi May Primary School had 18 students; of which, 5 were in grade 1, 3 were in grade 2, 4 were in grade 4 and 3 were in grade 5. Teacher Lo Van Lan was considered the group leader here, teaching the 2+3 combined class, teacher Lo Van Thanh taught the 4+5 combined class and teacher Lo Van Viet taught grade 1. Teacher Lo Van Lan came to Huoi May to teach for the second time from 2004 until now (before that, he had taught from 1986-1989).

According to the regulations, each teacher from Cam Muon 2 Primary School from outside the main point is rotated to teach in Huoi May for 3 years, then they can be replaced, mainly male teachers. Mr. Thanh used to teach in Tung Chang, came here in 2011 at the same time as Mr. Viet, who lives in Muong Piet - Thong Thu. As for Mr. Lan, he has been here for 10 years and the Huoi May people do not let him leave. He is attached to Huoi May not only because of his passion for "sowing letters", but also because he is considered a "prestigious person" here.

In 2009, Cam Muon 2 Primary School sent another teacher to replace Mr. Lan. The people of Huoi May refused, so they took the teacher's blanket and walked to the school to "return" the new teacher and "reclaim" Mr. Lan. At that time, Mr. Lan had to go to Huoi May to "pay a fine" of a chicken and a jar of wine, along with a promise to come back one year later, then the studies at Huoi May could continue.

Children of Hoi May wade through streams to go to school.

The Huoi May “study tent” is divided in half, one half is for Mr. Thanh’s combined class, the other half is for Mr. Lan’s and Mr. Viet’s classes. Each class has only one rough desk and chair. This year, the number of students in the first class has increased compared to last year, so parents had to hastily build an extra desk and chair. On the corner of the blackboard in the third grade, it says: “4 students, 2 absent”; asking, it was learned that two more students had been sent to the fields by their parents and had not returned for two days. Today, Mr. Viet was teaching a lesson by heart, and without a magnetic board as required, he had to pick up pebbles from the stream and spread them on the table for the students to mark and remember the words. In order to avoid disturbing each other in those combined classes, during class, teachers always had to remind students to lower their voices when reading... Some students had to wade across the Huoi Que stream to get to school, the wooden bridge was washed away, and gold diggers dug up the soil to fill the stream, causing erosion, so the bridge could not be restored.

The sound of children woke me up in the shabby thatched hut that served as the “office house” of three teachers at the Huoi May school. In that cramped hut, blankets, beds, books, and clothes were crowded together. Next to the simple partition was a kitchen corner with a few black pots, a salt shaker, a bottle of oil, and a vegetable stand made of three rocks... Was this the space where teachers in remote areas like Mr. Lo Van Lan had to stay for 10 years for the cause of spreading knowledge to the Huoi May children that my colleague had mentioned? Huoi May students entering primary school did not go through kindergarten.

Getting the children to go to school at the beginning of the new school year is the hardest part of the teachers in the remote areas. Teachers have to carry books and notebooks from the main school; as for teaching materials, they have to carry them. And the students here do not have uniforms; in winter as well as in summer, they wear old, torn clothes. Vi Van Duong is 10 years old this year, in grade 5 but looks as small as a seven-year-old child. From the time he started going to class to learn to read and write until now, Duong has not known what the "opening ceremony" of the new school year is! Duong is studying with Moong Van Manh, in grade 5 but still does not know the letter "a" or the number "1", because of his slow memory, the teachers in the remote areas have been proposing for a long time but have not found a way to send Duong to school as a disabled child. But when asked who Manh loves, he still knows how to say "love the teacher!".

Class time of 4+5 combined class at Huoi May school.

Last year, a 4th grade student was called up to check his old lesson and suddenly fainted. After being called back by the teachers and fed him a few spoons of instant noodles, we found out that he had not eaten for 3 days because his parents had not returned from the fields. He only picked guava to eat for meals! Teacher Viet continued: "Have you seen guava everywhere in Huoi May? Although it is not planted, it is a real famine-relief tree! The children rarely have a full meal. Whenever they miss a meal, they pick guava to eat to go to class!"

In the evening, the scene of children from Huoi May clinging to the guava trees, competing to pick ripe fruits to eat, dispelled my doubts about what Mr. Viet said. Suddenly, I remembered the sharing of Mr. Nguyen The Cam - Principal of Cam Muon 2 Primary School, that there was a time when the school launched a Team movement, the students contributed 200 kg of rice to support the children of Huoi May, but no parents were willing to carry it back, so the school had to sell it to buy rice in Huoi May at twice the price. The school was also worried about the living conditions of the teachers "staying in the village" of Huoi May, but right at the main school, the official house (teacher dormitory) was made of rotten bamboo and was no longer habitable; then there was no official house either, the vice principal and principal were having to work in the tiny waiting room of the teachers, which was also made of the "Disadvantaged Children" project house...

The dinner suddenly became quiet when teacher Lan confided: The joy of returning to school in Huoi May always carries a heavy burden of worries, especially when winter comes, the teachers have to witness the sight of children going to class every day, pale with hunger and cold. When the school year starts, only the teachers and Mr. Que will go to the main school to attend the ceremony, then have to return immediately to convey to the parents the spirit of the new school year. Although we know that to bring literacy to Huoi May's children, it is mainly the spirit of perseverance, endurance of hardship and dedication of the teachers "staying in the village" in this place that is not yet recognized as a village!

Sleep was fitful as heavy rain leaked through the small hut. The night of Huoi May soon fell silent. When would the children of Huoi May have a day to start the new school year?

Sam Temple