Miracle at Pha Khao

(Baonghean) - From Muong Xen Town (Ky Son), we traveled more than 10 km of winding mountain slopes to Pha Khao village, Pha Danh commune. There, there was a young man who had made a miracle in the Khmu community: growing bananas to escape poverty.

Asking for directions to the village, many people stopped and said: “Looking for Moong Bao Nguyen’s house? Here to learn about poverty escape experience!”. It turned out that everyone here knew the young man born in 1987, people talked about him as an example for each other, for their children. “There, keep blaming the hardships, look at Bao Nguyen, he has it worse than our family. At first, when we saw him doing it, we shook our heads in disbelief, saying that the mountainous areas are not like the lowlands where one can get rich. He started from nothing, from a thatched house, but he had the will to do business, poverty eventually had to leave him…”. The villagers often said that to each other.

Mr. Moong Bao Nguyen harvests bananas.

Pha Khao is here. The weather in Pha Khao is chilly in the autumn. We arrived in front of the newly built stilt house next to the ancient cotton tree in the middle of Pha Khao village, the tiles, wood, and bricks on the floor... were still fresh and new. After drinking a bowl of water from the dark-skinned Khmu boy, we had time to introduce ourselves. Knowing that Nguyen was busy, but also wanting to see the results of his efforts with our own eyes, we suggested going to the banana plantation right away. Nguyen excitedly pushed his "cargo" cart, invited me to sit on it, then accelerated hard. The motorbike with the curved steel pipes attached to the back of the saddle following the bumpy road was the "buffalo" that Nguyen had long used to transport bananas home. From Nguyen's house to the banana plantation took less than five minutes by motorbike. Stopping next to a large piece of land that he and his family had leveled to make room for their tools and supplies, we began walking into his vast pink banana garden. While walking, Moong Bao Nguyen leisurely told us the story of his life and his "fate" with banana trees.

Moong Bao Nguyen's banana garden

Born and raised in Pha Khao, Moong Bao Nguyen, like many others in the village, also wanted to study to learn how to read and write, to become a government official to make life less difficult. However, that dream did not come true when at a young age, Nguyen had to be the breadwinner of his poor family. In 2004, Nguyen's father passed away, his mother was also old and weak, Nguyen had to drop out of school to earn money to support his family, and let his two younger siblings pursue their studies.

When his father passed away, Nguyen was in 11th grade. Although he was short, Nguyen was as fast as a squirrel and had the strength to “break a buffalo’s horn”. Nguyen went alone to the forest to grow rice, corn, and collect firewood. It was Nguyen’s diligence and hard work that attracted the attention of many girls in the village despite his difficult family circumstances. In 2005, he fell in love and decided to marry Moong Thi Son.

With a sow and the hard work and diligence of Nguyen and his wife, the family's difficult life gradually improved. By 2012, the couple had built a herd of four cows. Nguyen's two younger siblings had also finished high school. At this time, Nguyen's mother had also passed away. Nguyen looked back at himself, yes, thanks to diligence and thrift, his family was no longer hungry, but "compared to other families in the commune and district, we are still very poor". In fact, since the day he left school and started making a living, Nguyen had quietly nurtured the dream of escaping poverty. Every year, when it was time to clear the fields, plant corn, and grow rice, Nguyen tried his best to clear more fields to make them larger. He saved every day, every month like that with the thought of clearing more fields, planting more corn, and selling more money.

Moong Bao Nguyen escaped poverty thanks to diligence and willpower

However, many corn and rice seasons passed but his family was still poor, he went further, looking for better fields to develop but it did not bring much results. The two children grew up, the needs increased every day. Then Nguyen seemed to wake up, if he only used his strength, it was still not enough, he had to find a right direction for himself, for his family. From then on, he actively learned about science and technology, about good practices in the upper village, lower commune. He even tried to learn on the internet - something that many people in the countryside had not thought of. Then he decided to start with banana trees.

The time he started was also the most difficult time for him. The fact that he borrowed money to buy banana seeds and barbed wire to fence off his banana plantation made many people in the village feel sorry for him, saying that up to now, no one in this village had ever eaten bananas for a living. Was Nguyen “paranoid” about getting rich from banana trees?... The capital Nguyen spent on the banana planting plan was about 50 million VND, with that amount of money he had to sell his cows and borrow more from close friends. Then he took a knife and a crowbar to the field where his family had long grown corn.

Initially, he decided to grow pink bananas and royal bananas on nearly 2 hectares of land he had cleared. After careful research, he invested in planting 1,200 pink bananas and tried planting 100 royal bananas. In terms of price, the royal bananas are more beautiful and sell for more, but because his field is too high, the royal bananas cannot grow. Although the pink bananas have a lower selling price, they are suitable for many types of climates, especially because they stay fresh longer than other bananas. Indeed, after only a few months of planting, they gave results. The pink bananas grew strongly, turning the whole area lush and green. The royal bananas grew slowly, and when the trees grew taller, the leaves gradually turned yellow and withered.

Due to lack of experience in care, initially 1,200 red banana trees only survived more than 1,000 trees. "At first, although I had researched other places, I was still worried because there was no place to grow bananas at the same altitude as mine. When I saw the banana garden growing well on the field, everyone in my family cried tears of joy." Then the red banana flower season, followed by large bunches of bananas following each other on each heavy banana bunch, came the time to harvest, which was also the next difficult time that made him think a lot - that was the output for the bananas.

Banana trees helped Nguyen find a way out of poverty.

At first, he used a car to transport bananas to Muong Xen market and sell them in the villages. But the amount of bananas harvested increased, and the market in Ky Son could not consume them all. He decided to use Facebook to advertise and sell them. Then he packed the banana bunches onto a motorbike and took them all the way to Vinh City... There were many days when the bananas were too ripe, no one bought them, no one ate them anymore, so he had to cut them down and leave them on the field. Seeing the bananas that he had grown with his own efforts gradually rot, he was so sad that he could not express his sadness.

But then, the land and trees did not fail him, some traders from the lowlands proactively contacted him to buy bananas. Every harvest, he packaged and sent the truck down to the lowlands for consumption. In just nearly 7 months this year, those trips down to the lowlands brought his family more than 50 million VND, a significant amount of money for the Khmu families in Pha Khao. And the newly built spacious house, the newly purchased items, also came from his hands, from the banana garden growing greener every day...

In just a short time of “falling in love” with banana trees, Moong Bao Nguyen has already gained a lot of experience in planting and caring for banana trees and fruits. He shared: “If you want each banana tree to grow well, you should only produce 3-4 seedlings. You have to carefully cultivate the roots of each tree. Every time you transport bananas to sell far away, you need to wrap them with leaves or banana bark, because bananas are easily bruised.” These are just simple experiences, but Nguyen is proving a result of the will to overcome poverty in this remote land of Pha Khao.

Saying goodbye to Moong Bao Nguyen, telling the story of growing bananas with his desire to get rich, I would like to quote Ms. Vi Thi Thanh, Secretary of the Party Committee of Pha Danh commune: “Moong Bao Nguyen is a young man who is eager to learn, has the will to get rich, is a typical example for the youth in the commune to follow in order to develop the economy, to escape poverty. He really made a miracle for the Kho Mu village here”.

Ho Phuong