The profession of "eating dew and sleeping in the fields"

(Baonghean) -As the sun sets, the village’s houses are lit up, and the “eating dew and sleeping in the fields” team gradually moves out. They brave the cold and stay up all night to catch eels. Although night eel fishing is hard and tiring, it brings income to many families, helping them overcome difficulties and poverty.

Hunting for eels

At 1 pm, Tran Van Loan - a "professional" trap catcher in village 13, Quynh Trang commune (Quynh Luu) dragged us out to the backyard to dig worms and catch crabs to prepare bait to catch eels in the evening. According to Loan, this is the favorite food of eels, fragrant grilled crabs mixed with minced worms with a strong fishy smell create bait that no eel can resist. "Fish die because of traps, eels die because of bait", when they smell it, they will rush into the trap, there are up to ten of them, you can't catch them all" - Loan happily boasted.

After digging for about half an hour, we caught half a kilo of crabs and worms, enough bait for a night. Nighttime eel catching does not require capital, only effort. The eel catching tools are bamboo tubes, each meter long, hollow, with a diameter of 6-7cm. One end is sealed, the other end is drilled and a funnel-shaped net is attached so that the eels can easily get in but cannot escape. Now that the roads have been transformed into new rural areas, bamboo in the village is becoming scarce, so some people have come up with the idea of ​​using PVC pipes as eel traps. But according to eel "killer" Tran Van Loan, although this type is light, convenient for moving and preserving, it does not "catch" eels as well as bamboo or meter traps.

We spent the whole afternoon struggling to make bait, spreading food around the net and then carefully putting it into the traps. After making more than a dozen traps, I was exhausted and sweating profusely. Loan smiled and joked: “It looks simple, but catching an eel to sell for money to buy rice to feed my wife and children is not easy at all. Eels are becoming increasingly rare, and there are many people catching them, so earning a few hundred thousand in one night is very lucky.”

In the evening, we climbed into a car loaded with bamboo tubes and headed straight to Con Sim field, which is considered the "eel barn" of Quynh Tan commune (Quynh Luu). Loan was taught the craft by his father since he was young, so at the age of 10, he already knew how to set traps to catch eels, becoming a famous "eel killer" in the village. Mr. Tran Van Doan (Loan's father) said: In the past, when the harvest season ended, people would set traps to catch eels for food, and if there were many, they would bring them to the market to sell for money to buy rice. There were many eels so only those larger than the female leg were caught, and those smaller were released back into the fields. However, in the past five years, freshwater eels have become a specialty at restaurants and pubs, sometimes eels cost up to several hundred thousand VND/kg but were not sold.

After carefully examining the area, Loan signaled her friends to take down the bundle of traps. On the Con Sim field, the rice plants heavy with golden grains swayed and swayed in the wind, while below, shrimp and fish were popping and popping. This is a field with a lot of alluvium and abundant food, so this catfish species lives in abundance. It is a job that does not require much capital, but the work of placing traps requires technique, and must be learned over a period of time to be proficient. Nguyen Van Tinh (28 years old), who accompanied us, explained: “If the traps are placed too shallow, the eels will not crawl in, and if they are placed deep under the mud, the smell of food will not spread far enough to lure them in. Eels are also very clever, so experience is needed to catch them.” In addition, in order not to lose the traps, night eel fishermen must have an excellent memory as well as a reasonable “map” of the placement.

Eel catching is tiring work but brings income to farmers.

After setting up more than 100 bamboo tubes, it was already dark. In the middle of the deserted field, the wind started to blow strongly, the frogs and insects chirped. In the sky, a lost crane was croaking loudly. Several bamboo trappers, their bodies dirty and wet, sat hugging their knees, looking towards the village with its dimly lit electric lights. Perhaps at this time, several families in the village had finished their dinner, sitting together watching the news or drinking tea and chatting. Life was getting more and more difficult, to take care of all the family expenses, the eel trappers had to work harder and harder. They had to "sacrifice" the seemingly simple but very essential needs of daily life.

The life of a worker

The eel catchers tonight exude a gentle, honest look. The quality of farmers and the fields seems to permeate their blood, their voices, their laughter. Nguyen Van Bo is only 36 years old this year, but no one expected that this young father already has 6 children, both boys and girls. When asked why Bo had so many children, what would he feed them? Bo did not answer, his eyes showed a bit of sadness and worry. If the night they did not catch many eels, the next day the whole family would have to save a tube or two of rice, and reduce their expenses.

Unlike Bo, Loan’s family only has two children. With both husband and wife, life seemed less difficult. However, last year, the youngest daughter suffered from heart disease, and the surgery cost hundreds of millions of dong, making Loan and her husband miserable. When the eel season ended, Loan switched to carrying and cutting trees for hire, sometimes even going as far as Mong Cai to work for hire. “Now I hope my legs will be strong and my rocks will be soft, the fish and eels will multiply so that I can earn money to pay off my debt to raise my children. In these difficult times, if I get sick, I will go bankrupt in no time,” Loan confided.

In the stories with the trappers, Nguyen Van Tinh's confidences made the cold night even more bitter. Being from a poor family with many siblings, Tinh had to leave school early. At the age of 13, Tinh followed his father to set traps to catch eels in the fields of Quynh Luu district, and cast fishing nets on the Vuc Mau, An Ngai, and Khe May dams. He followed his brothers and sisters to work for hire in Dak Lak, Saigon, and Binh Duong. With his determination to work, when he was just over 20 years old, the young man was able to build his own house and had a decent amount of savings.

Then Tinh got married to a lovely village girl in the neighboring village and gave birth to a healthy first son. But their happiness was short-lived when Nguyen Van Vinh (2 years old) was constantly sick. Taking him to the National Children's Hospital far away in Hanoi, they said he had a serious illness. Both husband and wife were weak in the knees but still tried to find out what the illness was. The doctors said Vinh had a disease called "Haemophilia A", scientifically known as "blood clotting disorder" due to a deficiency of factor VIII, but popularly known simply as "hemophilia".

Not knowing that this was a genetic disease, after giving birth to their second son in early 2013, Tinh and his wife became even more depressed and destitute. With tears in her eyes, Tinh said: “Recently, Vinh had internal bleeding, a brain hemorrhage, and almost lost his life. Luckily, friends lent him money to take him to the hospital in time, so he survived. But the doctor said this is a disease of the rich, and there is no cure in the world, and treatment is long-term and expensive. My husband and I have a hard time feeding ourselves, let alone hundreds of millions of dong to treat our two children. The more I think about it, the more I feel like we are at a dead end, with no way out.” After speaking, Tinh exhaled and looked vaguely into the dark night. The sky in the last days of September was affected by storms, gray and dark. In the distance, the sound of lost cranes made a heart-rending cry.

To ease the feeling of emptiness and coldness, Loan took out a pipe of tobacco from her pocket and took a long drag, breaking the silence. The temporary tent was only big enough for one person to lie down, so one person stayed up to guard the tent while the other slept, taking turns until morning. “In the past, when eels were not as expensive as they are now, there was no need to guard the tent. After setting up the tent, everyone went home to sleep and emptied it the next morning. But now it’s different, if I’m not careful for a moment, someone will come and steal the eels and rice from my wife and children,” Loan confided.

The night dew became thicker as the night fell, the wind howled, making the cold seep into the skin. In their muddy, dewy clothes, the eel fishermen huddled closer together to keep warm. Perhaps their lives were as miserable and muddy as the eels they caught.

Annihilation

Eel meat contains many vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, B1, B6 or iron, sodium, potassium, calcium. Compared to other foods such as mussels, freshwater shrimp, freshwater crab, eel meat is the food with the highest nutritional value. Therefore, eel meat is always chosen as a nutritious food for sick people, the elderly and children. According to Oriental medicine, eel has the effect of nourishing blood, eliminating rheumatism, can cure malnutrition, dysentery, spinal pain, internal hemorrhoids, rheumatism... For a long time, when talking about Nghe An, people often mention the specialty dish of freshwater eel. Therefore, if having the opportunity to visit Nghe An, tourists from all over often stop by restaurants to enjoy dishes made from eel, especially porridge, eel vermicelli and eel soup. Eel is not only a specialty of Nghe An people but has now "migrated" to big cities such as Hanoi, Saigon, Da Nang... And it is even more honorable that recently, Nghe An eel vermicelli, along with Hanoi pho, Hue beef noodle soup, Quang noodles, Saigon spring rolls... have surpassed hundreds of other Vietnamese dishes to be selected into the nomination list of "15 delicious dishes receiving Asian records".

In recent years, eels have been consumed in large quantities, so their prices have increased. Traders not only buy eels for restaurants in the province, but also export them to Hanoi, Hai Phong, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City. To meet demand, many farmers have learned the model of raising eels in ponds, lakes, and lagoons, and some have built tanks to raise them. And from this specialty, many families have become rich quickly, and eel farming has become a "hot" profession for farmers.

But in recent years, the indiscriminate and indiscriminate use of pesticides and chemicals has caused the amount of fish, shrimp, and eels to decline seriously, and they no longer have the environment to thrive as before. In addition, some people use electric shock and chemical fishing to catch these aquatic species, which has also caused their extinction. Will a dish considered a specialty of Nghe An still have a fragrant aroma in family meals and restaurants?

Trieu Duong