People living along Lam River in Nghe An province stay up all night in the cold rain, wade through fields to collect 'heavenly gifts'

These days, people in Hung Nhan and Hung Loi communes (Hung Nguyen) are entering the new season of harvesting earthworms. This year's earthworm season comes at the time of the monsoon, bringing cold winds and drizzle, making it quite difficult for people to hunt for earthworms.

In the fields of rươi, nets have been set up in advance. Every night, people just wait for the water to peak at a certain time to bring out their rươi hunting tools such as baskets, buckets, basins, and nets to the fields to look for rươi.

To catch the worms, people often leave a "gate" (where the water enters and exits) in each rice field to place the traps. When the tide goes down, the water in the fields rushes into the river, and the worms will follow the water into the traps.

Families with large fields of earthworms, especially those along the river, are deeply flooded, so every night they go hunting for earthworms they have to bring along many nets and traps. Mr. Vo Van Que in hamlet 1, Hung Nhan commune, said that his family has a whole hectare of earthworm field, so these days, his wife, children and grandchildren are all focused on catching earthworms, no matter how hard it is, they have to try because earthworms "are looked after all year round but can only be caught for a few days".

In places with deep water up to the waist, chest or even head, people still set up poles and nets, hoping to catch some more blood worms.

Despite the harsh weather conditions, the women of the rươi village still brave the cold wind and rivers, staying in the fields to hunt for rươi.

Every year, the worms come up for 3 months (October, November, December), and each month they only come up twice, right at the time of high tide. Therefore, on days when the water level rises, the villagers put aside all their work to focus on hunting for worms. The irony is that on days when the water level rises, they do not know when the worms will come up to the surface of the fields, so every night the villagers have to bring tools to the fields to watch for the worms. If any family misses the "golden day", it is considered a failure.

This year's rươi season started on the night of November 13, but many nights before that, people had to go to the fields to watch for rươi, but the water level still rose but the rươi could not float. When there are rươi, the fields near the river, where the tide recedes first, will be the first to pour the baskets. The first batches of baskets of the season, depending on the length of the field, can yield from 0.5 to 4 kg of rươi. Each rươi season, families with many fields will earn hundreds of kilograms of rươi.

Hung Nguyen earthworms have good quality (big, fat, yellow, beautiful color) and can be processed into many nutritious dishes such as stir-fried earthworms, earthworms cooked with bamboo shoots, earthworms wrapped in betel leaves, earthworm patties, earthworm sauce... The price of earthworms at the beginning of the season in the locality is fluctuating from 400 - 420 thousand/kg. Making earthworms is hard work but also brings farmers a good source of income. Earthworms are considered "heaven's gift" in the lower Lam River. Behind the batches of fat, yellow earthworms is the hard work and perseverance of people in the flood-affected areas.

Hung Nhan Commune is located outside the Lam River dike. Famous for estuary specialties such as blood worms, clams and many other products. Photo: Google Maps