A poor single mother and her dream of owning a home.
A single mother, intellectually impaired, struggles to make ends meet while providing for her child's education. This is the story of Le Thi Tham and her son Nguyen Ba Tung in An Hoa hamlet, Hoa Quan commune, Nghe An province.
Despite being over 50, Ms. Le Thi Tham still lacks a proper place to live. She and her son live in a makeshift house built on borrowed land. Every day, Ms. Tham does everything she can to support her 17-year-old son. Being less agile, she can only do the simplest jobs. During the harvest season, she goes to the mountains to gather the plants and weave brooms to sell. This work brings in an income of 50 to 70 thousand dong per day. With barely enough to eat, she can't even dream of a decent place to live for herself and her son. Their house is only 15 square meters.2In this cramped space, Thấm and her mother have no valuable possessions whatsoever.
For Ms. Thấm, the fear that her son would have to drop out of school was greater than the worry about hunger. Determined not to let Tùng leave school, she toiled tirelessly to make a living, gathering everything she could sell for money, from shallow streams to deep fields. In the mornings, she would go to the forest to pick wild leaves, and in the late afternoons, she would immerse herself in the mud to search for crabs and snails. Her hands, already rough from the sharp blades of reeds, now gripped the stones tightly, carefully collecting every bunch of wild vegetables, every crab, every snail... anything to earn a few pennies for her son's school fees. She never dared to dream of a full meal.
Out of love for his mother, who toiled tirelessly in the shallow valleys and deep fields, Nguyen Ba Tung could only try his best with all the understanding of a child growing up in poverty. Sadly, even a private corner to study or a good night's sleep was a luxury for Tung. Under the narrow eaves of his cramped house, Tung arranged old tables and chairs to study every day. This was also where he had often had to huddle on a mat to sleep overnight in his 15-square-meter home.2It became too stifling.
All that Ms. Tham could do was pour all her weary strength into ensuring her child had one more satisfying meal, and that the clothes her child wore to school were a little more intact. Looking at her long shadow cast on the bamboo wall, everyone felt a pang of sadness, understanding that those thin shoulders were utterly exhausted, and that this simple home truly needed a miracle to prevent it from collapsing in the face of life's storms.
The dream of a stable home may still be far-fetched, but it urgently needs the community's support right now, so that the burden on that mother's frail shoulders is lessened and the door to Tung's future is not closed by the extreme poverty.
All support and assistance should be sent to the following address: Ms. Le Thi Tham, An Hoa village, Hoa Quan commune, Nghe An province, account number of Nguyen Ba Tung: 0387.824.082, Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB). Journalist Nguyen Ngoc Dung, phone number: 0913.064.060.
