Where for half a century people had to build bamboo bridges to go

(Baonghean.vn) - In recent days, people in Chuyen hamlet, Hanh Lam commune, Thanh Chuong district have contributed bamboo and wood to build a bridge across the river. For decades, they have worked hard to build such a bridge.

While the people of the hamlets were celebrating together, the people of the other hamlets were busy building bridges. Photo: Huy Thu

Chuyen Hamlet has nearly 80 households and more than 320 people, but they live on both banks of the Con River. Chuyen Hamlet 1 on the other side of the river has 35 households. Locals often call it "Chuyen Island" because the hamlet is surrounded by two rivers (Giang River and Con River), with only one temporary bridge connecting it to the center across the Con River. Every year, during the rainy season, this bridge is washed away by water, and for months "Chuyen Island" is isolated, making it difficult for people to travel and produce. Students have to wade across the river to go to school.

The river flows very fast, making it quite dangerous for children to wade across the river to get to school. Some children were swept away by the water but were fortunately saved. Currently, “Chuyen Island” has more than 25 students from kindergarten to high school who have to cross the river to get to school every day. Whenever there is a prolonged heavy rain, families on “Chuyen Island” have to send their children to relatives on the other side of the river, and when it rains suddenly, students have to take a day off from school.

Mr. Tran Dinh Thang, who has 4 children going to school, shared: “On days of heavy rain, flooding or bridges washing away, families in Chuyen hamlet with children going to school are worried. My family alone has to go 2 stages, using a boat to take our children across the river, then using the car we left there to continue taking our children to school.”

According to local people, the temporary bridge built in early 2017 was swept away by the flood in March for hundreds of meters. Afterwards, the locals used buffaloes and cows to pull the bridge back to its original location and then rebuilt it. The recent flood completely washed away the bridge, so this November, the locals continued to build the bridge!

People in Chuyen hamlet transport wood to build a bridge. Photo: Huy Thu

Ms. Cao Thi Hoai, Head of the Women's Association of the hamlet, said: "The time to build a temporary bridge usually lasts a few days. Families on the "island" voluntarily contribute materials and labor to build the bridge, everyone wants to have a bridge soon to go to."

In recent days, while local people are celebrating the great unity festival, the people of Chuyen hamlet are busy building a bridge across the river. For them, building a bridge is an important task of the year, attracting the attention of the whole hamlet. On the day of the bridge building, the elderly and the young all enthusiastically participate.

On the Con River, the villagers’ bridge-building work was quite hard, all done by human power. They coordinated with each other to gather materials from the hamlet to the river, used bamboo to cross-bolt into many bridge piers, then used round tree trunks to rest on the bamboo piers to make bridge beams. The temporary bridge of Chuyen hamlet this year was longer than last year, about 30m, 2m wide, with horizontal planks laid on the bridge surface.

After several days of hard work with hundreds of working days, the bridge was completed. Although it was made of bamboo and wood, it was quite sturdy. With the temporary bridge, people could cross the river easily, and children could go to school without having to carry them on their backs or on their backs like before.

Mr. Thai Van Thang, Secretary of the Chuyen hamlet Party Cell, said: “In the nearly half century since the village was founded, the people of “Chuyen island” cannot remember how many temporary bridges made of bamboo and wood like this have been built. A few years ago, when the “Chuyen hamlet spillway project” was implemented, the people were very happy, thinking that they had escaped the isolation and wading through the river… but they waited forever and still did not see any signs of it.”

Huy Thu