Wishes and letters at Pha Lom

At 22 years old, young teacher Vi Thi Le has spent 2 years working with Mong students. In the first year after graduating, Le worked at Nam Can Primary School (Ky Son).

This 2019-2020 school year, Le entered Pha Lom school (Tam Hop commune, Tuong Duong district) and became the youngest teacher here.

Pha Lom is located in a lush green valley, and the primary school is located next to Cha Lap stream. But Pha Lom is also one of the five particularly difficult villages in the remote border commune of Tam Hop, 14 km from the Vietnam-Laos border.

To get to Pha Lom school of Tam Hop Primary School, in sunny weather, it takes nearly 1 hour by motorbike from the commune center for a distance of 10 km. On rainy days, this unique steep road is often covered with rocks and soil, making it slippery, taking about a whole day to get to the school.

Teacher Vi Thi Le confided: “As a teacher from the mountains, and still young, I am not afraid of difficulties. However, life and teaching in Pha Lom have difficulties and hardships beyond imagination. Compared to Nam Can, the road to Pha Lom is more difficult. On rainy days, the village is divided, the school is isolated. Classrooms and accommodation are all degraded; living conditions are lacking in all aspects. In particular, teaching is not simple when the Mong students here have difficulty listening, speaking, and understanding Vietnamese.”

On this Tam Hop high point, the sun still feels like cracking the head, the rain feels like cutting flesh and the cold is bone-chilling. Frost and the lack of living conditions seem to have made Vi Thi Le "lose her beauty" somewhat. This land is so harsh, but somehow, teacher Le has fallen in love with and wanted to stay here.

Teacher Le shared: “Pha Lom is difficult but very warm. At the school, my colleagues who have worked here for many years have enthusiastically helped me adapt quickly. The students are very well-behaved. The people of Pha Lom are still very poor, but when they have new rice, bamboo shoots, eggs, and chickens, they bring them to give to the teachers...”.

From her love for the land and people, teacher Le was determined to contribute to Pha Lom's education. The young teacher overcame the difficulty of her students' "weak Vietnamese" by researching and purchasing more pictures and visual aids to help them understand quickly, read and write fluently and do math well; actively exchanging and chatting with them outside of class hours. In the afternoon, the teacher and students went into the forest to collect vegetables and fish in the stream. In the evening, teacher Le and her colleagues went to each student's house to examine, check and guide them in their studies.

From the initial strangeness, no one knows when, teacher Le became “Mother Le” in the eyes of her students. On the days when their parents went to the mountains to work in the fields and did not return, the students would come to school to play, eat and sleep with their teacher. The young teacher shed tears many times because she loved her students so much.

Ms. Le said: “There was a day when Xong Y Thuong and her sister finished school and stayed to eat and sleep with her. Xong Y Thuong’s parents worked as factory workers in the South, so the two sisters often stayed with their teachers. When they woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t find their students, the teachers panicked and went looking for them. When they arrived at their house, they found them lying on their parents’ shirts as a mat, hugging their parents’ shirts and crying...”.

Loving her students and wanting to stick with them for a long time – that is not a temporary feeling, nor is it the wish of only teacher Le. At Pha Lom school, teacher Vi Van Thuyet is also such a person. Teacher Thuyet has been present and working at Pha Lom school since the 90s of the last century. That was the time when bandits were still active in this area; loggers were destroying the forest; drug abuse was rampant...

The first days here were full of hardships and difficulties. There was no road, so teachers often had to carry rice upstream of the Cha Lap River all day to reach Pha Lom. Even though they had arrived at school, thinking about the way out once a month made them discouraged. Teachers had to raise their own crops. After staying there for a long time, they became more loving and determined to help students study higher, gradually escaping poverty. If we don't help them, who will? - From this thought, teachers became more determined to stay and build the school and the village. Now they just wish to have more health to teach and pursue the career of educating people.

Teacher Vi Van Thuyet

Pha Lom village today is different from the past, many things have changed. The village has national grid electricity, cars can go all the way. Life in this valley surrounded by the mountains of Truong Son range, although still difficult, is no longer a scene of more hungry meals than full meals. And the same goes for education.

Teacher Nguyen Dinh Man - Principal of Tam Hop Primary School said: Thanks to the love for the profession, the spirit of perseverance, not afraid of difficulties and persistent efforts, up to now, 100% of children of school age in Pha Lom go to school. Currently, Pha Lom school has nearly 100 Mong students, divided into 6 classes, including 2 class 1. The school currently has 6 teachers. All are dedicated to education in the highlands.

Mr. Xong Va Denh - Head of Pha Lom village compared education today with the past: “In the past, Pha Lom people believed that girls should not go to school. The number of children going to school was low, many dropped out. Later, thanks to the persistent efforts of teachers and border guards, every family realized the importance of education and sent their children to school. Education has improved, in the village now there are children who have finished university and college...

Education is now improved thanks to the teachers because people really do not have the conditions to take care of their education. The village has 111 households and 585 people, of which 43 are poor. Parents go to the fields all day, and when they come back to the village in the evening, they see their children at school, being fed and tutored by teachers; they are very happy to see teachers come to their house to teach their children.

In the souls of the people on the Tam Hop mountain peak, Pha Lom valley, past and present, there are two towering "monuments" that they are very grateful for, which are "the border guard" and "the teacher in the village". Those two "living monuments" still, day by day, quietly and diligently help the village develop...

But Pha Lom is still shrouded in frost, poverty, drugs, child marriage and many other bad customs exist. The village still needs guiding hands like Mr. Thuyet and Ms. Le!