Water Container

Le Danh Hue family

Duong Thanh Family

Le Van Hao family

Duong Loi Family

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Eyes of Compassion

Tran Hoach Family

Duong Ngoi Family

FRESH WATER TANKS FOR THE NEEDY

In these times of open doors, market economy, everything to make a living and survive, our lives take on a more and more hurried and busy pace every day. In that difficult and stressful whirl, what separates the poor from the rich is not very much, maybe a neighborhood, a wall or a row of houses.  The gap between the poor and the rich is widening more and more each day between the cities and the countryside.

Hamlet 10, Tuong Son village, Thach Ha district, Ha Tinh city, lies isolated behind a row of bamboo trees.  It is 7kms south west of Ha Tinh city, under 15 minutes by bicycle.  You go along provincial road #27 and take a left turn and follow the road for 2 kms, a road that has just been repaired and covered with clay.  Hamlet 10, with over 100 families, lies buried in lowland that is arid and aluminous. Every year, the inhabitants of the hamlet must endure the severe destruction by the weather, the dry and hot burning winds coming from Laos, torrential rains sowing devastation! Each time a storm arrives, the hamlet becomes an island cut off from the outside world, and the small bamboo boat becomes the only means of transport of all the inhabitants, including students going to school.

The children in Hamlet 10 start to go to school when the rainy season arrives.

Most peasants here make a living growing rice.  But the land is scarce and people are many.  The soil is not rich and the water is aluminous, resulting in poor crops, and yet, the only revenues for the family come from the rice and potato crops.  When the peasants have some free time, or when they have run out of food but the next round of income has not yet arrived, the people able to do physical work would gather in the city centre, at the “labor market.”  That is how they try to find labor work such as any manual work, digging the ground, carrying heavy loads, to get them enough money to buy some rice for their families.  It is difficult to know when a person’s life becomes a rich person’s life, because people’s greed is deep and wide and has no limits.  But if we pay attention and look at life with compassionate eyes, we would see the suffering and the extreme poverty among our fellow men. Some don’t even have enough to eat every day, or a blanket during the cold winters, and their children just wish they had enough to pay school fees so they could carry their books to school with their friends.  Here they often wish that their family would have a water tank to store clean fresh water so that they would have enough water to use every day!  Just that one wish seemed like a long dream…! 

News of an available source of funds for the construction of fresh water tanks for 26 poor families brought much joy and happiness to the hamlet. Previously, we had quietly investigated the real situation and we had taken many trial steps before coming to an agreement between the three groups of tank construction workers and the benefiting families.  Such a deal gave the workers a fair price for their labor and helped to reinforce the solidarity and friendship currently existing in the small neighborhoods of the hamlet.  Everything happened in the spirit of sharing:  “ A shared grief becomes smaller.  A shared joy grows twice as big.”  The agreement that was reached easily was that the benefiting families would provide lunch to the workers during the construction of the tanks, while the workers would have to buy materials (cement, small stones, sand…) with their own money, and each time five tanks are completed, the families would check the work done and pay the workers

Among the peasants, there are some who are already 70, 80 years old, such as Dau Huu, Duong Thong, Hoang Trong…It is very moving to look at them. The wrinkles on their faces reflect their sufferings and their backs are bent from the weight of sufferance, poverty and a hard life of struggle and misery.  They have lived very frugally to be able to raise children, but in their declining years, they are still living in a thatch roof and earth wall house that bears the marks of winds and storms.  The floor of the house is made with a mixture of mud and soil, which is OK when it is sunny, but when a heavy rain comes, the house is flooded and the entire house becomes a dirty mud pool…!

Young couples who recently got married and tried to live on their own do not fare any better:  Hung Phuong, Le Dan, Yeu Thuy…have nothing to their name.  They try to build a future from small parcels of rice land in very low-lying areas.  The roofs on their houses are mostly made of fibrocement sheets installed at barely a person’s height, or thatch and bamboo, just enough for a family with their young children to survive.  They face an uncertain future and the threat that their children may have to quit school early because of financial difficulties in the family.

They are all facing innumerable difficulties.  However, from the elderly to the young couples, no matter how heavy their debts are, when a group of workers comes to construct a water tank, they arrange their work in the fields, borrow some money to provide to the workers and their friends a heavy lunch that is better than usual.  This is so that the construction of the tank would proceed quickly.  On the previous day, the workers had already brought over the forms, and on the following day, they would bring other construction materials.  Their friends and relatives would also come to help with cigarettes and tea, and that is why the workers are less tired.  Partly because of the weather, partly because of their own enthusiasm, their happiness and joy are doubled and mixed with the air of the rainy season arriving together with the first drops of clean and fresh water for some of the people in this hamlet, after a sudden and quick rain shower. 

Nguyet, the daughter of Nghia, told me the truth:  “ My mother and I are poor, but several times, we have tried without success to borrow and hire workers to build a water tank.  Today I am happy that I don’t have to go around asking for clean water to cook rice with.”  Nghia’s family has been having a lot of difficulties.  Her husband died when she was very young, leaving her with much sadness to raise two young children on her own.  Out of love for her children, she decided not to remarry so that she could take care of them.  Due to need and poverty, her boy has gone outside the hamlet to find work and he has not been home for a long time.  Currently, she is still working away in the fields with her daughter, day after day.

I arrive at the house of the couple Minh-Phong.  Their parents have recently given them permission to move out and live on their own.  They moved to a house at the end of the hamlet, right by the riverside.  That is why at high tide, they have to move their baby and their few belongings, a few utensils, an old blanket, a mosquito net, a bed, a pig, and a few chickens, to higher ground.  The husband tells me very candidly: “ The rainwater in the water tank is very sweet and fresh.  From now on, my wife and I don’t have to use the dirty river water anymore.  We already have clean rainwater for our use.”

The above information has not been complete, but it is sufficient to let our good-hearted benefactors know that although their contributions may be modest, to the poor and needy in Vietnam, they bring much joy and comfort. You are giving them hope and faith in a better future.  Compassion is not measured only by the amount of work that we are currently doing, but its value depends on the intensity of the loving-kindness that we are expressing to the poor with our actions, no matter how small they are.

 Nguyen Ngoc My - 2005

Thanh Ha district, Ha Tinh Province