Making a living from the age of nine
We visited Bao Bien hamlet, Bao Linh, Dinh Hoa, Thai Nguyen, on a day of gentle sunshine and dry wind. After stopping several times to ask the way, we finally found the home of Nguyen Thi Thu and Duong Dinh Nhat. The house is about three bays wide; apart from a few essentials — a bed and some rickety, worn-out tables and chairs — there is nothing of value in it. Over a cup of tea, Thu tried hard to tell us her story in her distorted, hard-to-understand voice.
She was born in 1983, and to this day she does not know where her home town is. In her memory, Thu remembers only one scene: sitting on the bank waiting for her parents to catch crabs and fish in the stream. Those were the happiest days of her childhood that she still holds on to today. The rest were days full of pain and hardship. There were times when she thought that if she closed her eyes, she would die.
Thu's family
Thu does not remember how old she was when she suffered a stroke; she only knows that the illness was very serious. For a long time, she could not eat or speak clearly by herself. She was paralysed down one side, her limbs were twisted, she had difficulty walking, and she could not even close her eyes when she slept. That stroke took from Thu both her physical health and her spirits. To save their daughter, her parents had to sell everything they owned, but her condition did not improve at all, and family life fell into “hell”. Her parents argued and fought constantly, and in the end the father she loved heartlessly threw her and her mother out of the house. Thu was only eight years old then.
After taking her daughter back to her parents' home, Thu's mother soon fell in love with another man. Thu thought she would have a happy family after a trip with her mother and stepfather to Huong Pagoda. But a few days after taking her on the trip, her mother and stepfather disappeared, leaving her with the words: “Be good and stay here. Mum will come back for you in three days.” After waiting for nearly a week at the guesthouse, Thu finally had to follow a begging couple who were staying there, on the landlady's advice, hoping to earn a living from people's compassion.
After following the begging couple for a few days, Thu discovered their true nature. On days when they did not beg much money or rice, Thu was beaten black and blue. Their whips fell on her without a shred of pity. Thu could only cry out for her mother. After being brutally beaten, once she felt she could walk on her own (she was nine years old then), Thu decided to run away. She dragged herself as fast as she could, hiding in winding alleys, never allowing herself to rest even when exhausted. The haunting memory of beatings that nearly killed her gave her the strength to escape.
At this point in her story, Thu confided: “After escaping from that begging couple, I lived from hand to mouth, sometimes hungry, sometimes fed. I wandered everywhere begging for food. In winter I crawled into sacks to sleep warm. On rainy, windy days, I just clutched my empty stomach and looked for abandoned huts or empty market stalls to shelter from the rain. When I was ill, I could only lie in one place waiting to recover on my own because I had no money for medicine…”
After nearly two years of fending for herself, Thu found a home when, starving, she leaned against the small gate of a family home. Seeing the ragged girl with a disability, the woman of the house gave her a bowl of rice, and when she learned of Thu's circumstances, she adopted her. That was Nguyen Minh Van (Niem Nghia, Le Chan, Hai Phong). “When I heard Mum Van say that, I wept with joy. I thought my life would be nothing but suffering. I never imagined that one day I would be taken in and surrounded by love,” Thu said.
Living with hope
From the day she lived under a solid, warm roof, Thu felt deeply content. The nights of wind, rain and bitter cold were left behind. Eighteen months later, her adoptive mother took Thu to the Hai Phong Social Protection Centre because her adoptive mother's family was too poor. She stayed at the centre until she was 15, when her adoptive mother brought her home for a visit. That day marked a new chapter in Thu's life. “While we were out, my mother and I met a Japanese man (who often sponsors orphaned children in difficult circumstances…). He pointed at me and asked why I was like this. My mother told him the whole story. After hearing it, he asked my adoptive mother for permission to take me in. After looking after me for a month, he arranged for me to live and study at Hoa Binh Children's Village in Hanoi. I lived there until I had learned a few trades in 2003.”
The kitchen of Thu and her husband
With a trade in hand, Thu threw herself into work tirelessly. But because of her poor health, however hard she tried, she could only just support herself. After seven years of settling into an ordinary life, Thu longed for a small home of her own. In 2010, through friends, Thu met Duong. Recalling those days, Thu said: “That my husband and I came together as we have today is probably thanks to Nhat's determination.” When they decided to be together, they faced fierce opposition from Nhat's family. They believed that although Nhat was a person with a disability (with a neurological condition since birth), he could still marry a non-disabled woman to look after the housework. In the end, however, his family had to agree. The wedding took place in poverty but was very warm and happy. After the wedding, the two couples, old and young, lived together under one leaky thatched roof with earthen walls. Yet they encouraged each other to keep trying.
On the day she told him she was pregnant, he wept with joy. Before their smiles could fully bloom, worry took over. They feared their children would be like them, and wondered how they would raise and teach them… Their life ahead was still full of difficulties. The family of four depended on a small plot of rice land. Luckily, her elder brother lent them a house, and the couple decided to move down the mountain to make a living. Unable to make a living from sewing and embroidery in the mountains, they borrowed a little capital to open a small grocery shop. After a while, the shop closed because they had no capital and local people were poor and often bought on credit, leaving them out of pocket. As a last resort, they turned to shaving bamboo slats. For 10,000 slats, they earned only VND 10,000, plus the disability allowance of VND 180,000 per person a month, yet this work only helped them live “from hand to mouth” from day to day.
Gazing into the distance, Thu said: “Now I don't know how to find the money for my children's school fees. I only hope benefactors will help our family with a little capital to earn a living, because we don't have the health to work as hired labour.” When we wanted to photograph the whole family in the yard, the couple supported each other as they stood on a mound of earth, swaying as if about to fall… The sun gradually disappeared behind the distant mountains as we left the ramshackle, makeshift house where they live, hoping that tomorrow their lives will change…
Thu May – http://petrotimes.vn