Two households in the "pothole" area.

The sun had just come out, and then it suddenly started raining heavily. Mrs. Phuong paced restlessly around the house, anxiously looking towards the gate for her husband. Mr. Yen had left for the district town at dawn and should be almost home by now; he must have been caught in the rain. The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. Just as she suspected, Mrs. Phuong saw her husband hobbling into the yard with his bicycle, his leg limping. She rushed out to help him:

Oh my goodness, where did you fall?

Without answering his wife immediately, his face still contorted with anger, Mr. Yen seemed to still be in a lot of pain. After managing to get his motorbike into the house, his clothes were soaking wet. Annoyed, he slumped down on the porch and started cursing:

- Damn those two "pothole" guys, Thu and Hung. I told them to donate land for the road, but they refused. Now, going past their house is like going through a "pothole." I fell there...

- Oh, that place is so dangerous, everyone has to be careful. You know that perfectly well, so why did you still fall?

- I was in a hurry to get home and it was raining, how could I possibly avoid it? And that place, it always turns into a pothole whenever it rains.

Last year, the commune decided to build a model road in each village. Needless to say, everyone was delighted, because the roads were narrow at the time, and cars were hesitant to enter the villages due to the lack of space to pass. Now that the roads have been widened, travel and production are much easier. Many houses along the road are secretly happy, thinking that their land might increase in value.

It seemed the whole village agreed, but a few families stubbornly refused to donate land. After much persuasion from the village, commune, and various organizations, a few households finally relented, except for the neighboring houses of Mr. Thu and Mr. Hung, who remained adamant about not donating. The decision was made, and the whole village agreed that if the two households did not donate land for the road, the village would abandon the section of road passing by their houses, and the new village road would still be built according to the original plan. On the day of the road's inauguration, the whole village rejoiced, but passing by that unfinished section, everyone shook their heads in disappointment.

Since then, it's not just during heavy rains and flooding; normally, cars are cruising smoothly on the wide village road, but when they pass the two houses, drivers have to brake suddenly. Today, in the rain, Mr. Yen couldn't brake in time and fell, and he suspects that many others have fallen there before.

"And listen, I heard from the district today that the province has a policy to provide financial support for obtaining land ownership certificates ("red books") for households that donate land for roads. It's not like Mr. Thu and Mr. Hung's families are afraid of losing both land and money, that's why they didn't donate. Maybe with this policy, those two families will agree, right?"

- That would be great. But I think those two families must have felt awkward since the new road was built. How could they not build such a beautiful village road, one that the villagers worked together to construct?

- Following my fall, once the rain stops, I'll discuss with the village headman about talking to those two families again. We have to find a solution; we can't let the road, built with so much hard work by the villagers, become so unsightly just because of two households. If this continues, someone else might have a more serious accident there than I did someday...

MINH THAI

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/hai-ho-o-voi-390366.html