Ham Thuan Nam, "the land has turned into soul"

One afternoon, I received two messages from two different people but with the same content. It was from Mr. Thai Son Ngoc, a person I knew from the first days I transferred to teach in Ham Thuan Nam. Mr. Ngoc was then a reporter for Thuan Hai newspaper, residing in the new district.

And that was Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huy Toan - Deputy Head of the Provincial Police Department's Political Affairs Department. Both of them sent me the cover photo of the Ham Thuan Nam special issue of the Year of the Monkey - 1992 and the photo of the short story page "Gold" and my poetry page. This is the special issue that we all contributed to: I contributed the article and took the photo of the first cover, Huy Toan presented and took the photos, Thai Son Ngoc wrote the article, participated in selecting the article, and edited with Nguyen Ngoc Chinh - Head of the Department of Culture and Information (later Mr. Chinh became the Director of the Provincial Department of Internal Affairs). I thought this warm literary story would stop there, but unexpectedly it kept me awake all night, it touched a memory filled with many special emotions of mine in the early days when Ham Thuan Nam district was newly established with many hardships but full of enthusiasm of my youth.

Ham Thuan Nam district was established by the Council of Ministers in December 1982, but it was not until June 1983 that the district officially came into operation. At that time, Mr. Le Van Long (Ham My) held the position of Secretary and Chairman of the district, Mr. Nguyen Van A (living at Km 26, Ham Minh) was the Deputy Secretary of the Party, and Mr. Nguyen Minh Nhat (Tan Thanh) held the position of Chief of Office.

The entire newly established Ham Thuan Nam district had 9 communes (3 communes separated from Ham Tan: Tan Thanh, Tan Thuan, Tan Lap, 6 communes separated from Ham Thuan: Ham My, Ham Kiem, Ham Minh, Ham Thanh, Ham Can, My Thanh) everywhere was full of difficulties, the population at that time was sparse. Tan Thanh was needless to say, empty, most of the people returned to their old villages and concentrated in Van Ke. The only problem was that it was too far to go to the district to buy rice and necessities, but life was not so bad, at that time Tan Thanh sea was still full of fish, the vegetables on the new land were very fresh, my rice standard was 16 kg per month, there were months when I converted part of the rice into noodles or corn, so I didn't have to worry about shortages. The road to Tan Thanh at that time was an embankment, with some sections mixed with red gravel, but the section from Cau Xeo - Doc Dau and the section from the end of Van Ke to the sea was just sand. I still remember that time, every time we walked with the teachers through Doc Dau, the teachers would be teased by the guys sitting on the backs of buffaloes: Even though you are beautiful in every way/ You walk on sandy ground, you still look… ugly… Just like that, I don't know why at that time the teachers were so scared, their faces were red...

I asked to stay at my relative's house, Uncle Binh Mai, to teach, and on weekends I went back to my mother's house in Tan Hai. After teaching for the entire school year, I received a decision to become the Vice Principal of Suoi Nhum New Economic School.

Head of the school, Mr. Ke (Nguyen Khai), picked me up from the Cay Dau Ba intersection in the middle of the forest to take me to Suoi Nhum. I carried my bicycle along the entire road through the quicksand forest, hoping for some solid ground to ease my fatigue, but in the end I was just… the one carrying the bicycle. Mr. Ke and the villagers slaughtered a small calf and invited us, the new teachers, to have our first meal. Sincerity. Respect. That was what I felt when I arrived at the new school.

Suoi Nhum School is located on the top of the hill in the center of the residential area, called Doi Hai. It was on windy afternoons here that I began to have my first understanding of this resistance base area. After 1975, Kim Binh commune received a large number of migrants from Phu Quy island to form the new Suoi Nhum economic zone under Tan Thanh commune (Thuan Quy commune was not officially established until 1986. The commune was divided into 3 villages: Thuan Minh, Thuan Thanh and Thuan Cuong instead of 8 teams as before). The school's pedagogical council was quite large, at first, Mr. Thai Ba Thanh was the principal, then he withdrew to Tan Thanh and handed over to me, from the vice principal of professional affairs to the principal, the majority of the teachers were from Ha Tinh and Nghe An. Suoi Nhum students are very obedient, studious and respect their teachers very much, now, after more than thirty years, they still visit me every time the Teachers' Day, November 20th. After working here for 4 years, I received a decision to become the vice principal of Tan Lap 1 School, replacing Ms. Nguyen Thi Mien. Mr. Nguyen Tu, the head of Cooperative 5, made a petition to the commune asking for a piece of land behind the school to build a house. Chairman Nguyen Van Cong happily signed it right away, he said briefly: "I hope you can work with peace of mind!". Tan Lap is an area that is expected to become a district town but does not meet the standards (until June 15, 1999, Thuan Nam town was established, separating the area from Doc Mieu to Ham Minh). This is a land with no indigenous people, but immigrants from many regions across the country, most of them from Quang Ngai.

Regardingeducation , at first, a few primary schools were opened in the parishes of Hiep Duc and Hoa Vinh. Most of the children living in the area did not have the conditions to go to school. After the liberation, in 1976, Phu Dong Primary School and Hoa Vinh Primary School were established based on the literacy classes of nuns in the church. It was not until the time of Mr. Huynh Nhu Hoang and Mr. Nguyen Van Sang that "school after school, class after class", that there was an official decision on the Principal.

Coming here, the first information I heard about this "not gentle" land, a "typically advanced commune in strengthening and protecting the revolutionary government in the Central provinces" made me shiver forever. Those were the stories in 1977, the rebel group Ngo Khon Hon, Nguyen Dinh Truyen, Nguyen Van The surrounded the People's Committee of the commune at midnight, took away their guns, controlled the entire guerrilla force on duty, shot and killed the commune Chairman Cao Van Long, and wounded Vice Chairman Bui Cung. In 1978, the rebel group in Hoa Vinh shot and killed Village Chief Phan Thuc Dinh... I heard about the past and was afraid, but when I came here to teach, the general situation had stabilized. In the period after the establishment of the town, people's awareness of the importance of studying was clearly raised, and infrastructure was continuously built and upgraded. At that time, our school's pedagogical council had 23 teachers, Mr. Huynh Phuong was the principal, I was the vice principal, and the following year, Mr. Phuong left and I took his place.

During this period, I was still haunted by the image of the teachers of Hoa Vinh branch being suddenly flooded and unable to run away. When I swam to the teachers’ dormitory, the water in the school yard had risen to their heads. Inside the dormitory, four teachers, their clothes soaked, were sitting hugging each other and crying on three layers of stacked student desks and chairs, with the muddy water continuing to rise all around. I had to quickly swim and pull up the desks and chairs to prevent them from falling, and then call for help from another parent named Hoi, who lived behind the school. Hoi was a strong carpenter and had experience in flood control here, so we were less worried and waited until the water receded. After that terrible flood, most of the grade books, books, and papers in the school cabinets were soaked and ruined. Some had to be salvaged, the rest had to go to the education department to get new ones and redo them…

Although the school branch in Village 3 is still thatched, the number of students and classes is relatively stable. The only problem is that the school is located in a densely populated area. Every time a mobile film team comes to serve the people, the next day the teachers and students have to "get" tired of cleaning up the trash.

Dragon fruit trees not only alleviated poverty but also quickly made this land rich. The infrastructure of the whole district was built well, including our school. At that time, teaching and learning at the school was quite systematic, had begun to go deep into quality, the teachers' lives also improved thanks to the policy of eliminating subsidies...

In 2009, after winning many consecutive literary awards, I was admitted to the Vietnam Writers Association. Thanks to my work writing party history for communes in the district, I was present regularly “on every kilometer”, from the mountainous areas of Ham Can, My Thanh to Muong Man, Ham Kiem, Ham Cuong, Ham Minh, Thuan Nam town... While researching, asking questions, recording and capturing information through many periods to write history, at the same time, those were also “field trips”, penetrating life to write and write for my articles. It was a double-whammy, but the biggest gain was that I understood more about the hard-working and kind-hearted people of Ham Thuan Nam. Behind those rustic, rustic looks were tolerant, generous and forgiving souls. How many beautiful, affectionate memories, “love and affection” of my uncles, brothers and sisters towards me in every land I set foot on! How many hearts, how many noble deeds in difficult circumstances have moved my soul! How many things have I learned from the simple life of farmers on this dry and windy land!

In the blink of an eye, it has been nearly forty years since I have been attached to Ham Thuan Nam, filled with a familiar memory, many, many human feelings, life feelings that I have lived with, shared, I have truly recreated in my literary works. Suddenly, I feel deeply the two verses of poet Che Lan Vien:

“When we are here, it is just a place to live.

When we leave, the land becomes our soul!

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