Continuing the career of ferrying knowledge

Mr. Tu Duyen's ferry of knowledge for free.

Mr. Tu Duyen's real name is Le Van Duyen, 62 years old, living in Dong Thanh hamlet, Dong Thuan commune, Can Tho city. Mr. Tu's house is on the bank of Thi Doi river, opposite to the other side of the river are 3 schools: Tuoi Tho Kindergarten, Dong Thuan Primary School and Dong Thuan Secondary School. His family's small ferry has been transporting passengers across the river for more than 40 years, mostly students going to school. Thanks to the ferries carrying heavy loads of love, parents have less to worry about picking up their children, and students are able to go to school.

The story of Mr. Tu Duyen's family ferrying must be told more than 40 years ago, starting with his mother, Thai Thi Sang, who passed away at the beginning of this year at the age of 97. As a resistance activist since her twenties, during the peacetime , due to her husband's early death, she had to shoulder the burden of raising 9 children alone. Due to family circumstances, none of her children had a proper education, which was also a concern for her.

Around 1984, there was only an elementary school opposite his house. Many students were late for school because they did not have a boat to row across or because they did not have anyone to give them a ride. Some students were afraid of being scolded by their teachers or scolded by their parents because they thought they were skipping school, so he felt sorry for them. So he built a small hut by the river to sell food to his students and started his journey of rowing a boat to take passengers across the river for free. After about ten years, his children also helped him row the boat, including Mr. Tu Duyen. Then when Mr. Sang got old and weak, Mr. Tu took over his mother's job, continuing the zero-dong ferry trips.

Now, on the other side of the river, there are 3 schools, with a total of about 1,000 students, and the number of ferries going back and forth every day is quite large. But Mr. Tu Duyen still keeps the price of 0 VND for each pedestrian crossing the river. Only when students leave their vehicles, he accepts to keep them at a cheap price, making it convenient for the students and their parents. Every morning, at exactly 6 o'clock, Mr. Duyen wakes up to prepare the machine, ferry, life jackets... to start the early ferries. At around 10:30, the ferries pick up passengers from the school dock to return...

And so, the journey of the ferry of knowledge continues. His three sons and his wife now also follow the family tradition, taking turns running the ferry for students. Mr. Tu Duyen said: “It is hard, but fun. Happy to see the children of our country going to school, not dropping out halfway. They also cross the river more safely.” And Mrs. Huynh Thi Vuong, Mr. Tu’s wife, shared: “So when Sunday or summer comes, when the children are absent, I feel sad and miss them immediately. Having students around makes it fun.”

Previously, someone knew of the kindness of Mr. Sang's family and supported a ferry boat. Four years ago, it broke down, so Mr. Tu Duyen invested more than 70 million VND to repair the boat and buy a new machine. What is more valuable is the road from Thoi Lai - Dong Binh road connecting to the ferry wharf, 200m long and 4m wide, which is also land donated by Mr. Tu Duyen for the locality to pave with cement, making it easier for students to travel. Mr. Tu said: "The road was initially very small, only 2m wide, so I saw that so every year we pave it more widely, making it easier for people to travel."

Sitting on the riverbank waiting for his second-grade grandson to finish school so he could pick him up, Mr. Nguyen Van Hien, a resident of Dong Thuan commune, said: Thanks to Mr. Tu's boat, his family, as well as many others, no longer has to worry about taking their children to school. In this area, sometimes both father and son have taken Mr. Tu's boat across the river to school. Truong Kim Anh, a 7th-grade student at Dong Thuan Secondary School, added that since kindergarten until now, she has been going to school by Mr. Tu's boat, all for free. She finds what his family is doing very meaningful.

During her lifetime, Mrs. Thai Thi Sang was awarded the Medal “For the Cause of Promoting Vietnamese Education” by the Vietnam Association for Promoting Education in recognition of her journey of volunteering to transport knowledge. That journey is still continued by her children and grandchildren, with their wholehearted devotion to their homeland.

Article and photos: DANG HUYNH

Source: https://baocantho.com.vn/noi-nghiep-voi-nhung-chuyen-do-cho-tri-thuc-a192738.html