Sweat in the melon fields and tears in Trinh’s determination to go to college

In her confession, Mrs. Pham Thi Luc – Trinh’s mother – occasionally turned her eyes to the altar. For eight years after the demise of her husband, she worked hard to earn a living. Although I know that literacy is very important and it can be a way out of my suffering, a widow like her can hardly make this effort.

sweat in the melon fields

At noon on an August day, Trinh and her mother hid in a watermelon field. In Hung Nghia village, Pho Phong commune, Duc Pho town (Quang Ngai), finding a seasonal job is lucky. Staying in the sun all day is lighter than climbing a mountain to peel gum.

Trinh, since the day of her high school graduation exam, has moved with her mother and aunts and uncles to work in the village. If they perform well, they will be paid 200,000 VND each day.

The weather was hot and the sun was shining in her face, but Trinh was hopeful that it would work. The money she earns every day helps her get admission in college.

“My mother said that I would take home enough money when I entered school, so I put in more effort in the hope of getting enough tuition and starting rent. Once I was settled, I immediately started a part-time job. Will find out,” Trinh calculated.

To find relief from the hard work, the scorching heat, everyone worked and teased each other, and only the next girl who escaped poverty was like no one else! But just for fun, everyone encouraged Trinh to try going to school. Everyone used up their lives by not being able to support Trinh to work hard and enter the classroom.

Of course, Ms. Luke understands that studying is the only way for her daughter to change her life, it is too expensive compared to the amount of money she earns every day. Several people also spoke up and said, Mrs. Luke said: “Let’s go there or go there, if it is not enough, you can give me a temporary loan and then return it.”

And they all agreed, all saying that they were willing to share because “it’s good for Trinh to study hard, but she is retired and is just as poor as this village”.

Hearing this, Mrs. Luke sighed. Since her husband’s death, she has worked hard every day, the only happiness being her two obedient children, who are working hard. After finishing the work, mother and daughter ran to the edge of the field to cut the grass, and put it into sacks to feed the cows.

Back home, it was already evening, seeing Trinh bringing water to the cows to drink, feeding the chickens, then going out to the veranda to chop vegetables in preparation for dinner, Mrs. Luke cried. Said: “I wish his father was still alive, his life wouldn’t have been ruined. So much.”

“Cactus can survive even in drought”

Trinh is small and quiet. When her father died, the girl was only 10 years old, how could she imagine the difficulties that came upon her after that incident. In those days, every afternoon brought endless sadness to Trinh. She recalls: “At that time, when I came home from school, I used to go to the fields to cut grass for the cows. It was late night and my mother had not yet come home. One day, when it was raining There was thunder and lightning, both the sisters were so scared that they hid in the corner of the house and started crying hugging each other.

Growing up with a fear of rainy afternoons, Trinh also stopped being afraid of thunder and faced it calmly. His biggest fear is dropping out of school. So the daughter always makes every effort to make her mother feel safe in working and tries to study well so that her mother does not feel “sad”. Trinh took out a stack of merit certificates for excellent students during the past time and said that thanks to them, his mother was “sorry” not to force him to leave school.

Mrs. Luke sat down next to him, looked at each certificate of competency, then sighed. She said that although she advised her child to become a worker, honestly if she had to leave school, she would feel guilty for the rest of her life. In this village overlooking the plain, surrounded by mountains, there are not many people who are as good at studies as Trinh.

She was proud of it, but after six years of fighting cancer with her husband, she borrowed it from everywhere she went whenever she heard that his liver had been cured. She talked about trying to keep the father together for the children and also expressed hope that her husband would recover from this disease so that both of them could raise the children together.

“I didn’t try to conquer fate, by now my husband passed away and I still have a debt of 300 million dong and I can’t pay it off. Coming to this house, it’s also the storm that came two years ago.” Thank you, the Women’s Association loved supporting the money, then beneficiaries passing by saw that the situation was so bad that there was no more to be able to do”, Ms Luke said.

Describing the storm, Trinh remembers that her parents had to hide under a concrete slab used for the kitchen. The storm passed, the house was empty, Trinh thought he no longer had a home to live in. The girl is grateful for the help and also understands that poverty will persist if she does not rise.

Trinh said that when she heard her mother say that she had left school to work as a laborer, she cried, not because she was weak, but because she felt sorry for herself, her The tears were bitter for his fate. Trinh confirmed, “I won’t skip school. Cactus can live in dry places, so I too will be able to survive, even if I am unhappy.”