Canning 60 km/day to get to class
In Lao Cai, Ms. Vu Thi Trang (born in 1998) - a preschool teacher working in Trinh Tuong commune - one of the province's particularly disadvantaged communes with many hardships.
After passing the internship exam in 2019, Ms. Trang started with a salary of 1.7 million VND/month excluding attractive allowances. More than a year later, she officially became a preschool teacher.
Currently, she enjoys a salary coefficient of 2.41 of level 2, plus seniority and allowances for areas with special difficulties, with a total income of more than 10 million VND.
Ms. Trang remembers the day she first took the job, she was shocked because her living conditions lacked everything. Around the scene, there are quiet scenery, pig-shaped, and occasionally, a few houses with corrugated iron roofs or overcast leaves, with muddy earthen walls. All around is old forest, fields or small streams winding through the valley.
The atmosphere here is so quiet that every step of the way, the sound of motorbikes or the crowing of birds is clearly heard in the wild, quiet space. After 3 consecutive months at the school, she waited until 7pm every night to call home to hear the sound of her a few-month-old son, then tried to sleep early to avoid self-pity.
After that, Ms. Trang started to go - return every day, traveling 60 km of the mountain road. The section from the city to the commune is easy to travel, but about 10km from the commune center to the school is always dangerous, especially during storms.
For many colleagues from further away, that distance is up to 70-80 km/day - a journey that they have become accustomed to, considering it the normal part of the job.
Not only that, most of her students are children of ethnic minorities, struggling all year round in the fields, many people do not have the conditions to send their children to school.
Many times, Ms. Trang and her colleagues have had to go to their homes to encourage families to send their children to school. For other families, they only rely on support from the state and volunteer groups to have money for their children to go to school.
Many times, she has to pay to buy books and pay for tuition for her own students - children that she does not like to let them suffer more.
"Wrestling" because of love like a child
At a school located in the middle of a mountain in Seo Phin Than village, A Lu commune, Lao Cai province, Ms. Lo Thi Men (born in 1990) has been a preschool teacher for 8 years.
The road from home to school is only over 20 km long, but it took her nearly an hour to travel because the road was dirt, rocks and steep slopes. The sun was still shining, but on rainy days, the wheels sliding long, there were days when she had to park her car in the village, traveling the whole road in time to pick up the children.
The school where Ms. Men teaches is located separately in the mountains. The classrooms are patched from old materials. In winter, the wind recedes so much that the teachers have to use tarpaulins to cover the doors and wrap scarves for each child. On hot days, classrooms become "stormy" because the corrugated iron roof is broken.
The most difficult thing is still living. Without tap water, every afternoon after school, Ms. Men took a bus to ask for water from a resident's house nearly a kilometre from the school.
Ms. Men's income after 8 years of working in both the classroom allowance and the allowance for difficult areas is more than 11 million VND/month. After deducting gasoline, accommodation, the remaining amount is not worth much. For many years, she wanted to take her child with her for easy care, but the path was dangerous, so she had to leave her child to her paternal grandparents in the lowlands to look after.
"I feel sorry for not being close to my children, but seeing the floodwaters in the highlands, everyone is thirsty for love, I think I will try a little more" she said.
Many students come to class with weak bellies, torn clothes, and cracked legs due to cold. On days when she saw that her students had nothing to eat for breakfast, Ms. Men divided the rice she brought with her. Sometimes when she ran out of money, she gave up her salary to buy warm clothes and boots for the children.
For Ms. Men and Ms. Trang, "plugging up" is no longer a task, but a promise to the children, who consider them as their own.
"Just seeing children well into class, smiling brightly, eating well, speaking a few more common phrases... is enough for me to stay in school for another day" Ms. Men confided.
