A life of hardship and diligence
On March 7th, on the occasion of the 116th anniversary of International Women's Day (March 8th), Ms. Lam Thi Lien (48 years old, residing in Minh Loc village, Cam Trung commune, Ha Tinh province) and some female workers of Cam Loc Xanh Agricultural and Commercial Service Environment Cooperative (HTX) are still diligently collecting garbage in rural residential areas in Cam Trung commune.
It was raining heavily, chilly, in an old raincoat, Ms. Lien quickly collected garbage that households had gathered by the roadside and put it on an old apricot blossom truck to transport to the gathering yard, then it would be sorted and transported for treatment at the garbage treatment plant in Cam Xuyen commune.
Ms. Lien said that before, she mainly farmed, then Cam Loc Xanh Agricultural Environment - Commercial Service Cooperative was established, and she applied to work as a worker for 10 years now.
Honestly, every International Women's Day or Vietnamese Women's Day, I see many women wearing gorgeous dresses, applying lipstick and powder to go out and party, while I am collecting garbage, I feel quite uncomfortable. But then I told myself to just focus on doing it, and after finishing work, I will go out to make up for it later," Ms. Lien shared.
According to Ms. Lien, her work at Cam Loc Xanh Agricultural Environment - Commercial Service Cooperative requires her to work for about 15 days a month. The rest of the time, she and her husband, Mr. Le Khac Tinh (54 years old), work on 3 mau of rice fields (1 mau of Central region = 5,000 m2).
In addition, her husband also works as a seafood fisherman, and she also goes to collect scrap metal in her free time to earn extra income to raise her children to study and cover living expenses.
My husband and I do all kinds of jobs, regardless of hardship, but many times when my child calls home to ask for money, we don't have it available, so we have to run around borrowing, borrowing hot money to have money to send to our child in time," Ms. Lien confided.
Happy to raise children to be educated.
Ms. Lien and her husband got married in 1998 and had 3 children. The eldest daughter was born in 1999, the second son was born in 2002, and the third son was born in 2004. The family's eldest daughter, who studied at No. 1 University of Agriculture, graduated and worked in the environmental field in Hanoi.
The second son, Le Khac Dung, studied as an officer at the Academy of Politics, and has now graduated to work in the army in Nghe An province, belonging to Military Region 4. The third son, Le Khac Toan, is currently in his 4th year of the People's Police Academy.
“Our couple has probably been the poorest and most vất vả in this village for a long time because of the heavy burden of raising children to study. But now basically the children have finished school, so it is less vất vả. No matter how hard we endure, we are exempted from completing the responsibility of raising children to study, having a profession is already very happy,” Ms. Lien confided.
According to Ms. Lien, although she has relieved the burden of raising children, she still feels healthy, so she and her husband continue to strive to work and work. In addition to working as environmental workers, she and her husband still maintain farming 3 mau of rice fields without intending to reduce it.
Ms. Lien shared that the humble and smelly garbage collection profession may be looked down upon by many others, but for her, the more she does it, the more she feels love for the profession and wants to stick with it for a long time because she has contributed a part of her efforts to make the environment increasingly green, clean, and beautiful.
Mr. Nguyen Dai Hung - Director of Cam Loc Xanh Agricultural and Commercial Service Environment Cooperative assessed Ms. Lien as a diligent, hardworking, and very responsible employee in her work. Her husband and wife are examples of hard work, hard work, and high self-sacrifice to raise their children to study and become talented.
