[Vnbiz] Barest minimum

[Phan, Tai]

Monday July 16, 2007


Barest minimum

Stories by TAN GIM EAN
The Star online - Malaysia

The villagers of Van Nho, in one of the poorest districts in Vietnam, struggle hard to survive. 

THERE is no crime in Van Nho, a sprawling highland village where people leave their doors open as they tend the fields, and attap thatched huts surrounded by clumps of greenery, viewed from a distance, could pass off as holiday chalets in exotic locales. 

But, step into one of these huts, built from bamboo and wood, and any thought of luxurious comfort immediately disappears. The inhabitants of these homes hardly have anything to call their own, let alone tempt an intruder. 

  
Living off the land: Low-quality seeds and outdated farming methods result in poor yields. 
Van Nho falls within the perimeter of Ba Thuoc, one of the poorest of 27 districts in Thanh Hoa, a province located over 270km south of Hanoi.  

Most of the huts in Van Nho are bare. What visitors may see are a soot-encrusted kettle, an equally-black pot for boiling rice and cassava (the staple foods), some rolled-up mats and woolly, floral-print blankets. 

There is no water supply, no proper toilet, no furniture, or the little personal belongings that make up a home.  

Guests won't smell cooking wafting from a pot, or trip over toys strewn across the floor. At most, they will be served hot tea from containers that look like they could do with a good scrub. 

Over 65% of Ba Thuoc's 10,400 inhabitants live below the poverty line. According to 2006 figures released by the Vietnamese government, they survive on less than US$12.50 (RM43) per month. Over 67% of the 21,753 households in this district farm land for self-consumption; a few earn extra Vietnamese Dong (VND) from raising cattle, chicken and pigs. The annual income per household is US$120 (RM414). 

Farm plots are given out by the government, according to the size of each family. On average, a four-member household will get about 500 square metres - which often don't produce enough for everyone. Thus, after the stored grains are eaten, over 70% of the population go hungry during the three months leading up to the harvest season, in May. 

Harvests are not occasions to celebrate either, because yields are poor due to low-quality seeds, backward farming methods, lack of water for irrigation, a high incidence of disease and excessive use of pesticides. 

The children of Ba Thuoc are often malnourished, evident in their small build and copper-tinged hair - evident to a group of journalists who visited the district early July on a tour organised by World Vision Malaysia (WVM). 

World Vision (WV) is an international humanitarian and advocacy organisation that strives to help the poor to help themselves. The Malaysian arm, set up in 1997, serves as a support office that raises funds for projects targeted at children and needy families, at home and abroad.  

A key WVM fund-raising event is the annual 30-Hour Famine, which will be held for the 10th consecutive year come Sept 15. Ba Thuoc is one of the beneficiaries of this year's famine, which aims to raise RM1.5mil. 

  
Makeshift classroom: Villagers value education above all else. 
Le Quang Dao, manager of WV's Area Development Programme (ADP) in Ba Thuoc, has spent the last nine months talking to its people about their problems and needs. 

The media group visited the home of Ha An Bao at Tra Ky, a highland village in Dien Quang commune. Bao could well speak for his neighbours and friends, when he lists lack of food and having to live in a temporary stilt hut as his major concerns.  

The ex-soldier was allotted 650 sq m of land for rice and another 2,000 sq m for cassava. Sadly, low yields means that sometimes, there's not enough for his family of six. 

He also wishes that he had the 45 million VND (RM9,600) needed to build a simple concrete house. While having a stable abode may remain a dream for him, he is firm about his hopes for his two grandsons.  

  
Hopeful: Ha An Bao wants his grandchildren to have a better future. 
"They need a proper school, from kindergarten level to high school. I hope they will have enough food to eat, clean water and proper toilets, and good roads that link the different villages," Bao says. 

  
Bumpy ride: A pot-holed road in Ba Thuoc. 
Except for a lucky handful who own motorcycles, people go everywhere on foot in Tra Ky. The sick have to be carried in makeshift stretchers to the nearest health centre - often a 10-hour journey over uneven terrain, potholes and puddles of mud. 

Ultimately, Bao hopes that the future generations will have access to new and better agricultural techniques. "Now, my land cannot produce enough to feed my family because of backward farming methods, passed down through the generations, and low-quality seeds." 

Bao harvests his rice fields twice yearly, and his cassava plants, once. His whole family, like most of those in Tra Ky, live on what they grow. Last year, he had a buffalo, but it died as a result of diarrhoea. This year, his pig died too. He seems quite resigned to his losses. "We eat rice mixed with cassava the whole year round," he says. "We haven't had meat for months." 

But malnutrition takes its toll on him and his fellow villagers. He notes that the elderly are prone to fever, diarrhoea, malaria and aches and pains - from years of back-bending work in the fields. 

When asked what makes him happy, Bao is at a loss for words. After some thought, he reveals that satellite television - thanks to the introduction of electricity to the commune in 2004 - gives the whole village access to its only form of entertainment. 

He cannot afford a (14-inch) TV set, which costs about RM690, nor the RM100 for the satellite connection. But there's nothing to stop him from heading for a neighbour's house where, for a while at least, he can forget his dismal surroundings as he is drawn to the bright, flitting images on the screen.