An old farmer spent his 24 years’ time paving the rural roads for his co-villagers.

This is the 24th year that Mr. Pham The My, 65 years old - a citizen of Dien Nam Bac Commune, Dien Ban Rural District, Quang Nam province - has had his strong attachment to this unpaid job.

Old farmer Pham The My provided the free-of-charge water\r\npumps  served to irrigate the plants grown by his co-villagers (See the\r\nphoto taken by Du Tuan).

Talking about his ‘cause’ of the pavement of the roads, Mr.\r\nMy said, “In 1990, my village roads were blown off partly due to weather and\r\nnatural calamity. As a result, some passers-by constantly met with road\r\naccidents while those who worked in the fields had to spend half of the day to\r\nreach their destinations. I could not bear such a sight and that was why I had\r\nto mend the roads for my co-villagers.”

Once he thinks of something, Mr. My puts it into practice.\r\nTherefore, from then on he has got up from 4 o’clock in the morning while his\r\nco-villagers are still sleeping and he rides his shabby bicycle with his hoe\r\nand shovel and some work instruments and goes out to mend the village roads. At\r\nfirst sight, some of his co-villagers uttered, “How come this old man does not\r\ncare for his own housework; instead, he cares for the work for nothing!”

Ignoring those comments, he has been ‘gliding’ around the\r\nroads and trying to quickly mend the broken sections with sand and stone. Not\r\nonly that whenever he hears of a section that causes inconveniences to his\r\nco-villagers, Mr. My personally comes to see it with his own eyes and then\r\ntries to mend it.

His road-mending work usually happens from early\r\nin the morning to twilight during which there are less passers-by. In that way,\r\nhe has been silently performing his work to serve his co-villagers’s\r\npeaceful life. Not only mending the roads, he also uses his very hands to\r\nembank the ‘welfare’ paths for his co-farmers to pass on. In the morning\r\nwhen his villagers go to their fields and notice the\r\nnewly-embanked paths, they quickly recognise that Mr. My has just been\r\nthere.

Witnessing the inconveniences encountered by his\r\nco-villagers who visit their family members’ in the Dien Nam Bac graveyard due\r\nto the winding and muddy path, Mr. My spent almost three years long cutting\r\ntrees and paving it, sometimes he even forgot his lunch and his naps, providing\r\nto finish it as early as possible for his co-villagers. And finally the\r\nover-two-kilometer-long  path was finished. Thanks to this, the tomb\r\nvisitors now no longer have to take pains going a roundabout path to reach the\r\ngraveyard as before.  Mr. My recalled “the period of three years’ time\r\nduring which he tried to mobilise land devotion for the path, then to clear it\r\nand pave it until it, the ‘welfare’ path, is ready to be used now!  As it\r\nwas a hollow piece of land, the surface of it needed much to be leveled – some\r\ntimes I had to pitch a temporary tent by it to continue the work and pass the\r\nnight in it. And finally the path was finished.”

Besides his pavement of the ‘welfare’ roads, Mr. My also\r\nplanted some trees and flowers along the roads. According to him, the trees are\r\ndesigned to provide a place for passers-by to sit down and take a short rest,\r\nwhile the flowers are to embellish the roads, and that is all.

Talking about the contributions made by Mr. My, madam Nguyen\r\nThi Hoa, of Cam Sa Hamlet said, “Mr. My is the owner of many rural roads. It is\r\nthanked to him that the rural roads have become more spacious and airy.\r\nPreviously, due to the absence of the roads, rice and farm produce harvesting\r\nand transporting them home on our shoulders were very difficult.  But,\r\nsince there were the roads, these jobs have been done very easily; motorbikes\r\nhave even been running smoothly directly to the fields. “

Spending his own money to buy machines to be used by\r\nco-villagers.

Witnessing his co-villagers’ loss of crops due to drought,\r\nold farmer Pham The My spent the money that he had saved from his job of\r\nbicycle mending to buy five water pumps  which were mounted at Cam Sa and\r\nPhong Ho hamlets (of Dien Nam Bac Commune). For two years, it is thanked to\r\nthese free-of-charge pumps that the farmers in this area have no longer worried\r\nabout the lack of water for their rice crops due to drought. Having reaped\r\ncrops laden with rice and fresh fruit, hundreds of local households in Dien Nam\r\nBac Commune were secretly indebted to Mr. My’s benevolence. Not being\r\na rich person, but Mr. My has been a person who is very generous in spending\r\nhis own money for public activities. According to him, it is his living\r\nuniversal truth.

Talking to us, Mr. My moderately said, “As a countryman\r\nliving on farming, I, therefore, understand the miseries that farmers have to\r\nundergo to get every grain of rice. Everyday I have to mend bicycles to get\r\nmore income and save some here and there so that I may buy water pumps to help\r\nmy co-farmers in watering their fields - it is, therefore, not a great thing!”

In the hot and dry sun and being all of a sweat, Mr. My\r\nceaselessly excavated the soil and pulled the electric wire to the pumps to\r\nmake them work and used water from the pumps to irrigate the various Dien Nam\r\nBac rice fields. Not minding any difficulties, and after almost 5 months, the\r\nfive water pumps started working in the joy of his co-workers. Each week, Mr.\r\nMy stopped by the spot to see whether the pumps still worked adequately and\r\ngave the directions to his co-farmers how to use the pumps correctly - if there\r\nwas any pump that worked inadequately, he spent his own money to maintain it in\r\ngood condition or replace the broken parts. It is thanked to his good care,\r\nthese 5 free water pumps are considered the savers of his co-farmers in their\r\nfields during the period of drought. Leisurely walking along the straight\r\nvillage road and saw that the villagers were harvesting their vegetable crops,\r\nsuch as loofah, gourd, pumpkin, etc., from a bamboo frame mounted\r\nacross the road, I asked a farmer, “Dear uncle, why do you grow these\r\nvegetables along a road? Don’t you be afraid of those flowers and fruits be\r\nstolen by passers-by?”  Mr. Hua Bong (50 years old) smiled and\r\nanswered,”All these have been grown by Mr. My. The main purpose of these frames\r\nis for shading farmers from the sun. Whoever wants can pick them. We are not at\r\nall afraid of stealing.”

Mr. My always orientates himself in all work,\r\nalthough trifling, for the benefits of the community and his co-farmers.\r\nIt’s him who was the first to suggest and mobilise money from his\r\nco-farmers to finance the over 500m-long concrete road running to the group of\r\nfields in Cam Sa Hamlet. To assure his co-farmers, he himself took charge of\r\nthe phase of repairing the broken road sections. Since the starting day, he has\r\nstopped all his family work so as to collaborate with his co-farmers in the\r\nconstruction of the village road.

In the robust shape and deep shrunk lines on face,\r\nthis kind-hearted farmer daily sweeps rural paths.

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Mr. Tran van Dung, Cam Sa Hamlet chief, said, “The work\r\ncarried out by Mr. My has helped his co-farmers so much. His daily job gives\r\nhim unstable income. So he has spent his own money to help his community in\r\nbuying the water pumps and paving the village roads. It should be noted that it\r\nis thanks to the great community spirit that Old Farmer Pham The My has spent\r\nall what he has for it.

Theo:danviet.vn

Translated into English by Mr. Hoang Huan, layman.