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| Project HappyChild has 14 areas | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | click any area to access |
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Kathryn Watts reporting worldwide.
ARTICLE 9
The Minority villages of Vietnam
When I look through the pictures of children
that I have collected whilst travelling, I feel
that they radiate the very energy of happiness
in their faces and in their actions that I have
experienced directly from them. And all from
such a young age. They all appear to enjoy life
so much and are involved in helping one another,
inherent in the spirit of their community. They
seem to have grasped concepts such as trust and sharing which at such a young
age is rare in Western countries.
We managed to spend a day at a minority village. This was after a long journey down dirt track roads to an out-of-the-way place on the boundaries of a National Park. Here we stayed in a wooden hut on stilts and experienced an elephant ride through the Park. A bum-numbing experience!
I was fascinated and filled with respect
for the way that the people in the
minority villages lived. They were
completely self-sufficient. The children
herded up and rode buffaloes, women
carried resources on their heads or as in
the picture with baskets either side of
a wooden pole on their shoulders.
This was along roads the colour of brick red, in vast
contrast to the lusciously green vegetation which they
grew themselves as a source of food. Clothes were washed
at the riverside and people bathed. We were welcomed into
this community, wandered with the women, were waved and
smiled at by the children curiously staring our way.
Another community in
Vietnam, outside Hoi An,
again opened our eyes to
a life which one could not imagine living. These
people to an extent rely on the tourist trade by
working hard at weaving beautiful rugs, one of
which still sits proudly on my lounge floor.
They
make clothes, bags, statues and
other ornaments, all of amazing colours and design.
The Big Chicken in the
picture was a well-known
symbol of this village. We
wandered around through the
muddy narrow paths
surrounded by plants and
vegetation that shadowed our
bodies. Every now and then the paths would open up where
a hut had been built. Many children would gather in the
doorways waving at us. Mostly we were welcomed, although
understandably some were apprehensive. Young children would walk past us
carrying a younger brother or sister strapped to their back with a piece of cloth
like in the photo. Again the close kinship was clearly visible.
We stopped to look in a hut where a family
lived, after politely asking. We saw an open
room where everyone lived, cooked, talked,
played and slept. It was a whole new
unimaginable existence to people who know
so well the concept of having many rooms
that make up a house, such as the
bedrooms, bathroom, living room, and
kitchen. It was difficult to perceive how
they coped. It all made me wonder whether we, after being used to so many
comforts and luxuries, could live in the same happy and contented spirit as these
people.
It was in the lusciously green highlands of Sa Pa,
surrounded by the paddy fields that we came
across a minority village where we were invited to
stay the evening, an experience which I shall never
forget. The town itself was where many different
tribal people lived. Their costumes, heavy
jewellery and colourful attire made the place all
the more alive. We were escorted around by young girls practising their English
that was very good, embarrassingly unlike the few words that we had learnt in
Vietnamese to get us by.
The town stood proud looking down towards the hills, valleys and mountains from where we had originally slowly climbed in a bus. The descent was quite a different matter. We took corners fast around treacherous bends. We unfortunately managed to hit another bus, however it was sorted out in minutes and we were soon taking off again, no further note of caution taken as a result. I think that this is a regular thing, and all part of the fun if you can call it that!
We spent the day walking the paths where we
met young boys and girls wearing amazing
costumes and carrying sticks with which they
herded up their animals. We climbed down into a
valley surrounded by rice and paddy fields to a
minority village where we wandered around the
huts and enclosed hens and chicken pens, and
among the food that they grew. The house we
stayed in was again one room, as shown in the photo. The wooden hut had wooden
boulders inside helping to hold steady the structure. The floors were concrete and
a family was sitting on pieces of chopped wood and a dog was lying on the floor. A
small baby was siting in a playpen made of wood and looked up astonished when we
entered. We were welcomed by the people who were most hospitable. We spent
the evening talking in a group.
Another of our many experiences of
the Vietnamese people was while
waiting for a bus. There is no time scale
in Vietnam to go by. If a bus is due in
ten minutes there is no telling whether
it will be ten minutes or indeed four
hours. The people have such a laid back
mentality to life. No frustration is felt.
It is interesting in contrast to the
hectic lifestyles of people in places like
London, and the apparent frustration of people waiting for a train on the
underground.
We began speaking to a community of
people who lived in houses and small
shops along the roadside. They asked us
to sit with them and persistently tried
to practise their English. It was
amazing that although we could not
communicate with each other, most of
the time we managed to understand
each other using sign language and
shared a sense of humour through such
communications and use of facial expressions. 
We would often all find ourselves
laughing at exactly the same things. They trusted us to hold their small children
while they went off briefly, they even had a go at another Vietnamese woman who
was persistently trying to sell us drinks which we did not want more of after
already consuming more than enough. It was a simple yet memorable afternoon,
yes, all four hours of it! In the company of people who really made the afternoon
special and personified the lifestyle and laid back attitudes of their culture.
The people in this country fascinated me, taking things in their daily lives as they came. No effort is ever too much for them to do things for one another, even for foreigners like ourselves. I never once remember seeing anyone moaning about hard work or the traumas of everyday life. Not even the older men who cycled us around the city on their rickshaws, in the noonday sun. They all appeared to get on with life and enjoyed every minute that was given to them. Western people might usefully live with the same patience and enthusiasm for life. I am not at all sure that affluent Westerners are more fortunate than rural Vietnamese people, for in many important ways these villagers have a quality of lifestyle that is entirely missing here, and perhaps we have much to learn from them.
............................... Kathryn Watts
| Roving Reporter - Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | e-mail: kathryn (at) happychild.org.uk |
| This is Area 6 - News - Roving Reporter - Kathryn Watts - http://www.happychild.org.uk/nvs/news/kathryn/index.htm at Project HappyChild - linking children all across the world
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