(GLO)- My mother has a habit of not buying brooms. She said, "I make my own broom to sweep, it's not difficult, why buy it and waste money." Every time she went into the mountains to collect firewood, she would cut down a bundle of palm trees and bring them back. When asked, she would say, "I'm bringing back a bundle of palm trees for the kids to sweep the yard."
Back home, the bony broom was neatly arranged by my mother, using a machete to cut the stump into pieces and then using bamboo strips or wire to tie them tightly into a handle. The top part was left loose like a bunch of curly hair to sweep the yard. The broom was not bad for sweeping the yard, but it did not look as nice as the bony brooms made of coconut fibers sold in the market.
I was shy with my friends, so I didn't dare carry a broom when I went to work at school; I always volunteered to carry a basket or something. At home, if I took a broom out to sweep the alley or street and happened to see a friend passing by, I would immediately hide the broom behind my back, find something to say and... gently chase the friend away before continuing to sweep.
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Illustration: Huyen Trang |
Knowing that, my mother did not cut down the palm tree like usual but instead looked for some old palm leaves. If the palm leaves were left intact, they would spread out like... the three-bladed fan in the Journey to the West. My mother had to use forest vines to tie up the large spreading palm leaves and cut the ends of the leaves shorter. One or two dry palm leaves were tied together, using woven rope to tie the leaf skeletons together to fit the size of the broom head, then cutting the underside to create a simple but extremely durable broom that could withstand the sun and rain. The two palm leaf ribs were tied together to form a natural handle that helped the sweeper stand upright, so there was less back pain. Of course, in terms of aesthetics, it was not like a broom, so I could confidently carry it to school without fear of my friends teasing me.
When I was a little older, my mother showed me how to tie brooms with the leaves of the dung dinh tree, also known as the dung dinh tree. In my hometown, dung dinh grows wildly in abundance. If you are willing to go hunting and chopping for a few hours, you will bring home a whole armful. Making a dung dinh broom is quite simple: a few dung dinh trees of the same size are joined together, using string to tie the midrib of the leaves on the stem into smooth, evenly spaced bundles like a broom handle. The soft tail of the leaves is left free. The tail of the dung dinh tree is naturally flat and spread out like the head of a broom. The midrib of the leaves is tightly joined to form a handle; the tail of the leaves hugs each other and spreads out to form a natural, dark green "broom head" that is very pretty. The dung dinh broom is soft and can be used to sweep tiled or cemented floors very smoothly. Not only that, we also competed to tie brooms and bring them to school to score during handicraft class.
Unfortunately, the brooms are easy to make and pretty, but they… spoil quickly. After just a few days or half a month, when the leaves lose their green color and shrivel, the broom is “out of date”! But my mother always said, if one broom is damaged, we can make another one, just be diligent, there is no shortage of broom leaves.
My mother is old now but still works hard. The other day I came to visit, went to the back of the house and saw a brand new self-tied broom, so I shouted: "Oh my, are you... tying brooms again, Mom?". Mom smiled toothlessly: Yes; the kids were cleaning the fence and left some branches of the broom lying around, so I took the opportunity to tie a broom to sweep the yard, so I didn't have to spend money to buy one.
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