Songs on the mountaintop

The road to the Cá Lủng Kindergarten is being built. The road is rough and uneven, with rocks and dust flying everywhere. Those unfamiliar with the route would find riding a motorbike even more tiring than walking. Throughout the 4km journey from the commune center to the school, Officer Lừ drove silently, but I knew his arms were aching. Several times, I wanted him to stop for a rest, but he insisted: "We have to get there early! The teachers and children are waiting!"

Anyone traveling up the Dong Van Stone Plateau in Ha Giang province, passing the Tham Ma pass, will find a fork in the road: one leading up to Pho Cao, another down to Van Chai, and the remaining small branch leading to Lung Thau. On the day I arrived in Lung Thau, the Vice Chairman of the commune, Ly Mi Lu, confided that Lung Thau is hidden behind towering mountain ranges shrouded in clouds, and the road to it is a dead end, so it had been a long time since a visitor from the lowlands had come to visit. During my business trip, he invited me to visit the Ca Lung Kindergarten, part of the Lung Thau Kindergarten School. With November 20th (Vietnamese Teachers' Day) approaching, the teachers and students there were practicing dances and songs; it would surely be a joyful occasion!

My school is small... Located in the middle of a forest.

The Cá Lủng school branch is nestled on a slope, surrounded by vast skies and clouds, with the deep green of the forest and rocky mountains stretching as far as the eye can see. In the 2024-2025 school year, the school branch has two classes, with a total of 52 students aged 3-5. The two classes are taught by Ms. Hoàng Thị Linh (born in 1994) and Ms. Sùng Thị Chở (born in 1996).

The teachers at Ca Lung Kindergarten welcome the students to class every morning.

The makeshift classroom where the teachers and students live was handed over and put into use in 2019. Due to the limited land area of ​​the school, the two classes had to be divided by temporary partitions, and consequently, there hasn't been any land allocated for the construction of a kitchen for the young children. Every morning, the students' meals are cooked at the main school and brought here by tricycle. After the children finish eating, the school's kitchen staff pulls the cart with the bowls and chopsticks to take them outside.

In their second year working with the students in Cá Lủng, the two young teachers confided that seeing the students having to push through the leaves and climb the mountain to get to class every day filled them with anxiety and worry, and they only breathed a sigh of relief when the class reached its full capacity.

As the dry season arrived, the water source gradually dried up, so the teachers and students relied entirely on the old rainwater storage tank behind the house for all their daily needs. Several times a day, the two teachers would climb onto a stone to prop themselves up, struggling to push open the heavy concrete lid, and carry several buckets of water for the children to wash their faces and clean their tiny feet, which were covered in mud from their journey to class. The water in the tank was only used for washing the children's hands and feet. Drinking water was provided by a separate water filter, but even that had to be used sparingly.

A lesson at the Ca Lung Kindergarten School.

Despite the difficulties, the two teachers regularly went to class every day. The children of the highlands, with rosy cheeks like ripe apples, were very diligent in attending school. Their voices, sometimes chirping in the quiet schoolyard, sometimes echoing through the vast mountains and forests, filled the air as they swam. Then, in the evenings, after class, the teachers would go to the gate and watch the tiny figures disappear down the hillside, before hurrying back home, climbing the mountain slopes and descending several inclines as darkness fell.

My teacher is young... She teaches me to sing very well.

Recess time for teachers and students at the school branch.

The Cá Lủng preschool shares a playground with two elementary school classes. Most of the preschool-aged children have older siblings attending the school. At dismissal time, the older siblings carry their lunchboxes in one hand and lead their younger siblings home along the old path with the other.

In the classroom is Lu Thi Chai. This year Chai is 5 years old and has started kindergarten, but she's only as small as the children in preschool! Chai's house is behind a mountain; you can see the tiny path leading to her house from the schoolyard. The mountain is huge, but Chai's feet are small. In the mornings, when the dew is still damp on the leaves, Chai would cautiously follow that winding path to school, always arriving by... the sun had already risen above the mountain peak! Her parents can't take her anywhere because they have to work to support Chai and her five siblings' education. Chai never misses class because going to school means getting a delicious meal; at home, she might only eat cornmeal porridge and cabbage soup all day.

Every recess, Chai would hobble out to the small courtyard, watching his friends play, and wonder why his hands and feet weren't like theirs. He had been born with limb disabilities, so whenever Chai wondered about it, his teachers, Ms. Cho and Ms. Linh, could only hug him, stroke his sun-bleached hair, and say, "We love you so much, Chai!"

Ms. Linh said: "Today, the elementary school class is off. We can't bear to let the children go home by themselves. The road is so long... I'm very worried. So, on days like this, we usually wait for each child's parents to come and pick them up!"

Most of the students at Ca Lung School are children from disadvantaged families.

To prevent the students from crying from homesickness, and to ease her impatience as darkness was falling, the whole class went out to the yard to play children's games. The teacher's warm, clear voice, and the children's babbling voices echoed throughout the valleys: "Today's game is called 'sowing seeds.' Let's all read along with me: sow seeds, seeds sprout, one leaf, two leaves, one bud, two buds, one flower, two flowers..."

Watching the teacher and students dance and sing, I suddenly thought that these days, all over the high mountain peaks of Ha Giang, buckwheat flowers are blooming brightly, but that's certainly not the most beautiful flower. The most beautiful flower of the rocky plateau is still being nurtured by people like teacher Linh and teacher Cho!

Vu Mung (Ethnic Groups and Development Newspaper)

Source: https://baophutho.vn/loi-ca-tren-dinh-non-ngan-222761.htm