IN QUANG BINH – for the past 30 years, Van Kieu ethnic people in Doong village have lived isolated in the middle of the national forest, lacking electricity, phone waves, health care, and roads.
Ban Doong belongs to Tan Trach commune, Bo Trach district, but is located in the strictly protected core zone of Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, in the middle of a valley about 10 hectares wide, surrounded by primeval forests and limestone mountains. . If you want to enter Doong village, it takes more than an hour for those who are used to walking to arrive because of the 3 km narrow forest road with many bushes.
Thirty years ago, Mr. Nguyen Soai Trac, then 41 years old, and some forest cutters from Truong Son commune, Quang Ninh district, came here looking for honey. Seeing the vast Doong valley and fertile land, he took his wife and children to distribute trees and establish a village. From there, Ban Doong was born, the initial population was about 20, with four households.
The forest is deep and poisonous, the trees are dense, there are many wild animals. Mrs. Ho Thi Vai (now 66 years old, Mr. Trac’s wife) said that when she went to cast a fishing net, “I saw the footprints of a tiger-like a cat’s foot, but as big as a bowl of rice”. Many times when she went to the deep forest to pick bamboo shoots, she saw wild animals break the tops of rattan trees, and the bark was scratched. “The most common are wild boars, many of them have very dangerous long fangs and must be kept away,” said Ms. Vai.
At the village, there was a stream flowing in the Truong Son forest, Mr. Trac and his wife used their hands to break the land into fields and plant wet rice. There are two rice crops a year, no ash fertilizer, but the climate is favorable so the family has enough rice for the whole family to eat all year round. Food is based on stream fish and wild vegetables. However, by 2004-2005, the water source was depleted for unknown reasons. The people of Doong village had to leave their rice fields, and the forest situation was not able to actively eat rice. Many households moved to other places.
Currently, Doong village has 13 households (12 poor households) with 52 people, in which one household migrated from outside, the rest are children and grandchildren of Mr. Trac and Vai. Life in the village is almost self-sufficient, lacking many things such as electricity, telephone waves, medical stations, motor roads…
In 2016, Doong village established the first Party cell, led by Mr. Nguyen Van Choc, 31 years old, as Secretary. Mr. Choc said, around the village, there are many flatlands but cannot do rice fields because of lack of water. While growing upland rice, “must be new land, but old land does not grow”. Maize, potatoes, cassava … villagers also grow a moderate area because “planting too much can not eat all, selling for a few dongs”.
According to the Secretary of the Party cell, in 13 households, 12 houses have buffaloes and cows, the total herd is about 55 heads. Here, one household buys breed, another takes care of livestock, when the buffaloes and cows reproduce, they divide among themselves. Occasionally, traders from the plains come to the village to see and negotiate the price, then people take their buffalo to Ho Chi Minh road to sell. From the village up, it takes about three and a half hours for buffaloes and cows to go, the price is about three million dongs cheaper.
When they have money, people leave the village to buy cooking oil, salt, and other necessities. Ho Thi Thu, 30 years old, the wife of Mr. Choc, said that she only goes to the market once a month, each time running out of money. one million dongs, but “only go when Choc has a salary”.
The first “midwife” of the village was Mrs. Ho Thi Vai, who has since passed it on to her daughter-in-law Ho Thi Thu. The whole village has 26 children, 24 children were born in the village. As for Ms. Thu, in 12 years of being a bride, she gave birth to 10 children. She did not receive any training, only through the instruction of her mother-in-law.
In 2021, Thu and some sisters help a woman in the village of “mother round and square child” after two days and nights of labor. Babies are born using a string pulled from a rice bag to tie their umbilical cord before cutting it with a bamboo stick. “There are no drugs here, the mother only drinks leaves and roots. After three days of birth, she stops abstinence and lives by herself,” Thu said.
The village has a school, established in 2010. Teachers in the village depend on the people and suffer from many deprivations. With no phone signal, teachers are isolated, oblivious to the outside world. Every time Tan Trach commune has an official dispatch, it will take 4-5 days to arrive. Communes and schools often use forest rangers or travel agencies to send documents, when needed, people will be notified.
This area has many precious animals such as chamois, wild boar, monkey, douc langur, hornbill, precious wood such as doi, tuu… so from 2019, Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park Forest Protection Department set up a group with two rangers living in Doong village. The village also has two forest protection groups with 10 members, regularly patrolling and preventing acts of vandalism.
Mr. Nguyen Van Choc and his nephew Nguyen Van Sinh have been accepted as forest guards at the Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park Forest Protection Department. The integration with the outside world also began to open, when four students returned to Dong Hoi city to attend high school.
For nearly ten years, Doong village has also become a stopover in the tour to explore Son Doong and En caves. Many tourists pass by the village, but the people do not take advantage of the opportunity to improve their livelihoods. A household used to make rattan oi (fish baskets) and sold it to guests as souvenirs for 300,000 VND each, but it didn’t last long.
Despite living in poverty, the villagers do not want to leave because they are used to being self-sufficient, “don’t know how to make money”. “We just hope the government will support 3km of water pipeline to the village to cultivate rice fields, take the initiative to eat; and want a phone signal to communicate with the outside,” said village head Nguyen Soai Trac.
Mr. Tran Huong Lam, Permanent Deputy Secretary of Tan Trach Commune, said that the people of Doong village receive the general policy of the state for minorities, and the policy from Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park for the people of the region. core. The commune is studying irrigation for people to grow wet rice and has proposed to its superiors to extract capital or call for socialization.
Bo Trach district had the policy to relocate people from the core zone of the national park, but the people of Doong village did not agree. And making the road to the village “almost impossible” because this is a strictly protected area of the national forest.