Cherry Huong

This was the first time I have participated in voluntary activity with my faculty (FIS). As scheduled, we would visit Duong Lam – an ancient village for a presentation about its old-aged history; then go to Ba Vi to plant trees on hills. We set off at 6:30 A.M with 12 students from different classes (we are the youngest because all of us just begin the major this year). It had been raining the whole night, so it was clear and cool, which was suitable for a trip.

The first destination was Duong Lam. As I mentioned earlier, it was an ancient village. There are several common features you should notice to identify if it is ancient or not. At the gate of an olden village, we can see three things: A deep well, a big tree believed to have ghosts around (we call it “Cay Da” in Vietnamese) and a mysterious temple. Truthfully, it appears to be scary. There is a communal house with curved roof for meeting, festivals, later turned into dating and gossiping. Houses built with leaves or clay. Villagers live mainly on agriculture and self-supplying. Duong Lam is a place like that. I visited Mia’ Pagoda and went round the village. It was really new to me.

Some FIS students and students from the U.S had come there before us to do voluntary work. They lived with local people, taught children English and helped villagers with their housework. It was meaningful, wasn’t it? I am proud that students in my faculty including me have beautiful hearts like … angels (of course, it cannot be devils).

Afterward, we went up to Ba Vi to plant trees. It was about 20 km far away from Duong Lam. Generally, Ba Vi was a remote town with lots of mountains, trees and fog. We had to plant 100 small trees on a high large hill under the hot weather. How tired and dizzy I was when bringing a heavy laden-tree basket, stepping up and up to an extremely high place covered with mud. I wished I had been in a bus then; at least, a bus was much better even though I got carsick.

Nonetheless, only when I put the first tree on the land, could I find myself happy. I did it as if I was blowing soul into its body. It will grow up little by little into a tall tree like the neighboring ones. I told you that FIS students had beautiful hearts like angels earlier. It was all true. Ridiculously, some sudden screams made angels’ hearts broken due to a little lovely (scary) kind of worm living in the deep ground. When we planted trees, we had to hoe up the ground and use our hands to cover land; that’s why our worms became homeless and got angry with us. Poor them!

We finished the work rather fast. How wonderful I felt! I promised myself that I would plant trees more, not on this terrible area, but … at home. Just joking! We returned Hanoi at 3 o’clock. It was sunny and pretty then. What do you think about this activity? It that great?


18th July, 2008