Life can be tough for the residents of the Mekong Delta’s hard scrabble province of An Giang. But for the 1,700 boatpeople set adrift in the brackish canals outside of Long Xuyen it is much, much tougher.
Opportunities for economic and social advancement are scarce here.
Unfortunately, poverty isn’t.
The poverty line in the hamlet has broken off and then fallen through the floor. Schools, clinics, police and even political representation are not present in the community. But hunger and the dangers of living on waterways which are prone to devastating flashfloods are.
Although access to the basics are readily available from floating stores which sell rice, vegetables and meat, the desire to move on land is still strong amongst the 400-boat Dong Thinh 1 hamlet.
“Sometimes we don’t go on land for a whole month,” Truong Van Thiem told Thoi bao Kinh Te Saigon (Saigon Economic Times).
“But we still have everything we need here.”
Thiem said that when his first son got married, he hired a ferry for VND700,000 (US$39.25) a day, with the wedding party being greeted by a 10-table feast.
“Not only weddings, but we also organize funerals this way,” said Thiem. “We live our whole lives on the boats. When someone dies, we often bury them in nearby charitable cemeteries”.
Thiem, originally from Kien Giang Province, also in the Mekong Delta, is no stranger to hard work. He once drifted across the Cambodian border in search of a job and found a wife instead.
It wasn’t until 1993, that they moved back to Vietnam and brought their boat for VND5 million ($280.27). The move was supposed to be temporary, but some 17 years later the couple is still tied to the boat and their meager existence on the water.
But Thiem is still among the few people here who makes enough to cover his family’s daily needs.
“Most of the people in the hamlet have long suffered all kinds of hardships. There is one common thread amongst us. We are to poor to buy a piece of land or a house,” Thiem said.
Longing for change
The community sits scattered on the Hau River, a branch of the mighty Mekong; and has been here since at least the 80s.
Before that, it was located closer to the center of Long Xuyen City. But the authorities, fearful of a spreading waterborne slum on their hands ordered their removal.
Most people from the hamlet scrap by off of seasonal or casual laboring jobs and all use the river for washing and bathing.
“We are all tired of living on the river,” said Bui Van Diep.
Diep said that the rainy season makes life even tougher, and at times is just a struggle to survive.
In a flashflood last year, Diep’s boat was destroyed and his lifesavings were washed away by the wind and the waves.
Diep was then forced to borrow money to buy another boat. With the circle of poverty quickly turning into a spiral; his family is still struggling to pay off the debt. Along with the debt came the psychological trauma of losing everything and nearly his loved ones to the flood.
“There are wrecked boats and drowned kids every rainy season,” said Mai Van Ly.
Ly, who has lived on boats since 1977, recently became a grandfather. And much to the 80-year-old’s chagrin has three generations of his family living here.
Old as he is, Ly still has to work as a boat ferryman to put rice on the table for his family.
“The job is very competitive now. In this hamlet there are more than one hundred people doing the same job,” he said. “I earn VND50,000 ($2.8) to VND60,000 ($3.36) for a trip, but I often have only two trips a week.”
“To live on land we need hundreds of millions of dong to buy land and build houses,” said Thiem. “We can not afford that, even though we all want to stop living like this.”
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