At the end of March, Lao Cai welcomed the cold air, many places also had scattered rain. Tan An was also immersed in the cold, the sky was gray. To take me up the mountain to Khe Ban, Mr. Thuy arranged a strong "iron horse" and a skilled driver, Mr. Trieu Van Nhat - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Tan An commune and also a son of Khe Ban.

From the center of Tan An commune, we followed Provincial Road 151 for about 7 km, then turned right, and went about 3 km more on concrete road to reach Khe Ban. The road is only 10 km long but passes through many different types of terrain: along the riverbank, through the residential area, then up a steep slope with a deep abyss on one side and a towering cliff on the other. When passing through the steep slope, Mr. Nhat said: "This is the "buffalo rolling" slope, ma'am!". I expressed my interest in the name of the slope in front of us. Mr. Nhat explained: "The thing is, before, the road to the village was just a trail, very difficult to travel, especially the place with this steep slope. Every time it rained, the road was slippery like grease, to the point that many buffaloes fell down the abyss." It turns out that the locals call Khe Ban the "buffalo rolling" land as a way to talk about the most difficult land in the commune.

Listening to Mr. Nhat’s story, and seeing the difficult road, I somewhat imagined the difficulties of Khe Ban in the past. Yet, overcoming all difficulties, the Dao ethnic people in the “buffalo rolling” land have joined hands and built a prosperous, well-off village, which is truly admirable.

After about 30 minutes of struggling uphill, we finally arrived at Khe Ban village. As soon as we reached the village, we saw solid 2-3 story houses, in the style of pretty Thai-roofed garden houses. All over the hills was a cool green color of cinnamon, betel, and linden trees...

The motorbike stopped in front of a beautiful walled garden house. Khe Ban village chief, Mr. Ha Van Tien, welcomed us with a bright smile. Over a small tea table in a warm house, the story of Khe Ban villagers overcoming poverty and rising to become rich was truly impressive. Because the village is located in the central commune, the traffic is very difficult, so people rarely interact with the outside world. Life is mainly self-sufficient. With the desire to help people escape poverty, nearly 30 years ago, some elderly people in the village brought cinnamon trees to try planting on their hillside land, both to plant trees to create forests and to find a way to develop the economy. Bringing cinnamon trees to Khe Ban was also very difficult. Not only was it difficult to travel a long way to find cinnamon seedlings, but also because in the first days of bringing the trees back, many people did not believe that cinnamon trees were highly beneficial, and said: "That tree is just like a forest tree, and will only be used for firewood...". So the prestigious elders together with the village chief had to patiently explain, persuade, and guide the villagers to plant cinnamon trees on the hill to cover the bare ground, peel the bark and sell it, and get the wood to make money. Then the villagers listened, followed the example of the village chief and the prestigious people, planted the first hundred cinnamon trees, and after more than ten years they harvested and sold them for much more money than other trees.

From that result, along with the propaganda and mobilization of party members in the branch, the Dao people in Khe Ban gradually understood and followed. Every household cleared the barren hills to plant cinnamon and bodhi trees into forests, and there was no longer a single empty space on the Khe Ban hills. Of the 134 households in the village, every household had vast, dark green forests of cinnamon and bodhi trees. This forest continued to the next forest, the people had an annual income, their lives improved and became increasingly prosperous.

Coming to Khe Ban, what impressed us was the number of well-off and wealthy households. Many households in the village are now “creditors” of the bank with savings ranging from several tens to several hundreds of millions of dong. Many households have surplus money to lend to other households in the village and friends as capital for economic development.

Mr. Trieu Trung Vuong is one of the millionaires in the village. Mr. Vuong's house is one of the largest in the village with full amenities. That is the "above ground" property, and the "underground" property, he built in the distant fields, which is 10 hectares of forest planted with cinnamon, bodhi... In 2014, Mr. Vuong built a house from the money earned from selling cinnamon, which was nearly 1 billion VND. He was one of the first households in the village to build a solid house. Each year, the income from pruning branches and cinnamon leaves is calculated to be over 100 million VND.

As one of the first cinnamon growers in the village, Mr. Vuong's family has an increasingly prosperous life thanks to the annual income from cinnamon and linden forests. His family currently has 7 hectares of cinnamon hills that are 10 years old and ready for harvest, worth billions of dong. I was amazed and Mr. Vuong smiled broadly: "If you work hard, the land will not let you down, journalist. Getting rich is not too difficult in Khe Ban." I understand that it is the determination to escape poverty, the quality of hard work combined with a dynamic mind that knows how to learn new things, and choose crops suitable to the advantages of the local land to create a stable and sustainable source of income in this majestic mountainous region.

Competing in labor production, the lives of Khe Ban people are increasingly prosperous, "millionaires" like Mr. Vuong are increasing in number, we can mention the "leading flags" in the economic development of the Dao village, such as Ms. Dang Thi Dien who has more than 5 hectares of cinnamon (in 2017, she sold a cinnamon hill for nearly 600 million VND to build a big house, this year, there is 1 hectare of cinnamon worth about 600 million VND, the family has several hundred million VND deposited in the bank and lent to people); Mr. Ha Van Nam has more than 10 hectares of cinnamon (from growing cinnamon, Mr. Ha Van Nam also bought a truck to transport goods); Mr. Dang Van Ben, Trieu Tien Ngan also bought cars to serve the family's production work... The number of well-off and rich households is increasing rapidly, the number of poor households is decreasing sharply every year. Up to now, the whole village has only 8 poor households.

Along with the economy, the cultural and educational life of the people of Khe Ban village has also improved. Not only does the school-age children always reach 100%, but the village also has students who pass the exams and study at vocational schools; the situation of early marriage and having a third child no longer exists.

Saying goodbye to Khe Ban, we believe life will become better and better in this difficult land.

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/ban-giau-o-vung-dat-trau-lan-post401084.html