Dreaming of school

TUOI TRE  

Le My Linh is learning on her bed in a workers' dormitory. Photo: Tuoi Tre

With little help from their community, several strong-willed, studious youths manage to triumph over adversity on their own, resolving to pursue the education they aspire to.

In the face of adversity and a lack of support, these youths won’t give up their hope of getting a decent education.

13 years for a university place

Le My Linh, 32, a worker for several years, recently passed the entrance exam for the non-mainstream section of the Ho Chi Minh City Agriculture and Forestry University.

Linh’s story usually wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, but she chased this dream for the past 13 years.

14 years ago, she was admitted to the same faculty of the same school, but couldn’t afford the tuition.

Linh had no choice but to put aside her schooling and work at the Tan Thuan industrial zone.

Alone in the big city, she struggled to make ends meet with her subsistence salary and had to be as frugal as possible to save money for school later.

Linh always buys old food from closing markets to cut daily expenditures.

Over the following six years, Linh repeatedly applied to her dream school, only to not show up for the entrance exams as she didn’t have time to study or money for tuition.

Though Linh can’t even afford fresh food, she reads books voraciously and spends a big part of her income on books.

Seven years after first being accepted, the dogged woman decided to sit that year’s entrance exam. She took a risk and quit her job and got by merely on her severance package.

Unfortunately she failed that year. Jobless and depressed, she returned home with the almost 400 books she had bought and tended to her father’s crops in Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province in the south.

Working in the fields reawoke Linh’s dream to obtain a formal education in agriculture.

Once again, Linh returned to HCMC and began working in the Linh Trung industrial zone.

This time she mapped out and strictly stuck to a clear plan of action. By being even more frugal than before she managed to buy a used laptop to search for learning materials on the internet.

She also worked out formulas in growing seedlings and turned theory into practice herself. She even put trays of seedlings onto her tiny bed at night to keep them from being destroyed by rats.

During these two years, Linh never stopped trying to realize her long-cherished university dream. She registered to take the exam each year, but again couldn’t make it to the exam room.

In 2012, Linh again quit her job, and totally concentrated on her studies for the next exam.

Out of a job and with little money, she had a tough time, and instant noodles were the only dish on her daily menu.

On her 10th application, luck finally smiled on her, as she sat and passed the exam and was admitted to the university of her dreams.

Now, her current worry is making enough money for tuition. She is hoping to be hired as a worker for a stuffed animal-producing company to support her studies.

“After all the difficulties of the last 13 years, nothing can get in my way now,” Linh said determinedly.

The studious teen lottery peddler

Quynh sell lottery tickets to afford her studies (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Nguyen Thi Nhu Quynh, an 11th grader in central Hue City, was born into a destitute family of six siblings.

Dung, Quynh’s mother, recalled that as she and her husband eked out a living by peddling lottery tickets. Their six children were born and raised in sheer poverty.

With no one to rely on, the family took temporary shelter once every few months.

To make things worse, Dung’s husband suffered a ligament rupture due to overwork as a porter, leaving him unable to do heavy work ever since.

The couple had no choice but to let their three older children sell lottery tickets on the streets.

Quynh said she followed her mom and elder brother as they hawked tickets since she was in grade seven.

“I was ashamed initially, and was teased by my classmates. I just cried to myself as I didn’t want to make my mom sad,” Quynh confided.

“But gradually, I felt much better as my hard-earned money helped keep me in school,” she added.

With Quynh’s eight-member family depending totally on the meager earnings from her, her mom, brother and sister’s peddling, the kids struggled to scrape out a living and study at the same time.

This year Tien, Quynh’s older brother, is preparing for his upcoming university entrance exam. He chose the police school in order to be exempt from tuition.

Since Tien stopped hawking to concentrate on his studies, the pressure has been raised on 17-year-old Quynh, her mom and younger sister, who is in 8th grade.

“Quynh sometimes insisted in tears that she would quit school to help me support the family, but I did’t allow her to,” Quynh’s mother sadly said.

Quynh and her siblings have never had new clothes. All the clothes she is wearing were donated by Ngoc Tran, a kind-hearted student.

“Quynh is always optimistic, and against all odds she remains hopeful about a brighter future,” Tran commented.