We first encountered the Nguyen That family in October,2008. We had asked the local Agent Orange organization to help us meet some families in the rural area near Salem's family home. They prefer events where families are gathered at the commune government offices with speeches and presentations, while we prefer to visit families at home where we can assess their situation. So a compromise was forged; we would meet the families at the public hall and then visit the homes. After the group meeting we mounted our motorbikes and headed for Nguyen That's home. The (then) seventy-two year old just beat us there, having run the 1/2 mile plus from the hall to his home pushing his son's rickety wheel cha ir along the bicycle lane of busy Route 1, reversing the trip he had made less than an hour earlier to get to the meeting.
Nguyen That lives with his son, Rit, who is 100% physically disabled by severe palsy, and an adult daughter who works intermittently at a local factory for the family's only cash income. The father does some small scale farming and sells coconuts from the many trees on their land. His wife died 23 years ago, when Rit was 8 years old. While we noted the condition of their 65 year old house at the time of our first meeting, we decided then to donate a cow which we hoped would improve their economic situation. That cow was subsequently sold with some of the proceeds used to buy a second cow pictured below.
The old house has a lot of "character" but also requires a lot of maintenance which That is increasingly unable to keep up with. When these old style houses start to deteriorate, they can go very quickly because they really aren't much more than mud on a framework of sticks. When we revisited the family in the Fall of 2009, we decided the time was right to build a new one. The work was completed just before Christmas, with the new house standing right next to the old one. Their sparse furniture hadn't been moved yet when we visited. We intend to go back soon because we have some health concerns for Rit, who appears to have some skin problems, and possibly bed sores.
