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The Story of Her Life
"Rice was the salary we earned in our country."
I was born in a district of Hanoi called Soc Son. I am fifty-four years old. My father is dead and my mother is eighty-five years old. We were four brothers and sisters, but one of my brothers was killed in the war. I was able to go to school as a child and when I was older I went to a training college for kindergarten teachers. Before coming to the SOS Children's Village, I worked as a kindergarten teacher for nineteen years. I got married when I was twenty-two and lived with my husband for seventeen years. We didn't have any children and then I heard about SOS Children's Villages, so I left my husband and started working as an SOS mother. I was happy being with the children in my previous job, but I did think it would be better to have a permanent home. I heard that SOS Children's Villages were founding new families and I applied for the job of an SOS mother. I wanted this job, so that I could have children just like all the other women in our society.
Could you describe your parents? What did they live on?
My parents wanted all of us children to have an education. They were farmers and, as you know, people from rural areas don't often have the money to send their children to school. We all went as far as secondary school, except for me. I was confident and committed enough to be able to work and study at the same time. I finished grammar school and then completed the training course for kindergarten teachers. At that time my parents didn't have land of their own. They worked for a landowner. They did all the work and had to pay rent for the land by giving up part of their rice harvest. Thanks to the communist party, they were then given their own piece of land to work. My parents supported me until I married and moved out.
What role did your mother play at home?
My mother was a farmer. When she was young she went out to the fields twice a day. Once we were born she had to work very hard to earn enough rice to feed us all. We didn't have any machines to remove the husks from the rice. My mother had to do it all by hand. She had to get up early in the morning to work in the fields and in the evenings she husked the rice by hand. For a long time she was a member of the women's association in our community. Their aim was to support each other as women and to help the poorer women.
What memories do you have of your father?
Even though he was poor, he loved us a lot. When I was ten years old, I wanted to stay at home to cook for my parents but my father worried that it would be too dangerous. My family was poor and we knew that we only had rice or sweet potatoes to eat. He ate the sweet potatoes, so that we could have the rice.
Connie's Story:
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All these mother's stories come from SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy. Copyright is reserved and no unauthorized use permitted. Use for non-commercial purposes may be requested. The interviews telling about the lives of some SOS Mothers form part of an interesting study on being a replacement Mother to children in need in SOS Children's communities worldwide.