The last firewood truck of the year

After graduating from university, I found a job in a government agency and settled down in the dreamy city of Da Lat. Therefore, my small family has not used a wood stove for many years.

The wood-fired stove and the smoke from the bamboo stove rising from the kitchen in the thatched roof house in the winter days are still fresh in my mind every time I think about it. In the early eighties of the last century, at the end of the year; not only my family, but most families in the same district of Ham Thuan Nam, no matter what they did, every family prepared a pile of firewood on the sidewalk to serve the stove during the Tet holidays.

Firewood is used for cooking and drinking water every day. Firewood is used to light the kiln for roasting popcorn, for making cakes; to cook banh chung, banh tet; to stew meat, braise bamboo shoots... and for everything that needs fire to cook. I remember at the end of the year, the fathers and brothers in the family would prepare 2 to 3 days; prepare rice, fish sauce, dried fish to bring with them a pair of oxen and carts into the forest to collect firewood. Every afternoon, around 3 to 4 o'clock, the oxcarts would head straight towards the mountains and forests. Group after group, dust flew up until the carts were out of sight of the village. Once, when I was on leave from school, my father let me go along to herd cows, I was very happy and I still remember those trips to this day. I don't know how far the road was, but places like Ba Bau, Ba village, Ham Can, My Thanh, Suoi Kiet, Dan Thung, Ruong Hoang... were places where people often came to collect firewood to bring back. The firewood brought back is dry wood, selected straight, cut off the ends, cut off the tails about 4 to 6 meters long, with a diameter of 30cm or more. Most of the wood is burnt, because people burn the fields when the trees are still fresh. Each truck can only carry a maximum of 10 to 15 firewood, depending on the length and size. There are years, my father goes into the forest to collect firewood 3 to 4 times to store for cooking during the rainy season of the following year. Moreover, at the end of the year, in addition to collecting firewood, people in my hometown also go to the forest to pick tamarinds to use in making green rice flakes, making jams, and dried tamarinds to cook sour soup, make tamarind fish sauce... In addition, they also look for and cut down yellow apricot branches to bring home, pick the leaves, burn the roots and soak them in water until Tet to bloom and display in the house.

As for us, we sawed the firewood that our father brought home into small, short pieces of about 40 cm; then used hammers and machetes to cut it into 5 or 7 pieces and put them in the kitchen for our grandmother and mother to cook. Memories of a peaceful countryside bordering Phan Thiet town make me miss the winter months at the end of the year in a time of poverty. I cannot forget the image of my father diligently selecting straight, dry firewood and especially choosing wood that could keep the fire for a long time, with little smoke, gathering them into bundles and bringing them by ox cart to carry home. In the last days of the year, the forest grass had dried up, some places had burned down; the buffalo and cows only ate handfuls of dry straw that their owners brought and drank the remaining muddy water from the stream to have the strength to pull the cart of firewood home.

Life has changed, from the city to the countryside, every house has replaced the wood stove with a gas stove, electric stove, pressure cooker, rice cooker, electric kettle, microwave oven... Now, although my brothers and I have bought our mother a gas stove, an electric rice cooker, she still keeps the stove with 3 Tao Gods burning with wood. She collects dry coconut leaves, splits them into small pieces to boil water, cook medicine; sometimes braises fish, cooks rice when necessary. She often tells her children: "Every time I sit next to the 3 Tao Gods to light the fire, I see the image of my grandmother and my beloved husband in the flickering firelight; then tears flow alone, I don't know if it's because of the smoke stinging my eyes or because I miss my loved ones." When I go back to my hometown to visit my family, sitting next to my mother, I love the smell of smoke from the stove where my mother boils water. The fire burning from the wood is warm. The fire of love from my grandmother, my mother, and my father has raised my siblings and me to adulthood, so they still burn in my memories and follow me almost my whole life.

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