Red River
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
A mighty river flowing from southwestern China, going all the way to northern Vietnam and emptying itself to the Gulf of Tonkin is the Red River. The reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water gives the river its name. The Red River is notorious for its violent floods with its seasonally wide volume fluctuations. And today we are paying it a visit, particularly, towards a floating community along its banks in Hanoi.
To get there, we have to walk on Long Bien Bridge, designed and constructed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel at the turn of the 20th century. It was opened to traffic in 1902. Of great strategic importance, it carried the only rail link between Hanoi and the main port of Hai Phong. During the war for independence, it was bombed repeatedly by American fighter planes F-105 Thunderchiefs and F-4 Phantoms. In order to halt the bombs, the bridge was repaired using American POWs.
Along the way, we saw people including very young children emerge from the hollow steel frames of the bridge. We tried figuring out how were they able to crawl past narrow passages along the frames that snake across the bridge. One missed foothold means plunging 40 feet down the cold waters below. The bridge is 1,682 meters long and is part of Hanoi streets. But due to age and wartime wounds, it is only used for train, pedestrians and bicycles, no vehicle is permitted.
At the bottom were corn plantations, and footpaths that lead us to one arm of the Red River towards a community of floating houses. These residents are too poor to pay the rent for a piece of land where to build their little shacks. The floating houses need to be occasionally moved in preparation to rising waters, lest they sink at the bottom. The friendly floating residents beckoned us for tea, which we willingly oblige.
The residents’ source of water is the Red River which needs filtration before being boiled for drinking and cooking. So today we are making a UNICEF-designed water filter to be donated to the floating residents. Right across the river is an island formed by alluvial deposits used for growing vegetables and spices. The yearly floods brought in the nutrients, so the farmers do not need fertilizers. But more than half of the farmlands will be submerged when the rain comes.
We hopped on the island going towards the other side facing another arm of the Red River where it has a football field. Interestingly in cold Hanoi, nude local footballers play here in the afternoons unmindful of the dark history surrounding the area. On the right side of the floating houses were concrete columns rising thirty feet in the air which line the river bank all the way to Long Bien Bridge. These sturdy pillars are mute witnesses to the atrocities of the past during the French colonization of the country where hundreds of Vietnamese POWs were said to be tied to the posts and shot here.
Back at one floating house, people gather to knit “revolutionary” acrylic sponges to be used as soap-less dish washers. While they were engrossed with knitting, I noticed a soft but high pitched melodious humming coming from the next room. It was a mother swinging a hammock and singing a lullaby to her little child.
Enduring the rain and cold wind outside, the others clean sand while we were all warm and comfy making the water filter demonstration inside. For this, we need two (2) pails, one big, the other small. The small pail is to be placed facing the big one’s bottom. Clean sand, carbon filter and hoses will be put in place later. I was asked to remove the red pail’s white handle. I obliged, and I was successful in jerking the handle loose, but broke the pail. (There was muted laughter.) Then I carved a hole on the bottom of another red pail using a heated red knife. I did as told, but made a crack emanating from the hole. I continued with the task, until the red handle separated from the blade. (Laughter erupted!) Too clumsy for the task, I left to clean sand instead….
