FOR THE PAST 20 years in HO CHI MINH CITY, Mr. Nguyen Van Linh, 65 years old, went to construction sites in Thu Thiem Urban Area (Thu Duc City) to dig for iron, earning 150,000 VND per day.
Holding a metal detector in his right hand and a hoe in his left hand, Mr. Nguyen Van Linh slowly moved through each hollow of dry soil in Thu Thiem Urban Area to find scrap, on the morning of November 30. The machine was purchased a year ago for 700,000 VND, can detect iron and steel within a meter.
“Before, I worked as a metal diver in the Saigon River. Around 2010, when the Thu Thiem area began to be cleared, I moved up to find scrap metal on the shore,” said the 65-year-old man.
Originally from Thu Thiem, when the house was cleared, Mr. Linh went to Nhon Trach district (Dong Nai) to buy land to build a house. Heartbroken with the old land, he clung to his livelihood here. “In the past, I used to take the Cat Lai ferry every day to make a living here, both going back and forth was probably 35 km. For nearly half a year, I had a pandemic, so I temporarily did not go home, but set up a hut to stay for a while to be okay and then continue,” he said.
When the machine detected metal in the ground, Mr. Soldier quickly used a hoe to dig in the midday sun. The machine is not always accurate, sometimes he sweats only a few small pieces of iron or nothing.
Mr. Soldier scraped off the mud and dirt on the iron to dry quickly. In this area, besides him, there are about 5-6 people also doing this job.
Carrying an iron bar weighing more than ten pounds to the gathering place, Mr. Soldier said: “This job does not have to go to many places like picking up bottles, but the income is also better.”
At 15:00, he carried the scrap to the gathering point, about 500 m from the construction site. For him, this is a lucky day when he finds a few tens of kilograms of iron and has many big and long bars to make up for the days of not earning anything.
After the amount of scrap iron dried, he used a hammer to crush the concrete stuck in the pipe. This work takes a lot of effort, many long sections must be cut with a saw. Mr. Soldier beats iron from afternoon to night every day before selling it to the scrap yard.
Many years of working with this arduous profession, his hands are calloused, always clinging to mud. “The sharp, rusty metal pieces many times cut the hands and feet, bleeding, easy to cause infection,” he said.
Once a week, Mrs. Lan (the owner of the bottle shop) and her husband went to buy Mr. Linh’s scrap metal. Currently, she buys 9,000 VND for each kilogram of iron. With the above price, a week he can earn about 1.3 million dong.
Next to it is a small hut, built of canvas and some scrap wood on a sewer pipe, where he lived for half a year when Covid-19 broke out. Personal belongings for a temporary life are only a few sets of clothes, the most valuable being an old motorbike.
Each month, earning nearly 6 million VND, Mr. Soldier only spends a small part, the rest is sent back to his hometown. He has 4 children (2 boys, 2 girls) all married, also working as unskilled workers, so life is still difficult.
“The children have a whole family to take care of while I’m still healthy and can take care of myself, so I don’t want them to worry,” the old man said.
During the time of social distancing, Mr. Linh went to a nearby canal to catch fish and pick wild vegetables to cook for the day. There are more rice and vegetables from benefactors to help him survive the epidemic season.
When the new normal city, he switched to eating dust. In the afternoon, we still go to the canal to place fish, how much fish we can sell to workers around, earn more income.
At nightfall, Mr. Soldier again crawled into the 3-square-meter hut, lit a candle and sat quietly before falling asleep.
“Life here is very lonely, but there is peace and freedom. I will stay in the hut for a while longer, wait for the epidemic to decrease again, then go home to reunite with my family,” he said.Follow (vnexpress)
