Remember the well

Culture and Life – My hometown has banyan trees, water wells, communal houses, … idyllic but lovingly clinging to generations of people who have gone far away, just want to come back to breathe in the scent of the wind, drink a sip of cool village well water. .

Wells of Phu Ly Bac village (Thieu Trung commune, Thieu Hoa) were restored. The noisy city, the hustle and bustle of living deeply imprinted on every alley, street corner, next to the shops… The feeling of wobble when the day is dry makes me miss my hometown, my childhood bareheaded, barefoot, and smoke. Burning fields with the smell of straw, remembering the wells of the country’s cool, clean water… I miss my grandparents’ house at the far end of the village, in front of a vast rice field. My parents were busy at work, so I often stayed with my grandparents, so my childhood was full of running sessions with my neighbors picking figs, mangoes, going to the fields to wade through water, catching grasshoppers, locusts, and pears. chicken grass in the field… But perhaps the most memorable are the summer days, after running and shouting and screaming, they all pulled together to the well at the end of the village to compete with each other to drink cool and sweet sips of water. … Until now, when I think back, I still imagine myself touching that water, enjoying the taste of the old days. I remember the yard of the well was very large, paved with red bricks. Around the well are some bamboo bushes wrapped tightly by vines. In the season, the vines bloom with purple petals on the background of cool green leaves. In the windy afternoons, the bamboo stalks swayed and creaked, the bamboo leaves swayed and then dropped into the well yard very gently. The well is as big as a small pond, paved with large, smooth stones from the well mouth leading down to the water surface. The village well is the most crowded when it is dark, the villagers come home from work to take a bath and then carry water to fill the jar in front of the house to cook. In the evening, boys and girls in the village invite each other to the well to play and chat. After a long day of labor, the village girls have the opportunity to release their long hair, fragrant with the smell of locust, in the wind. I have 6 cousins. Summer is coming, when cousins ​​are sent to their grandparents’ house, the days when the small house is full of laughter, chirping, arguing of children, the sound of grandparents scolding their grandchildren. During the day, we often climb guava, climb star fruit to pick down the fruit, add a little salt and then eat it deliciously. When they were bored, they invited each other to the village well to drink water to fill their stomachs, then play umbrellas to eat mandarins, great-grandchildren… Grandfather used to use water from the village well to cook, make green tea, and sometimes sweet-smelling jasmine tea at the top of his lips. . The kettles are like an excuse to connect the wartime story, the story in the village… of my grandfather and his peers at the chess games in the alley. As for the children, we sat on cots waiting for her to come back from the market with bags of popsicles, sheets of sugar cane, and sometimes a few crispy rice cakes with the smell of sesame… In the summer afternoons to hide from sleep, we ran to the well to play, watch our faces reflected in the well and then laugh. Someone naughty picked up a few small pebbles and dropped them into the well, watching the waves of water spreading and disappearing without stopping. Then we dreamed and told each other about our future wishes, which is to go everywhere, do great things, become great people… We grew up, and the village urbanized and concreted everywhere. I regret and feel pity when the old trees are gradually uprooted, the village well is no longer there because there is clean water. Floating with the month of May, hardened with many emotions, only the nostalgia for the countryside, the village well, the childhood innocence is still intact. I still miss the idyllic village well filled with joy in memory. That place has the moonlight shining in the deep well, illuminating every corner of my beloved village, the moonlight following me into my summer night dreams and illuminating my soul every time I find myself playing with… back to my childhood, back to the well full of dreams at that time.