Welcoming new year far from home
With just a few days remaining, some members of the Vietnamese working group at MINUSCA (the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic) are preparing to return home, in time to celebrate Tet with their families after successfully completing a full year of service. Meanwhile, newly deployed members are settling into their living and working conditions. In a small house in Bangui, the year-end meal, therefore, feels as bustling and joyful as a miniature Tet market.
Major Su Tan Phi Long brings the flavors of southern Vietnam to a dish of fish-sauce fried chicken wings, the fragrant aroma of sautéed garlic instantly evoking the familiarity of a home kitchen.
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A Tet meal enjoyed under flashlight |
Major Le Van Chien, from Da Nang, carefully tends a pot of fish soup. Lacking pickled bamboo shoots, he substitutes sliced radish instead. That creativity reflects how Uncle Ho’s Soldiers adapt to circumstances, making the most of what is available to rediscover Vietnamese flavors in the heart of Africa.
Out in the corridor, Senior Lieutenant Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram and Captain Nguyen Thanh Hai are absorbed in preparing mango and papaya salad. Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huy Tuan and Captain Phung Minh Cuong diligently roll spring rolls. These dishes carry the “soul of Tet,” thanks to fish sauce, wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and glass noodles, valuable “treasures” carefully packed in luggage before Vietnamese peacekeepers’ deployment.
Like a game of hide-and-seek, electricity comes on for just a few minutes before cutting out again. Accustomed to frequent power and water shortages, everyone calmly “shifts the combat readiness posture.” By the light of flashlights and mobile phones, the makeshift chefs continue their work.
Despite the heat, doors must remain tightly closed, because this is also a “kingdom” of mosquitoes and flies, to the point that mosquito repellent has become a familiar scent. When going out, instead of perfume, repellent is sprayed generously around each soldier’s body.
The early Tet meal also becomes a farewell gathering between two working groups, illuminated by flickering flashlight beams. Yet on every sunburned, resolute face shines joy.
Major Phi Long shares, “In just a few days, my nearly 300-day journey in the Central African Republic will temporarily come to an end. I’ll return home on leave to visit my family. Amid the scorching winds of the Black Continent, my heart is turning toward the Fatherland, beating with the liveliest rhythm of reunion.”
Ten months have been more than just time, they form a reel of youth and dedication. As a military observer, Long will tell his family about muddy red-earth roads in the rainy season, blinding dust storms in the dry heat, and patrols through forests to remote villages, where local people’s eyes light up with trust and hope at the sight of United Nations peacekeepers.
For Ngoc Tram, a training staff officer experiencing her first Tet away from home, the early Tet meal shared by the two working groups is truly special, not only because it takes place abroad, but also because of the sense of togetherness and solidarity among comrades amid difficult and deprived conditions.
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Members of Vietnamese working groups celebrate a simple Tet away from home in the MINUSCA compound. |
“Here in distant Africa, sitting together, preparing and sharing dishes that carry the flavors of home makes me feel that Tet has truly arrived. This may be the last time the two working groups can be together in such full numbers. As UN troop levels are being adjusted, the presence of a complete Vietnamese contingent like this is even more precious. That is what creates such a warm, cheerful atmosphere and lifts everyone’s spirits,” Tram confides.
What moves her most is everyone’s thoughtfulness and spirit of sharing, from ingredients carefully brought from Vietnam to the collective effort that results in a proper Tet feast.
“I can feel comradeship in every dish,” Tram reflects. “For me, that meal wasn’t just about food; it was about connection and sharing, from familiar hometown flavors to work experiences at the mission, health care, and personal safety. Those dishes carried not only taste, but also memories, longing, and a sense of peace from home, along with the affection we share for one another here in faraway Africa, thousands of kilometers from the Fatherland.”
A longing called “Tet”
January in Bangui is the dry season, with scorching sun and characteristic red dust. Holding the red lucky envelope my sister pressed into my hand at the airport, with the reminder “Only open it on New Year’s Eve,” I suddenly feel a pang of nostalgia. More than 10,000 kilometers of flights, oceans, and continents shrink into a single longing called “Tet.”
At this hour, Hang Luoc Flower Market in Hanoi must be bustling. Closing my eyes, I can almost hear the hum of the city, the cheerful chatter at a familiar street-corner café on Phan Dinh Phung Street, where I often sip morning coffee with colleagues from the People’s Army Newspaper, watching streams of people weave through pink peach blossoms and golden kumquat trees spilling into the streets.
Memories carry me back to busy year-end afternoons when my mother prepared plates of deep-red xoi gac (Vietnamese red sticky rice) for me to deliver to relatives. Even while on that important errand, I would steal a quiet walk around Hoan Kiem Lake on the 30th day of Tet, empty of crowds, free of honking horns, leaving only the serene stillness of a poetic Hanoi.
I inhale deeply the city’s tranquil scent, faintly mingled with incense and the pungent aroma of old coriander plants, awakening the warmth of an approaching reunion. For the first time in my life, these images exist only in memory or in tiny frames on a phone screen.
Yet it is precisely here, in this distant land amidst a United Nations peacekeeping mission, that I understand: Tet is not merely a point in time, but a journey of the heart, a return where, no matter the distance, the flavor of home remains rich in every breath.
Assigned as a media officer and deployed with just one month remaining before Tet, I still vividly recall the animated discussions within the MINUSCA working group about what to bring for our first Tet away from home. That luggage was a “miniature Vietnam,” complete with a portrait of President Ho Chi Minh, red calligraphy banners, dried candied fruits, and wood ear mushrooms.
On departure day, the baggage also carried mementos from family and friends, envelopes labeled for Tet or birthdays, a wooden Teu puppet filled with cultural stories to share with international colleagues, and a photo taken with fellow journalists from the People’s Army Newspaper.
Most notably, it included a national flag with a hand-embroidered yellow star, a gift from a friend at Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper, part of the newspaper’s “Pride in the National Flag” program. That flag was first used at a deeply meaningful moment: a flag-raising ceremony held in solidarity with the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
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Vietnamese working group in MINUSCA conducts a flag-raising ceremony in solidarity with the 14th National Party Congress. |
Under the sun and wind of Central Africa, the solemn flutter of the red flag transcended geography, connecting us with the Fatherland. It was a profound honor that images of that ceremony appeared in a special broadcast on VTV 1 Channel of the Vietnamese Television on the congress’s opening morning, providing powerful encouragement to Party members serving abroad as us.
I recall Major Phi Long’s words about battling malaria: “There were moments when I nearly collapsed, but in those very moments, a soldier’s will and faith in the sacred mission entrusted by the Party, the State, and the people became the strongest spiritual medicines, lifting me up to continue moving forward.”
“Amidst the joy of soon returning home for Tet, I also feel deep affection and longing for my comrades,” Phi Long adds. “They are those standing firm at the borders and on the islands; the Vietnamese blue berets in Africa, silently sacrificing personal joys, setting aside their own springtime to safeguard peace for humanity. I believe that wherever we are, no matter how harsh the conditions, the qualities of Uncle Ho’s Soldiers will always shine, and we will always fulfill our missions with excellence.”
In Major Le Van Chien’s memory, last year’s “one-of-a-kind” Tet remains vivid, “On New Year’s Eve in an unstable part of Central Africa, where distant gunfire can still be heard, we felt more deeply than ever the value of the word ‘peace,’ something that, amidst tranquil springs at home, we sometimes forget to cherish.”
At the moment of farewell, Chien shares emotionally, “Whether the assignment is long or short, the experiences and moments together will always live in our hearts, like a beautiful chapter in a soldier’s life.”
This Tet, without fireworks in the night sky and amid demanding duties at MINUSCA, we are proud to serve as “cultural ambassadors,” sharing with friends across five continents a Vietnam that is humane, rich in identity, and ever yearning for peace.
Translated by Trung Thanh