We arrived in the UNISFA in June 2022 when the rainy season was coming. The people in Abyei sloshed through swamps. However, in the dry season starting from November, the area did not see a drop of rain. Grasses began to wilt.
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Brigade General Abu Syed Mohammad Barki, Acting Commanding Officer of the UNISFA (left), really loves the hat from the Vietnam People's Army. |
Right after the Gregorian New Year’s Eve, several officers of the Vietnamese Engineering Company Rotation 1 were on furlough. Senior Colonel Mac Duc Trong, Head of the company, was among them. Thus, I came to talk with him about organizing a celebration of the traditional Tet holiday at the mission. He agreed and said that in spite of working far from the homeland, the chain-of-command should celebrate Tet accordingly. Moreover, this was our first Tet holiday abroad. It was also a chance to introduce Vietnam’s typical cultural identities to international colleagues at the UNISFA. He assigned me to making a plan. Those who were on leave would bring what we did not have at hand.
After some days of discussion, we finally came up with a plan for three-day Tet celebration, including various activities such as setting up an altar, listening to the New Year greetings by the State President, raising the Neu bamboo pole, hosting a chung cake making competition, setting a bonfire, holding folk games, and inviting international friends to a New Year party.
Due to the lack of essential materials for chung cake making like dong (phrynium) leaves, bamboo ties, glutinous rice and fresh pork in Abyei, Colonel Trong directed on-leave officers to buy and bring to the mission. Additionally, he held that he would bring a special gift but at that time he said that it was a secret.
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Brigade General Abu Syed Mohammad Barki, Acting Commanding Officer of the UNISFA (left), wears the hat from the Vietnam People's Army |
On the following days, the Neu pole project made me like to be on thorns. The Vietnamese people have a custom of erecting a Neu tree in front of their house on the last day of the lunar year to ward off evils, worship eities and pray for good luck for the new year. However, how could we have a bamboo tree and other decoration materials in Abyei? Major Dinh Van Thanh, Head of the Engineering Team No.2 of the company, held that it was quite easy to find a tree but he wondered what should be hung on the top of the tree. Finally, we decided to make a paper star with string lights.
On the December 20 of the lunar year of 2022, the Vietnamese Engineering Company Rotation 1 started to make a Neu tree. We welded two well drill pipes and several iron bars to respectively become an 8-meter long “Neu tree” and a large star. On the top of the star, Major Thanh also planted a national flag. Then we used color papers to glue around the rope to symbolize bamboo nodes.
Six days later, we began to erect the pole with assistance of some machines. However, I had to leave for an urgent task. In the evening of the same day, when my car was around 1.5km from the barracks, my driver and I saw a twinkling star in the night sky. Never had the word “Fatherland” been so sacred to me. The driver exclaimed: “So great!”
Arriving at the camp’s gate, I saw local people and their children gathering near the pole, raising their heads to watch the twinkling star. Perhaps this was the very first time in their life to see such a strange but beautiful thing. On the following days, the camp drew a large number of local residents to come. Many staffers in the UNISFA also had selfie photos with the pole.
On the first day of the 2023 lunar New Year, Brigade General Abu Syed Mohammad Barki, Acting Commanding Officer of the UNISFA, and several officials of the mission visited the Vietnamese Engineering Company Rotation 1’s camp. After watching movie documentaries on the national resistance wars against foreign invaders, he shared that he admired the aspiration for freedom and peace of the Vietnamese people and military. This left invaluable lesson for his country and other nations worldwide in their national salvation cause.
Notably, my unforgettable memory during the Tet holiday in the UNISFA was the excitement of international friends when they saw hats usually worn by troops of the Vietnam People’s Army. Previously, Senior Colonel Trong brought 20 soldier’s hats from home to Abyei. When receiving international guests on the Tet holiday, he gave them books on General Vo Nguyen Giap and hats. Hence, those hats quickly ran out of stock. Afterwards, when he presented a gift to Brigade General Abu Syed Mohammad Barki, he held that the hat was one of the symbols of the Vietnam People’s Army. So it turned out the hats were Trong’s secret present that he had mentioned before.
That was our Tet holiday in 2023 - the most special Tet for my comrades and me when we were far from home.
Written by Lieutenant Colonel Dang Van Le, Second-in-Command of the Vietnamese Engineering Company Rotation 1
Translated by Minh Anh