Me and my home: One, the end of the big collective, the restless hamlet

Foreword: Since I fled the countryside, I have been surviving in the cracks of the city, endless hardships, endless ups and downs, I always want to calm down and write about the road I have walked, what I have experienced, not to promote the world, but to hope that future generations can see our past, from which can be inspired or pondered. Of course, what I want to write about may be the most ordinary and ordinary little things about old sesame seeds and rotten grains, without turbulent emotions, no twists and turns of the plot, no flowery rhetoric and lofty words, just so plain and unremarkable, as real as a country road. Dear dear readers, far and near, familiar and strange, you can follow this path, feel the beating of my pulse, listen to my heart, let the wings of life pause and flutter, close leisurely, and reminisce with me.

(Author: Old Ghost and Parents)

One, the end of the big collective, the small village of chickens and dogs

My father was born in 1945 and my mother was six years younger. When I was in a large group, my father was the captain of the production team. Our village was very small, with only a row of adobe houses and three families living in it. Our village is called Xinjuli Village, and it is difficult for such a small village to form a production team, and the four teams from the neighboring village of Mengtang Village are combined to carry out production work. From the people of the elders, it is also recorded in the genealogy that we moved from Mengtang Village, so it is called Xinjuli Village. My father was the captain of the fourth team in Mengtang Village.

At that time, people who cheated and cheated couldn't be leaders, and the reason why my father was able to become a captain was because he was honest, hardworking and kind, and dared to speak out, but because of this, he would also offend some people.

I was born in 1973 and am the third oldest sibling, with younger siblings below. I don't have much of an impression of what happened when my father was the captain, but by the time I can remember, the big collective was over, our village was separated from Mengtang Village, and people from one village worked together. My father no longer held any position, he was an ordinary farmer.

At this time, the contradictions in the village came out, and disputes continued. It was definitely not possible to go on like this, so we began to subdivide it again, and our family and another family in the village divided the fields according to the head, and there were all kinds of land.

In terms of blood, there are only two families in our village: one is our family and the other is the family of Dongnu (whose husband died young). There are three adobe tile houses connected together in the village, the middle one is the Dongnu's family, the left hand side is the Jin Gen family, and the right hand side is ours. Kim Geen is much younger than my grandfather, and my grandfather is a cousin, so it's also a family. Kim Geun first worked with my family on the farm, and then separated.

A small village, because of the implementation of the joint production contract responsibility system, has formed a full style, big quarrels, small quarrels every day, the whole village is simply restless.

My father had four brothers, and the Dongnu family had six brothers, and Kim Gen was only one of his brothers. For the sake of some trivial things, if you don't let it and I don't let it, it will be easy to intensify the contradictions. Solving all problems by force, everyone thinks so, it seems that there is no more effective way than this, therefore, the one with more brothers has an absolute advantage.

That year, the people of our family and the people of the East Girl family were threshing the grain in the drying field, and there was a dispute and a fight broke out because of something. Dongnu's second son, the rooster, smashed a hole in my father's head with a hoe, and immediately blood flowed. I was too young to stand by and watch, and I saw my father being helped to the hospital. Later, I heard from my mother that my father couldn't stand far before he could stand and was carried to the hospital. At the township clinic, the doctor stuffed a lot of gauze into the hole in his head to stop the bleeding, and he almost died.

There were many people on the other side, and they didn't hurt a single cold hair. However, at that time, my twelve-year-old sister saw that her father had been beaten on the head and was bleeding, so she cried and picked up a grain rake and smashed it on the head of the rooster wife. They were also a little scared of beating my father like that, and they also called the rooster wife to go to the hospital, so that it was fair to say that someone was injured on both sides.

My father was injured and hospitalized, and my mother had to take care of him in the hospital, and all five of us were still young, and there was no one to take care of them. No one reached out to us, and my sister had to work with adults to earn work points during school holidays (although it is not a big collective, a family farms together, and the work points are calculated according to the previous method.) We cook and eat by ourselves. It's just that my sister is too young and has just learned to walk.

It should be noted here that there is also a Catholic church next to the three adobe tile houses, which is half of blue brick and half of earthen walls. Soon after my father and mother got married, they moved to live in the church. All five of us siblings were born in church. The church has only two rooms, one as a living room and one as a bedroom, and a family of seven is crammed into it, so you can imagine how difficult it is.

My mother had to go back and forth between the hospital and home at least twice a day, because she didn't worry about us, so she came back to do some housework, and then she had to bring food for my father.

On this day, my mother came back from the hospital and saw that I was in a very bad mental state, so I fell asleep under a tree on a hot day, and felt that something was wrong. The barefoot doctor in the village was nearby, and my mother asked him to see what was going on with me. The barefoot doctor opened my eyelids and looked at my eyes and said to my mother, "My eyes are yellow, so I'd better go to the hospital for a blood test." ”

My mother took me to the township clinic, and it was Dr. Peng, who had a kind face, who drew my blood. I remember very well, when I held out a hand, she said change the hand and see if it was clearer. Actually, I have a lot of dirt on both hands, and people don't say it's too dirty, but I can talk. Just imagine, when I was less than ten years old, I had no adults to take care of me, where did I know hygiene, and I rarely took a bath.

The next day, the results of the blood test came back and I had hepatitis A and it was contagious. My mother said that fortunately, I found it in time, and if I continued to delay it, I would have lost my life.

The person who helped my father treat his injuries was Dr. Peng's husband, Dr. Song, who was very good at medicine and prescribed Chinese medicine for me. Chinese medicine had to be boiled, and there were no adults there, so I boiled and drank it myself according to my mother's instructions. I remember boiling Chinese medicine twice, boiling a pack in the morning and drinking it, not pouring out the residue, and then boiling it in the afternoon.

Boiling Chinese medicine is also particular, my mother said that you can't burn fir to boil, burning fir will take away the medicinal properties. I didn't know why, but I thought to myself, "The medicine is in the clay pot, the fire is burning outside, and all kinds of firewood are burned, so how can burning fir wood take away the medicinal properties?" It's like simmering chicken, everyone says that simmering on a chili tree is the best, but I don't understand it, and no one can say it clearly. Anyway, what the adults said must be right, and I must follow it.

The clay pot for boiling Chinese medicine is very small, and I deliberately built a small stove with some bricks to boil medicine and drink. The crockpot is too small, and the fire burns a little bigger, and the medicine will desperately spill out, so pay special attention. I tried not to let the medicine in the crockpot spill out, and I carefully lit the fire. It's just that a new problem has arisen again, and when I feel that I have almost boiled, I opened the lid and was dumbfounded, and the water was all boiled dry. I have a way to solve this, add water to boil, but I have to guard by the small stove.

I drank the medicine like this, and my illness gradually improved. As a result, my mother also complained, saying: "No one came to help, the child is so young to boil medicine and eat it by himself, and then add water to it when it is dry, God blesses it, otherwise, he can still live." ”

Since my illness is contagious, my dishes and chopsticks are separated. I have a large enamel bowl with porcelain dropped, and the ends of the two chopsticks are cut into two grooves, which will not fall off when tied with a cotton rope to form a nunchuck. Every time I finished eating, the enamel bowl was placed in a place, and the chopsticks hung on a nail on the earthen wall. The doctor said that as long as I didn't eat what I had eaten, I wouldn't be infected, and no one in the village disliked me,—— so I didn't feel it.

Chinese medicine is very bitter, and a large bowl is poured into the stomach, but after drinking Chinese medicine, you can eat a spoonful of brown sugar. The brown sugar I bought at home was specially prepared for me, and others couldn't touch it, everyone consciously obeyed it, and no one would steal it. My brother drooled when he saw me eating candy and wanted to eat it too. I said, "Mom said that you can only eat sugar if you drink medicine." The younger brother said, "Then I will also drink the medicine and eat candy, and my mother will not beat me." "I think he made a point, and I made him drink the Chinese medicine in my bowl and gave him a spoonful of sugar.

My brother took the candy because he drank the medicine, and I didn't think my mother would blame it, so I told her about it. My mother really didn't blame my brother and me, she didn't say anything, and hurriedly took my brother to the hospital for a blood test. As a result, he infected me, but it was much milder than me, and he would have been better if he took a few pills.

My brother is like me, he has medicine to drink, he can eat sugar, and I am happy for him. Now that I think about it, that was the real innocence, heartbreak and sadness!

Summer vacation came, my brother was three years older than me, he was in charge of cooking, and I lit the fire. My sister is a year older than my brother, and she has to go to work with adults. My brother is three years younger than me, and he brings his sister, who is three years younger than him, to play.

At that time, the day's meals were cooked in the morning and packed in a rice basket. The rice is boiled like this, the rice is washed and boiled in a large pot with water, and when it is half-cooked, it is then scooped up and drained of water, and then put it in the pot and steamed again. When the rice is steamed, it is beaten and put in the rice basket, and the pot cake that sticks to the pot is shoveled down with a spatula, poured into the strained rice soup, and stirred to become porridge. Whether a pot of rice is cooked well or not is all in the first link, it is too raw and steamed, and it will be pasted together if it is too bad, which is not delicious.

Breakfast generally does not need to be specially fried, when steaming rice, put washed bean pods, eggplant, white radish and the like, the rice is cooked, the vegetables are also cooked, take it out and chop, add salt and you can eat. This morning, my brother put a bowl of chili soup in the pot and steamed it with rice, and when I brought it out and put it on the stove, my sister, who was not yet as tall as the stove, came over and fried it to eat. The elder brother was taking care of the meal, and the younger sister was hungry, so she raised her hand above her head and grabbed it on the stove, and a bowl of hot chili soup was poured on her chest, making her cry in pain.

(To be continued.) Original debut, no reprint, no plagiarism. ）