Five years ago, it was extremely hard to reach Yen Hop village, the first village of the Ruc people in the central province of Quang Binh. Nowadays, it takes only 2 hours by car from Dong Hoi town to Yen Hop village.
In the first days the road to Yen Hop village was built, all Ruc people sat outside of their houses to watch the workers, trucks and motorbikes. Many of them quit fieldwork to watch the new things all day. At night, they went to the field to pull up some cassavas to grill and eat and wait for the new day to come to continue watching the construction. They watched the bulldozers and trucks for several days on end, awestruck.
When the construction finished, the new road brought the Ruc people nearer to the community and modern life. Since then, the Ruc people have shared happiness and difficulties with the community.
We visited the Ruc people when several local newspapers wrote about them as woodlanders in the early 1960s. At that time, we had to walk on hazardous Huynh De road for one day to reach Yen Hop village. When we arrived at the village, our bodies were covered with blood from terrestrial leeches.
