VietNamNet Bridge – Every summer, the swimming pools in Hanoi receive more swimming teachers. They are athletes or gym teachers, who try to teach swimming to earn extra money.

At 10 am, the sun was burning hot, but the swimming pool on Pham Ngu Lao Street in Hanoi were still full of people. A middle aged woman told the small children, who practiced swimming, to go taking a rest. In the wet swimsuit, the woman sat down on a chair and began eating the steamed glutinous rice she bought with herself.

Giang, the swimming teacher, said that she gave birth seven months ago, but she cannot stay at home to look after the child. She has to leave the baby at the grandparents and goes to swimming pools every day, where she teaches swimming for extra income.

Giang, who was once a swimming athlete, is now a gym teacher at a secondary school. As her income is modest, just 2.1 million dong a month. Every gym teacher got the additional income of 5500 dong for every hour of teaching, which is just enough to purchase a bundle of steamed glutinous rice.

With the rate, if having 18 teaching hours per week; she gets an additional sum of 100,000 dong. “A teaching hour cannot bring us the sum of money big enough to purchase a kilogram of rice,” the woman from Quang Binh province said.

Therefore, Giang said, she has to go to swimming pools in Hanoi every summer, where she teaches swimming for money. Her husband, also an athlete, also has to take extra jobs to earn extra money to feed his family.

Despite the scorching sun, Giang is present at swimming pools all the day long. On some days, the teaching shift begins at 5 am. Giang leaves for home at 10.30 am to prepare lunches for grandparents and the baby. After the lunchtime, she returns to swimming pools and begin the afternoon working shift. She only gets home late in the afternoon.

When asked why he did not drink beer like other men at the swimming pool did, Duan, the swimming teacher, said: “Everything here is so expensive. A sausage is sold at 45,000dong, while a bottle of water is priced at 20,000 dong. I have to stint myself in money and save every dong. I would have no money if I spend money like the other men”.

In recent years, Duan goes from Nam Dinh province to Hanoi every summer where he teaches swimming to earn extra money. Since Hanoians now like learning to swim, it is not difficult to get the job of teaching swimming.

Duan was a young national athlete in swimming and he graduated the Sports University. He said that the current job of teaching sports at a high school cannot bring him the income high enough to cover the basic needs, and he needs to take extra job for money.

“I arrived in Hanoi in early June, when high school students finished the final exams. I will be here until August 24, then I have to return to Nam Dinh to continue my teaching at school,” Duan said.

Here in Hanoi, Duan lives in a rent room. He has to prepare meals himself and plan his spending, so that he has money to send home to his wife, also an athlete.

“If I work hard in the two months in summer holiday, I would be able to earn the sum of money which is equal to the salary I get from the job of teaching for the whole year,” he revealed.

“I will be here (the swimming pool on Pham Ngu Lao Street) this morning. After that, I will go to the pool on Truong Chinh Street. Later this afternoon, I will return here to run another class,” Duan said.

“Sometimes I have to run 10 classes a day and I only stop working at 10 pm. One day I felt too tired and I realized that I did not have any food until that time,” he added.

Giang and Duan are not alone. At the swimming pool, one can meet other swimming teachers, including Nghiep, the lecturer of a junior college, or Minh, a former swimming athlete who has come to Hanoi from HCM City. They have different conditions, but have the same job – teaching swimming to get extra money.

Source: Tien phong