Teenager Thach Hoang finishes separating the meat from 50 oysters for a tourist and is just about to pick up his own lunch when another traveler orders 100 more.

The young boy dives back into the sea without hesitation.

It’s around noon and more than 10 local children like Hoang are baking in the sun without hats or shirts.

                                                                                             They sell oysters to visitors at Hon Da Bac (Silver stone) Island in the Mekong Delta southernmost province of Ca Mau.

Silver stone’s oysters are revered as southern Vietnam’s tastiest, and oyster diving has been the signature profession of youngsters in the area for years.

Many of the kids are their families’ breadwinners.Hoang has never gone to school, but he wants to

However, he knows that each oyster he picks from the sea can earn him VND2,000 (12 cents), which means he needs only five – a tenth of his daily catch – to buy his family a kilogram of rice.

While his parents pull fish-nets for VND70,000 (US$4) a day at most, the 15 year old boy earns more than VND100,000 ($6).

Like Hoang, Lam Hoang Khai has been oyster-diving for four years to support his family of six.

The 16-year-old is among the group’s best swimmers but he says he never accepts tips offered by foreigners.

“Diving’s no effort,” he says.

Khai’s team of divers has even agreed to share all their earnings with each other.

“We don’t want to bring a bad nameto the community just for the sake of money,” he says.

On sunny days, the group’s leader 20-year-old Nguyen Hoang Vinh brings an oven, fried onions and peanuts to cook up the oysters for tourists on the beach.

Oysters are marine crustaceans that permanently fix themselves to rocks and thus a chisel and hammer are needed to remove the creature.

It’s not easy to break open the shells underwater, and when the boys aren’t getting themselves cut on the coastline’s jagged rocks, they’re often accidentally hammering their fingers. They have no formal swimming or diving training, and hauling around hammers, chisels, large goggles and cartons to keep the oysters can be a dangerous endeavor in rough seas.

Hoang remembers a time when his Styrofoam carton helped save his life.

“I was grabbing a very big oyster when a large wave knocked me under a concrete slab and I couldn’t get up.

“Vinh and the others saw my carton floating on the surface and they pulled me up.”

The boys often end up with headaches and tinnitus after diving all day. It’s difficult to breathe with their weak and tired lungs after a day of holding their breath.

But Vinh says: “We have to accept all the risks if we want something to eat.”

The team leader also says the group does their best not to be selfish. “We always leave oysters for poor families in our community to have.”

Source: SGGP