Hàng Ngày

I just returned home from the final match of the Asian Cup 2007. After a watching myriad games in the last several weeks (the cafe around the corner has a giant screen TV which has gotten a few of us Americans here addicted to the new “football”) we marveled on the way home tonight how IRAQ could have made it to the final game, much less beaten the three-time champion team Saudi Arabia. It was a well-deserved win. At one point during the second half Iraq’s shots on goal outnumbered Saudia Arabia’s 11-4. The Iraqis have a very quick, offensive team with good footwork and clean passes (more so in previous games than tonight). This helped them defeat the Vietnamese team last week and perhaps is why most of the people in the cafe seemed to be cheering for Iraq. It could also be that they were just cheering every good play, many of which were Iraq’s.

In other news, today was a full-day-student-extravaganza with some of the volunteers here in Hue, the most exciting activities including tug of war, steal the bacon, sack races, cooking banh beo and listening to ridiculously loud music while washing dishes. I would post photos but…my quota is used up. I’ll see what I can do about that.

Been doing some traveling lately (local travel only). Friday I went with 4 of the vols and another friend to Bach Ma national park. Bach Ma is a mountain about 40 km south of Hue that used to be an American helicopter landing sight and base during the American war. Tourists now (few of them, mind you) can see the tunnels that the Viet Cong used to take the base in the 1968 Tet Offensive. In addition, Bach Ma is now a national preserve with no logging, litter, development, etc. We hiked around for about 5 hours and saw beautiful creeks, views, and waterfalls. Rhodhadendron falls (spelling?) was the most breathtaking sight I’ve seen in a while. And breathtaking not only because of the view, but also because we had to climb down 689 steep steps to get to the bottom. No cable car here. Then we climbed back up and were shaking from exhaustion and dripping with sweat. It was nice to get out of the city though: the park was so quiet! Even in smaller towns in Vietnam, it’s usually not a particularly quiet feel. This was downright peaceful.

Then, yesterday, Jeff and I rented a motorbike and drove to Danang over the Hai Van pass. More breathtaking views and old ruins, this time three “generations” worth of ruins. At the top of the pass, from which you can take in the scenic coastline of Danang, there are remains of US pillboxes, French outpost, and imperial entrance gates to Hue dating back to at least the 19th century. It was cool to see all of the sights juxtaposed against one another. When we got to Danang Jeff and I checked out the beach and the city, had some local delicacies and then visited…the supermarket. That’s right. We had to buy sunblock and a shirt for Jeff who had eaten the famous last words “I don’t get sunburned in Vietnam” after about one hour on the road that morning. I of course was covered head to toe in clothing…Vietnamese style. They didn’t have any shirts in Jeff’s size so he ended up buying a set of pajamas to cover his blistering arms. It must have been quite a sight for those we drove by on the road home that afternoon.

Part of the logistical work and the interesting experience (in my mind) of planning this summer program is the weekly NGO visits that we coordinate for the summer volunteers to get an overview of nonprofit work in Vietnam in general and Hue in particular. This, in my mind, is a way to introduce young Americans to the world of opportunities they have to work in Vietnam in various fields should they desire to do so in the future: one of my favorite parts of the program. So, you can imagine my disappointment when the first two friday NGO visits were somewhat lackluster. The first was a visit to an orphanage that has been a magnet for foreign volunteers in the past, but just recently got a new director so the presentation was fairly lackluster and uninformative. The second was with an organization that is working with a few resettlment communities here, but the organization itself seems somewhat disorganized and the presentation showed as much.

Our third NGO visit this past Friday was to the Office of Genetic Counseling and Disabled Children, headed by Dr. Nhan of Hue Medical University. I was apprehensive, worrying that this visit would be disappointing for the volunteers as the past two had been. However, I was immediately put at ease when I walked into Dr. Nhan’s tiny office and saw him ready with a full-on powerpoint presentaiton complete with photographs and personal stories telling about the work that his organization has been doing over the past 10 or 12 years. Dr. Nhan proceeded to talk for over an hour about his offices various programs which include sponsoring operations like cleft palate, brain tumor removal, and heart surgery, supporting inclusive education and home rehabilitation for disabled children, and providing poor families with the means to get their children healthcare. The man was on fire. He told us about insurance and healthcare in Vietna, and about all of the support he gets from “his friends” as he called them (a fitting term, I think). These “friends,” from all over the world make it financially possible for his office to do the great work they do, and it seemed from the presentation and his office staff and all of the information he gave us that these folks run a tight ship: they have tried and practiced their methods, tweaked them, gotten community input and involvement, and have even in some cases worked themselves out of a job (for example, with a local school they started for the disabled that now runs itself without their assistance). I was so happy that we finally found a great organization that the vols can keep in touch with, and some of them were already talking about going back to help with editing and translation. Check out the website! http://www.ogcdc.org/home.php

Following is an email sent to Jenna yesterday. I don’t think I can say it better by writing it again, so here it is:

Speaking of artists, crazy adventure yesterday.
So, I went to check out this pagoda on the northern part of town that I’d heard about in a few guidebooks. After getting myself thoroughly lost on the way there, ending up in some hilltop village (pretty, but I had to bike up that hill!) I finally made it to the pagoda which was really old, beautiful, peaceful. There were a few monks there and one invited me in to drink tea.

I talked with him for a few minutes in English/Vietnamese when all of a sudden this beautiful young couple came in and greeted him like old friends and brought some sort of gift. The man turned to me and asked me where I was from, in fluent English, and I said the US, “whereabouts?” he asked, and I told him St. Louis. “We’re from California,” he said, “we’re going to go up to some places in the mountains that you can’t really see as regular tourists. Do you want to come along?” Well, of course I said yes without hesitation and we went to hop in this 7 person taxi: the beautiful couple, their two kids, three other random vietnamese people (relatives of some sort), me, and the monk in the front seat. We drove for about 15 minutes outside of the city up this hill with pine trees lining the road and stopped at this little dirt track where we got out and walked to this amazing estate. Not just a house: an estate. The woman, Bao Tran, is a famous artist in Hue, does a lot of paintings and self-portraits, and has this giant mansion in the hills. She showed us all around: her house, her gallery, a guest house, a handicrafts workshop, her studio, and this shrine to her son who died in an accident in Santa Cruz a few years ago. All of this is ornately decorated with fruit trees all around and landscaped walkways. Then she sat us down and gave us homemade sangria and jackfruit picked from the garden and we talked for a while. Apparently the beautiful couple is somehow indirectly related to her through marriage. It wasn’t exactly clear. After a few hours we all piled back in the taxi and they dropped me and the monk back at the temple where I got my bicycle and went home. Just another day in Vietnam, right?

Well, I thought the last time I was in Hue (by myself) and had what seemed to be tonsilitis was the sickest I’d ever been in Vietnam. But I think that this episode tops even that. I have eaten something that did not agree with my stomach. I don’t know what it was, but my stomach has been hating me for the past two days, so much so that I can’t even really hold water in. My stomach hurts every time I put anything into it, and then it’s gone after only a few minutes (to put it politely). This morning I decided I should really eat something or else I was going to be even sicker. This was a mistake. As soon as I got out in the sun on my bicycle, I felt like I was going to pass out. I made it to the sandwich shop and while waiting I had to sit down on the ground because my stomach hurt so badly. Then, when I got back, miracle of miracles, this middle-aged Vietnamese woman (mother of one of the American teachers here with a different program) said I looked pale (understatement) and offered me some medication. Hallelujah! I never thought I would take that cipro stuff, but I took it eagerly from her and made it up the stairs somehow ( I couldn’t really see them at this point). When I got to my door I couldn’t get the damn thing unlocked (usually takes some jiggling) because I could barely see it, and had to put down the sandwich on the floor and lean my head against the door in order to do it. Safe in my room, I collapsed on my bed and basically slept all day long, with intervals of drinking sips of water and nibbling on the bread of the sandwich (at this point I had gotten it into the fridge and out of the hallway). Oh man. This is aweful. I feel the most awake I’ve felt all day right now because I just ate about 4 crackers and had some water. This better be over tomorrow or else I’m going to have to go to the hospital. I hate being sick.

Well, it’s about time that I let everyone know a little bit about this organization that we’ve been working with here in Hue, if nothing else to provide some free advertising and raise awareness about the NGO’s activities in Hue.

So, Hue Help is a registered UK non-profit with the purpose of assisting poor and underserved communities in Hue, Vietnam. They primarily work with what are called “resettlement communities” in some of the outer communes of Hue city. These communities used to live on the Perfume River and make their living fishing, dredging the banks of the river, snails and clams, and other water-based activities. The river was their livelihood. Then, in the 1980s, after some disastrous flooding and other things, they were relocated to these new areas by the government and provided with materials for building houses. Since losing their primary livelihood, these communities have remained quite poor, and many of the children have dropped out of school because of stigmatization and to help their families by selling lottery tickets, begging, etc.

Hue Help has set up a few projects in these communities, particularly in Phu Hiep resettlement area. The first is night classes for the children to help them catch up to their age-level standards with the hope that if they catch up they can re-enroll in public schools and continue their education through high school. The second, and the one I’ve been working with most, is the Bead Project. With this project, the young girls in the community (10-16 or so) learn to make beaded jewelry, such as earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and keychains, with the intention of selling these items to foreign tourists at reasonable costs to make a profit and support the community. The girls get about 20% of the profit for their own allowance, and another 20% goes to the community for them to carry out various development projects (for example, building a sewer or a latrine, or other sanitation projects are high priority).

This program has been running for about half a year with volunteers from the university, former students of a long-term VIA volunteer teacher. The girls have made over 1,000 products which are…sitting in a stock room somewhere, not being sold. It seems that the marketing plan has yet to be made, and this has been the fairly sticky situation that I have come into. The Vietnamese director of the organization really wants me to head the “marketing team” of students from the university. He also wants some of our student volunteers to joing this “marketing team.” It doesn’t seem to matter that we have NO marketing knowledge whatsoever. It has been a typical dodge and weave game with the director trying to both help the organization in some way but also to reassert that we are NOT experts in this area and that are advice is individual and not professional, and should not be valued more than the Vietnamese students’ opinions.

Meeting with the students on this “marketing team” this week, I realized that there is a lot of frustration about this project. There are issues of trust and control regarding these young, enthusiastic student volunteers that have made them a little less enthusiastic about volunteering for this organization, which is too bad. Luckily, we have met a few business and MBA students from the US who are here doing internship and research projects. May qua!! Now we can pawn this project off on them, and hope that their real expertise will be able to assist the organization more than our perceived expertise by the organization’s director. So now, my position seems to be one of liaison between students and director, between foreign customers  and Vietnamese organizers, and between MBA students and Vietnamese program director. All the while I’m feeling like I am totally unqualified and lacking knowledge about what is really going on with this program.

So, that said, here is a link to the website: www.huehelp.org.uk

I think you should all check it out, despite my rantings about the complicated innerworkings of nonprofit management. It is still a valuable cause and you’d better believe that all of my friends and relations will be getting Hue Help beaded products as gifts when I come to visit the US in a few weeks. Look forward to it, friends!