Day 1 at the work site

Ouch, I’m sore. Today was our first full day at the work site. Our primary task for the day was to shovel out 3-4 inches of dirt from a 30’ x 50’ area which was the old playground. When we arrived, there were no shovels so we sent most of the people to the home to start laying brick for the house and a few of us stayed at the playground and strategized about how to put up the sun shades after the playground is assembled. It felt like a game of Tangoes.

But I get ahead of myself, we loaded the buses at 7:30am and drove to breakfast. There was a small menu we could order from and I ordered Café Sua (black coffee with condensed milk) and rice noodles with fish and shrimp. I think my body may go in to shock as I don’t usually drink caffeine or milk, and definitely not condensed milk. Oh well, I am doing ok so far. It is nearly impossible with our menus to not each breads either as every meal has noodles, bread and/or rice. I am trying to limit the breads intake but not completely as I would starve if I did that.

We arrived at the school at about 8:30am. The “shovels” arrived an hour more later and they had to be assembled. Hum….The shovel, hoe, pick parts were made of metal but they needed to be attached to the wood handles with screws or nails. I was desperately wishing for a Home Depot or Lowe’s at this point. Mental note – great idea for opening a new business in Vietnam. The tools lasted most of the day, but as they broke (handles snapped in half or shovels fell off of handles) we sent them over to the pile and the Vietnamese just put them back together again. Not a very efficient tool. After lunch, someone showed up with better tools (large Hoes). Yes, the quote of the day was “the large Ho’s saved the day”. Funny, but so true. Those hoes made the job so much faster!
As we dug out the grass and dirt we hauled it away in wheelbarrows and dumped it in a ravine near the school. As we got areas cleared and graded, then the frames for the cement areas were built by Dave S. We were able to get 90% of the yard cleared and two sections of cement poured by 4:30, quitting time.

Dinner was at the same place as the night before. I think it is the only restaurant in the area that can fit all 80 of us. At dinner, Caroline (Executive Director of Catalyst) gives brief summaries of the day and instructions for the next day. She announced that the medical team saw over 700 patients today with the help of 25 local Vietnamese doctors. The school team which consists of 29 volunteers under the age of 15 and 8 adults and teens, sorted all the donations and prepared for camp activities with 250 local Vietnamese kids. The school team will be hosting games and crafts for the local kids as well as distributing toys, clothes and food to the local families.

Drinks at Yumi’s Café again. I had a great talk with Phan who is from Holland, born to Vietnamese parents. We talked a lot about the difference in cultures between the US and Europe. Smart guy.

Prep day at the school

It was 3pm when we arrived and we split in to our teams to sort medicines (medical team), sort clothes and toys (school/distribution team), and plan the playground (Construction/home team). I am on the playground construction team.
We measured the playground equipment and grass area and drew a diagram of the new playground. I was very happy to see that we are assembling a manufactured playground and we do not have to build it from scratch as we had suspected. There is an old, smaller play set on the grass area which has large holes in the slides and an old swing set with no swings. We took out the old play set.

After some basic announcements from Caroline and our team leaders, we went to the hotel at about 5pm. The whole team of 80+ people except three of us are at the same hotel. I am in other hotel with my roommate Anna and JP. I guess some people decided they wanted single rooms instead of sharing with a roommate and the hotel was short by two rooms. Since Anna, JP and I have no children or other family members on the trip, we got to be the winner. Also, Anna and JP both speak Vietnamese so if I need anything they can help me. Anna is really sweet. She is from Minneapolis and just finished her schooling to be a Pharmacist. She is our dedicated Pharmacist for the trip, which was my sister’s role last time. She was in Vietnam in 2007 with a college trip. On that trip, the team helped build the fence and the library at the school. This is her first time on a Catalyst medical Aid expedition. She is on the medical team of course. Our room is basic and has a twin bed and a full bed. She picked the twin so I have the bigger bed. The beds are very hard. I feel like I am sleeping on the ground it is so hard. And there is only one thin comforter with no sheets or other blankets. We have been running the air conditioning and I have been sleeping in my sweater as it has been cold in the middle of the night. I suppose we could figure out how to adjust the AC, but we haven’t bothered yet.

We met the bus for dinner at 6:30pm. Dinner was the usual Hot pot with fish balls and veggies, yummy fish, fried sugar cane, beef in greens and rice. We ordered cold Heineken beer also. After dinner, a group of about 10 of us went to have drinks at a new bar/café called Zumi about a block away. It is nice and the weather is perfect at about 8pm. We had Tiger beers and sat and talked about past Aid trips and all sorts of other topics. I finally felt tired and was ready for a real night of sleep after 2 days with only about 4 hours of sleep.

Arrival in Rach Gia at Catalyst School

We arrived at Rach Gia, Kien Giang at the Catalyst school. This is the school that Catalyst built 5 years ago for the children living in the garbage dump. I learned from Caroline that the garbage dump has been closed for about a year now, which means that the families living there had two choices: 1) They could stay and continue to pay rent, but were not allowed to work at the dump anymore to help pay for the rent. This meant if they stayed they had to find other work in the community somehow to pay the rent. It is very hard for these families to find work as many of them are undocumented in the sense that they do not have official papers from their ancestry. This could be because several generations ago they immigrated to the country or just because someone along the line lost the paperwork in a fire or some other way. Despite all of this, some of the families have chosen to stay at this garbage dump to be near the school so their children can continue to go to school in hopes of a better life. 2) Another option is to move to the new dump which is 30 km away from the school. This makes it much more difficult to continue to go to school. But with a Catalyst bicycle and the Catalyst scholarship money which pays for school and food for the family, some of the families have chosen this option. As always, the children have to stay in school for Catalyst to continue to pay the scholarships and provide the food. If they miss school, they are kicked out of the Catalyst program.

March 28 – Travel Day

I didn’t sleep much at all last night, but I feel totally awake so I guess it doesn’t matter. I really think the Malaria meds have me wired. I did contact my doctor ahead of time and ask how it would react with my Thyroid meds and she said it would be fine. Time will tell. So, it was no problem to wake up at 5:40am after 2 hours of sleep. A quick shower and then dropped my bags down to the lobby. Breakfast was on the 10th floor overlooking the city. I sat with a woman named Christy (not Chrysty from 2008 and 2006) and her Vietnamese son Ashton (age 11) and Dr. Chris who is in charge of our medical team.

Dr. Chris shared the story of her Saturday adventure. She and one of the other volunteers took a taxi across town to get to the Catalyst press conference. The driver insisted that they keep their backpacks in the trunk. When they got out and got there backpacks, the women at the shop nearby started pointing and making a huge fuss as the cab drove off. They had seen the driver take out a laptop from Chris’s backpack. Luckily, the women from the shop had the information on the cab driver and wrote everything down. Chris talked to Caroline and Chris was sent with one of the Eurekaz translators to the taxi headquarters to see what they could do. The cops arrived and they interrogated the taxi driver. Eventually he left and said he did not take it but thought he knew where it was. He came back with the laptop and demanded a reward for “recovering” the laptop. Chris ended up having to give him about US$10 as a reward. It was a 6 hour adventure. So, I will be making sure I am extra careful about the laptop. I brought the cable lock to lock it down in the hotel while we are there. We are in the same hotel all week so that will make it easier. There is the chance that they could cut the cable, but I will have to take that chance.

We are on the bus to Kiang Giang now. It is a 6-8 hour ride depending on traffic even though it is only about 150 miles. The roads are small here and are often one way each way. We stopped 2 hours in at a nice rest stop and enforced the “Sarah” rule of everyone goes to the bathroom even if they don’t think they need to. The Sarah story is from 2004. The short version is that she ended up having to go to the bathroom in a farm house pig pen (literally).

Arrival in HCMC, Vietnam

I slept on the 2 hour flight to HCMC. Upon arrival, I waited in the usual slow line for passport control and then collected my luggage and headed to customs. They scanned my luggage (they scan everyone’s luggage) and then I walked through with no questions. I have never had any problems with customs – I think it helps that I am usually traveling by myself and looking sort of like a back packer. Arriving in HCMC is familiar now as I have been here four times, but it is still so different then America that it is like arriving for the 1st time again. As it was 11pm, the crowds outside the airport were small for typical Vietnamese arrivals, but still 3-4 rows deep of people waiting for friends and relatives. The whole family and distant family seem to show up for anyone arriving. As I followed the gated path through the sea of Vietnamese people, I saw the familiar and friendly Catalyst sign and then I knew I was in safe hands. Catalyst contracts with Eurekaz tourist agency for all of our logistics and they are responsible for meeting all of us at the airport. There were supposedly 3 other volunteers on the flight with me but I had not recognized anyone. They put me in a taxi with one of the Eurekaz staff and they stayed to look for the other volunteers.

Taking a taxi from the airport to District 1 in HCMC feels like the initiation phase and welcome back to Vietnam. Despite how many times I have seen the swarms of traffic of motor scooters and taxis and tuk tuks, it still feels like an experiment in physics as everyone just keeps moving and judging how the others are moving to that no two vehicles end up in the same spot at the same time (crash). My taxi driver was a maniac in American taxi terms, but not so bad for Vientam. Despite closing my eyes a few times on “close” passes, we arrived at the hotel with no dents or scraps. Success!

Check in to the hotel was simple and I was shown to my small, but clean room. I noted that Caroline was in room 903 so I stopped by to get instructions – luggage in the lobby by 6:30 and breakfast done by 7:00 to load the bus. It was 11:30pm Vietnam time. I sorted the goods in my suitcases more so that I could get rid of one large duffel bag of just supplies. I was about to go to sleep and then decided to go cash money at the front desk. There were about 6 Catalyst volunteers just arriving and I joyfully recognized and greeted several. Now to remember everyone’s name is going to be a challenge. Dave Virgil was there and he and I agreed to meet up in 20 mins to go have a beer. Yes, it was midnight already, but as Dave said to me, “I am only here for a short period and I want to take advantage of all the time I have here”.

Dave and I met in the lobby and walked a block to an intersection with several large bars full of small tables filled with a mix of Vietnamese and tourists from all over based on the accents we heard. Dave is father to Maya and Leam. Leam was adopted from south Vietnam at the age of 5 months and Maya was adopted from Cambodia. Maya and Leam and their mom Dorothy stayed home this year due to finances, but their family is very committed to Catalyst since their trip with Catalyst in 2008. I remember hanging out with Maya a lot on the last trip. She was my buddy for several days on the 2008 trip. Dave and I had 333 (Vietnamese beer) and Tiger Beers (Thailand) and enjoyed our conversations about Vietnam and US relations and adoption. After 2 beers it was about 3:00am and we decided it was time to power nap before the 6am wake up call.

Flight to Hong Kong

Flight to Hong Kong

Our flight finally left the ground at 3pm. I had a lovely Chinese-American couple next to me (live in Texas) who got up often which was nice as that meant I got out of my window seat at least 4 times on the 14 hour flight. There were four movies on the flight, and I watched three of them. All three were all pretty serious movies focusing on the challenges of parenting and death.
By the 3rd movie I was seriously wishing for a good comedy about something silly or an action movie. I guess I should have watched the 1st movie which was “Mr. Fantastic Fox”. They actually fed us 3 times too if you can call airplane food being fed. The views over Russia were really amazing. It was a very clear day and I could see where the ice was breaking off in to the lakes and streams. I tried to take a bunch of photos out the airplane window. Overall the flight was long but uneventful which is good. I slept for about 2 hours. I should be more tired but I think my malaria medications are kicking in – they always seem to make me hyper.

We arrived in Hong Kong late as expected. My flight for HCMC leaves here at 9pm which means I will arrive in Vietnam at about midnight. Hopefully Catalyst in country staff are checking the flight schedules and will be there to pick me up. Caroline is always on top of these things so I am not concerned. And if I’m lucky, no one in Vietnam security will be awake enough at midnight to harass me about my luggage. Looks like I am supposed to line up now to get on my flight. There is a young girl (age 4 maybe) traveling with her family and she has the cutest roller luggage – It looks like a penguin!! I am going to try to get a picture without looking like a child stalker.

United Airlines Delays Flight

Here I am at SFO. In many ways it seems odd that I am headed back to Vietnam already - it seemed so many months away for so long. But, wasn't I just in Vietnam? Was that really 2 years ago? Am I sure I packed everything I needed to pack? Oh well, ready or not, here I go. Airport arrival was easy this morning thanks to my parents who picked me up and drove me to SFO. Love them! We didn't even have traffic this morning on the Bay Bridge. My two large bags passed check in with no problem. Weight limit is 50 lbs each and they weighed in at 47.5 and 43 lbs. But I don't think I could have fit much else in without having the zippers break on me. Security was easy with no long lines and I found my last Decaf, Soy Latte for the next 10+ days. I expect that I can get one in Australia and NZ so it is really just Vietnam where I am coffee free these days as they do not have decaf.

So, here I sit waiting for United Airlines to swap out the plane which apparantly has no air conditioning. I guess flying 300+ people in a closed in box for 14 hours is a bad idea. So, I can happily wait an hour for a plane with air conditioning. Hopefully, they will get the food and luggage moved over too : )

I am really looking forward to being in Vietnam again and spending the days working to make lives better for the families and children we support. We will be in Rach Gia the whole time. That is the community that lives in the garbage dump near the Cambodian border. I was there on my last trip with Catalyst and I am hoping to see some progress in the school kids (particularly their English) and the housing situation.

I am on the construction team this year. Our two main projects are to build a brick house (3 little pigs comes to mind) on the edge of the river and build a playground (including cement foundation) for the school. I asked to be on the playground team. As typical on these trips in Vietnam, we do not really know what this means until we get there. Some of the team is already in Vietnam and is looking for the right tools, etc. that we could not bring with us. But we won't know the real state of the situation until we arrive in Rach Gia on Sunday. So, Sunday night will be the construction team meeting for re-planning and setting the tasks for the week. Of course this meeting will be fueled by 333 (vietnamese beer). If we are lucky, the main supplies we need (gravel, lumber and sheet metal) will have already been delivered to the school. If yes, then "all" we have to do is figure out how to build a playground out of a pile of gravel (for cement) wood and sheet metal. Sounds like a Bob's Building Brigade adventure doesn't it. Wish I had some Bob's with me here. You would all love this!

But first, I need to get to Vietnam. Even if this flight is delayed longer then an hour, I am pretty sure we can make up the time on the 14 hour flight to Hing Kong. I have no idea how long the layover is in Hong Kong, but I suspect the plane to Vietnam will wait as I would suspect there are 100+ people on this plane that will be continuing on to Vietnam. Original schedule was for arrival in Vietnam at about 10pm Vietnam time. The bus to Rach Gia leaves early morning the next day so if the flight is delayed less then 7-8 hours, I should be fine. If for some reason, I am more delayed, then the adventure will begin as Catalyst in country staff figure out how to get me and my luggage to Rach Gia. We had this situation several years ago when someone missed a flight. I don't remember exactly how we caught them up to the rest of the group, but it was an adventure. Maybe I should have left a day earlier as this is cutting it close. Oh well, it will all work out someway - it always does. That's part of the adventure.

I am already super glad I brought my computer so that I can sit here and blog and not have to type on a blcakberry or iTouch (which I didn't end up buying). Hopefully I will be able to connect to wifi in Vietnam somewhere in Rach Gia. Our Director thought we would be able to, but as mentioned, things in Vietnam do not always turn out as planned. Worse case, I will type everything anyway and upload it all when I get to Australia.

Time to go check on the flight status.