Vietnam: Country of coastline, mountains ... and natural disasters

This article was in the most recent CECI e-newletter. http://publication.ceci.ca/en/bulletin/omni/archive/2009/06/30/13803.aspx

In the small Southeast Asian country of Vietnam, whose dragon-like shape is said to bring good luck, natural disasters are a part of daily life. Since time immemorial, peasants who fail to make their homes proof against an upcoming monsoon are left to rebuild what the high water destroys. But these days the skies seem to be taking it out on the poorest people on the planet. They are the first wave of climate refugees.

Quang Binh

In October 2007, Typhoon Lekima devastated the central coastal provinces of Vietnam. The residents of Quang Binh province, a 50-km-wide strip of land between Laos and the South China Sea, were particularly hard hit. One year later, hundreds of Vietnamese are still living in temporary shelters and in fear of the next storm.

In cooperation with local Vietnamese governments and several international organizations, CECI took part in a reconstruction project, its first contribution in Quang Binh. In total, some 80 houses are once again or soon to be functional.

Geneviève Gignac visited Quang Trach district in the northern part of the province, where the small commune of Quang Trung is slowly recovering from Lekima.

Listen to the podcast => More...

Nghe An
A little to the north, the mountainous province of Nghe An is also struggling from the aftereffects of the storm. In the Quy Hop ethnic district, CECI helped out with the cleanup.

In addition to rebuilding dikes and ridding the fields of stones and silt, our organization worked on reinforcing a basic irrigation system.

Geneviève Gignac visited the commune of Chau Dinh and its famous water-powered mills, whose simple elegance harks back to another time.



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See the pictures (pdf format - 2.74 M) => More...

Happy Birthday Uncle Ho

This past weekend the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development hosted each of its divisions to compete in a talent show for Ho Chi Minh's birthday celebration. The men at our office sang a song and the ladies did a tradition dance and of course insisted that I take part! We started practicing about 2 weeks ago.

Three days before the show we went to rent our outfits. The minute the rental shop ladies saw me enter the store with my colleagues they automatically said they had nothing to fit a Westerner! Their initial reactions are so funny especially considering I am not THAT much larger than some of the other girls at the office! Anyway they gave me something to try on and.....it fit!!! Well then they wanted me to try everything on:-) So we played dress up for a while!


On the big day we arrived at 6am at the office to get our make-up done.









There were 27 acts in the show, mostly singing and some dancing. Being the ONLY non-Vietnamese in the show, as soon as I came out on stage the whole crowd started oohhhing, ahhhing, clapping, and laughing! Not sure just how many shades of red I turned!

We didn't win but it was fun dressing up and dancing with my colleagues. Certainly an experience I will never forget:-)




Take a look at the video to see for yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkAT1xAnI2o

Work Update - Another Canadian Volunteer in Da Nang

CECI has a program called Leave for Change in which people can volunteer part of their vacation time (2 to 4 weeks) to work on a project and the company they work for in Canada sponsors them. Last month, Francis Lavoie, who works for The Cooperators (an insurance cooperative) in Quebec City as a Manager and has many years of accounting and financial management experience, came to Da Nang to work with me on a special project for one week.

We were asked to present a model cooperative for a plan the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) has to begin growing vegetables in 5 areas of Da Nang under the GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certification. This means all the vegetables will be grown with safe fertilizers and processes. Many vegetables worldwide are so heavily fertilized and sprayed with pesticides they are incredibly damaging to the environment and a threat to human health. As this is becoming a growing concern for consumers to have guaranteed safe products, being GAP certified is becoming more and more important.

The DARD wanted our advice on how to manage this project in a cooperative model, specifically in these 4 areas 1)Structure & Governance, 2)Membership, 3) Marketing, and 4) Finance.

Initially, we visited a cooperative currently growing vegetables in Da Nang to give Francis a better picture of how a Vietnamese cooperative operates and to ask some specific questions about their current distrubution of the vegetables. We had the chance to speak with a cooperative leader, several farmers, and one distributor.




With only one week, we worked hard to provide Francis with lots of information. We were conscience of the fact that the exact model that works in Canada, won't necessarily work in Vietnam. Keeping this in mind we found an example from Thailand and presented it in a way that they can use parts of the model and develop some of there own best practices based on our suggestions and customizing it for them. This will be a long term project and the DARD has a lot of work to do towards implementing the project.

In the end the DARD was very pleased with our suggested model and they believe they will be able to use many of our suggestions.


If you or someone you know might be interested in sharing your expertise to help out in a development project feel free to check out available listings at www.uniterra.ca

With only about 6 weeks left here I am drafting my final recommendation report and final presentation. Trying to summarize and make recommendations on a year's worth of research and information has my head in a bit of a tail spin! Was thinking the other day I have learned so much during my mandate that it is difficult to remember what I didn't know to begin with...if that makes any sense!!

Snake - The perfect Easter Meal!

Mireille and Audrey both had flights back to Canada from Hanoi so we flew from Siem Reap to Hanoi and spent two days there before they had to leave.

Mireille and I met up with two of my friends, Hung and Julie, in Hanoi to have a meal at a SNAKE restaurant!!


First, they bring out the live cobra so that you can choice the one you like.



Then they take out the still beating heart,





pour fresh blood and bile from the gull bladder into separate glasses,


and then the remainder of the snake goes back into the kitchen to prepare 7 different dishes.



Hung, our Country Coordinator for CECI in Hanoi had eaten snake many times so he offered to be the dinner chairman and to eat the heart. The rest of us weren't quite brave enough for that!



Really it is more like drinking the heart, while it is still beating, it is dumped into a shot glass mixed with some alcohol, and down the hatch!



However, we all did drink the blood and the bile!!









After the initial oddities, the rest of the meal was quite normal and delicious!!

It included over 7 dishes made from snake; fried snake skin, snake spring rolls, snake fried rice, snake stir fry, crushed & friend snake bones, snake soup, and snake rolled in cabbage.





So that was our Easter dinner! Certainly one to remember!

The next day I returned to Da Nang and back to work. Audrey and Mireille still had another day in Hanoi before heading back to Canada. Was great having friends visit and being able to travel around with them. Mireille and Audrey - Anyone know where I can get a Tuk Tuk?? Love you guys:-)

Cambodia

Continuing from the last blog, Audrey, Mireille and I arrived at Ha Tien, Vietnam from Phu Quoc Island in search of transportation to Cambodia, specifically Phnom Penh. Immediately after getting off of the boat, Mireille was approached by a gentleman with a motorbike who said he could take us across the Cambodian border and have a car waiting for us on the other side to take us directly to Phnom Penh. Sounding too good to be true but not really having another choice we went ahead and each of us got on the back of a motorbike headed towards the border about 10 minutes from where our boat docked.

After filling out our Cambodia visa applications, getting a 'health check' (checking boxes to say we did not have a fever or were vomiting!), and walking across the border; our driver decided to tell us that his friend with the car to take us to Phnom Penh was busy that day and couldn't do it.









So there we were on a dirt road with no other options! Our moto driver did offer to take us to Kampot, about an hour and a half away by motorbike where we could stay the night a catch a bus to Phnom Penh the next morning. Realistically, we didn't expect to make it to Phnom Penh that day anyway so we took them up on their offer. It ended up being one of the highlights of the trip, driving through rural Cambodia at sunset on a motorbike!


















We stayed in Kampot for one night which was a quiet little town, would have been nice to stay there a bit longer but we were short on time and had to leave for Phnom Penh early the next morning. So we found a cute hotel, grabbed a meal and headed to bed early to be sure not to miss out bus.





Just 30 minutes into our bus to Phnom Penh we got stuck in a muddy 'detour' where we had to wait about an hour to get the bus pulled out.



Once we arrived in Phnom Penh we visited the killing fields which is one of the memorials and burials grounds from the massacre of more than 200,000 Cambodians during the totalitarian communist regime of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 to 1979. Certainly a sobering place to visit, just a short time ago, so many lives were lost for no justified reason. Trials for these massive crimes are still undergoing today with hope to put some of the people responsible to justice.

With only one night in Phnom Penh we had little time to see the city and explore the Cambodian culture. We had a great Cambodian meal,









came across a lively Cambodian street dance party (like something I would have seen in Panama, definitely not in Vietnam),



and visited Happy Man Bar where many Cambodian ladies welcomed us and taught as a traditional dance.










The next morning we were off to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat. What an incredible site. The first morning we got up at 4:30am to see one of the temples at sunrise....absolutely breathtaking.












The next 3 mornings were spent exploring the amazing temples. Getting up early was totally worth it to beat the heat and the crowds. Here are some of the shots from the temples.






















Mireille and I took a Cambodian cooking class. We each got
to cook 2 dishes. Like a cross between Thai and Vietnamese food it was very delicious!!





While visiting the temples I had an idea to make a rubbing with pastels of some of the carvings (bas-reliefs) of the temples. So I set out with lots of paper and pastels. Not sure this would be allowed, I wasn't surprised when one of the ground workers took my paper away! So I still had lots of paper and pastels left! Around the temples there were many children selling anything from postcards to shirts to scarves. I decided to give my art supplies to the children. At one of the last temples a little boy approached me; "Lady, postcard one dollar?" Instead I told him I would give him a dollar if he drew me a picture and handed him the pastels and paper.

After inspecting the crayons for what seemed like 2 minutes, he began drawing on the paper. The postcards he was selling became the furthest thing from his mind. A crowd started to gather around us. It was such an incredible experience watching this boy enjoy colouring this picture. It gives me goose bumps just retelling the story, in fact, I was in tears just watching him. It was just so overwhelming watching him and remembering when I was his age I probably had 2 dozen colouring books and over 200 crayons and lots of time to colour. Life doesn't seem fair sometimes!

About 20 minutes later he had finished his masterpiece.

Afterward I gave him the all the pastels and paper I had left. His smile was priceless, being 6 years old and probably never attending a proper school, I might as well given him a piece of gold. He left for a second and came back with a flute to give me and taught me a song.

Cambodia is such a beautiful country with beautiful people. It is incredible how a population can recover from such a recent, devastating history. Only one week in Cambodia is not nearly enough to see and learn everything but I feel extremely fortunate to have spent some time there to better understand their history and culture.

Friends Visit from Canada

Well I must apologize for the delay in posting. Things have been rather hectic around here between work, having visitors and taking trips. Plus once I get blogging out of your routine is it pretty easy to forget!

A quick recap of the last 2 months; I had 2 friends from Canada visit and we had the chance to travel to a small island in the south of Vietnam, Phu Quoc and spent one week in Cambodia. An old friend from Halifax stopped by while traveling Vietnam after teaching in Korea for a year. A short- term volunteer from Quebec came to work with me on a special project for a week. I escaped into the mountains for my last holiday weekend in Vietnam. I was going to try to recap all of this in one blog but think it will be best to blog each one separately.


Audrey & Mireille Visit Vietnam and Cambodia

My friend, Audrey, came to visit me in Da Nang for a few days before heading south to meet our other friend Mireille in Saigon. She happened to arrive in Da Nang during the International Fireworks competition! It was a two day competition with the Philippines, Spain, Vietnam, Australia, and China. We stayed in Da Nang for the first night of competition but headed to Hoi An for the second night of competition. China won, we didn't get a chance to see it live but seeing it on TV afterward, it was pretty spectacular.


So we rented a motorbike and headed to Hoi An for 2 days and one night.









In Hoi An, they were participating in Earth Hour. Even the restaurants had their power shut off and there were candles light up in the river. It was so beautiful.













With such a short time in Hoi An, Audrey was still about to get 2 dresses and a winter coat tailor made,












met and had a laugh with Ba Linh, a lovely Vietnamese lady at the beach

had some great food, and a midnight swim in the ocean!

Audrey left me in Da Nang to work for the week and to meet Mireille in Saigon. The plan was for them to spend the week touring in Saigon and the Mekong Delta and I would meet them on Phu Quoc Isand for a few days and then we would head to Cambodia.


So I left Friday after work on a flight to Saigon. Upon my arrival in Saigon the bus company called me to tell me that the bus ticket I reserved 2 weeks early was no longer available and all the buses going to Rach Gia over night were booked and I would have to wait another day to get to Phu Quoc. Long story short I ended up on a bus to Rach Gia that was supposed to get me there in time to catch the boat to Phu Quoc. It ended up being a 12 hour bus ride with many Vietnamese liberally sprawled out sleeping - at one point I woke up on the bus with 3 pair of bare feet 1)dangling in front of my face, 2) on my arm, and 3) laying over my legs! Haha....I wasn't quite sure what people meant when they talked about lack of personal space in Asia....now I know! Finally we arrived in Rach Gia which I wasn't so confident would happen considering my poor Vietnamese and their poor English when I initially boarded the bus.




After a 2.5 hour boat ride and 30 minute motorbike ride, I met Audrey and Mireille relaxing on the beach of our comfy 'resort', we had our own rustic bungalow on a small quiet beach.









After a shower and some food I had forgotten about exhausting trip there.

That evening we walked along the beach to a nearby restaurant and had a lovely evening of catching up.










The next day Audrey and I headed out for a snorkeling trip.













Our last morning on the island we spent relaxing at the beach and doing a yoga class courtesy of a podcast and Audrey's Ipod!!! Even another guest from the hotel joined in.



Then it was off on the boat to Ha Tien, a small Vietnamese town near the Cambodian border. We still weren't sure just how we were getting into Cambodia and on to Phnom Penh but we figured once we get to Ha Tien there would be some information for us.