Quang Ninh and Hai Phong

A lot has changed in the month since my last post. I got to go on even more work trips, meet youth just as inspiring as the ones in Ho Chi Minh City, and found out that my trip is being cut short by six months. Gotta take the good with the bad I guess! 


After returning from HCMC, I spent a few days in Hanoi before traveling up to Quang Ninh province for an event with street youth in Halong City, located close to Halong Bay (a popular tourist attraction). We left at 4 a.m. Friday morning, and made the three-hour trip in two thanks to my skillful driver. Unfortunately, I couldn't conduct any interviews during the day because of problems with the Quang Ninh police (oh, Vietnam). The trip was well worth it, though, and I got to meet and interview several street youth before, during, and after the two-hour event. Below is an excerpt from the Success Story I wrote, about Project NAM's self-help groups in Quang Ninh.


Project NAM, the initiative run by Save the Children Vietnam that I was tasked with evaluating, has created a network of self-help groups to provide support for these youth throughout Quang Ninh. Project staff train Peer Educators (PEs) on topics ranging from HIV/AIDS prevention and where youth can go for counseling and testing services to how to engage in sex and drug use safely. These PEs – many of whom live on the street themselves – then organize self-help groups in locations that are convenient for the clients, such as parks and rental homes. There are four self-help groups in Quang Ninh, and each group has 25-30 members and meets for 2 hours per week. During meetings, clients not only learn how to avoid contracting HIV/AIDS through games and discussions, but are also provided with an emotionally supportive environment to share their stories and ask for help.

Wrap-up of trip to HCMC

Well, my whirlwind of a week came to an end yesterday night when I took a plane back to Hanoi. I was sad to go, but it felt nice to be sleeping in my own bed again. The week ended on a high note even though my trip to An Giang Province didn't happen. A former president of Vietnam died, so the government cancelled all big events nationwide. As we were supposed to be attending an outdoor event for street youth at An Giang University, that meant the event had to be postponed until next weekend. We kept very busy in HCMC, though.

Saturday night, we delivered mooncakes in yet another part of HCMC, to celebrate Monday's mid-autumn festival (a festival specifically for children). The area where we delivered the mooncakes was even poorer than any of the other places I'd seen (you could rent a room for less than $1/day), but the people were so lovely and the mooncakes really seemed to make their day! Assisting with mooncake delivery was a former street youth, Sang, who is now living in an apartment with his wife and child. We all went out to eat afterwards, and I got to meet his family, which was such an honor.

Project N.A.M.

Yesterday and today, I had the chance to meet, work with, and learn from several street youth here in Ho Chi Minh City, most of whom are active in Project N.A.M., Save the Children's street youth-focused project. Below, I relay what was said to me during the interviews (although I won't even begin to do justice to the youth's stories in this post) and what I got to take part in during several group meetings. Working with these youth was a truly amazing experience, and Project N.A.M.'s peer educators (who are current or former street youth themselves) are some of the most inspiring people I've ever met.

First off, a little background on what it means to be a street youth in HCMC. There are four categories of youth: Category A, meaning the street youth are living and working on the streets and are disconnected from their families; Category B, where the street youth are still living and working on the streets but with their families; Category C, which contains youth that work in the streets but sometimes return to their home; and finally, Category D, who are immigrants who work in the streets but rent a room or house to live in with other relatives or friends. Most of the children that Save the Children works with in its projects fall under categories A and B, and my mission over the course of my time working with them was to do interviews and document "success stories" for Project NAM, one of the first projects in the NGO community to target its efforts specifically to street youth. The children that I met with ranged in age, amount of time spent on the street, and methods of earning income, but it's clear that the ones who had taken part the most in Project NAM (especially as peer educators) were best equipped with healthy life skills.

Meetings with inspiring children in HCMC

The past day and a half have been incredible. Last night, at about 6, my colleagues and I got in a cab and traveled about half an hour away from the Save the Children office in HCMC, to District 26, where about 75 migrant children and their teachers, along with some government officials, were gathered to celebrate the first evening class at the informal school these children attend. After the ceremony itself, which lasted about thirty minutes, the children each received new school bags and I tried (and failed) to speak Vietnamese with them. Then, we interviewed five of them, one each from grades 1 through 5. The kids were inspiring - they each told us that they spend all day working for their parents' businesses (whether it be working in a shop or selling drinks on the sidewalk) and come to class at night. One girl in particular told us that she traveled with her family from Cambodia two years ago, and had spent her evenings the past two years learning Vietnamese at the informal school. There is much work to be done with these children, though: none of the ones we spoke with had ever heard of "child rights" before, and did not know that, for example, they have the right to learn at school. Pictures will be posted soon; they're on the Save the Children camera.

This afternoon we traveled to the Linh Xuan Centre for Child Upbringing and Sponsoring, about 20 km away from our office but in the opposite direction. About 130 children live in this center, 60 or so of whom go to public school (starting at grade 4 - grades 1-3 learn in the center). According to my colleagues, all of the children are orphaned and HIV-positive. First, a group of older children (two of whom are peer educators for Save the Children) worked with us to do a test run of an HIV/AIDS stigma reduction game that Dartmouth helped me create.

Down south for the week

I've just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, where I'll be spending a week doing things around Saigon as well as in An Giang province. This evening, my colleagues and I will be traveling to an informal night school where migrant children are able to learn (they cannot attend regular school primarily because they have to work during the day to earn money for their families). Tuesday and Wednesday, I'll be conducting interviews with peer educators (trained by save the children) who were able to participate in the camp that we held in August; my colleagues and I will also be doing some work at the Linh Xuan center for Child Upbringing and Sponsoring, which houses children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Officials at Linh Xuan center, because of close collaboration with local authorities in HCMC, have had success in integrating children from the center into public schools. In fact, two of Save the Children's Peer Educators are HIV-infected children from Linh Xuan, and throughout the camp the leadership qualities they have been able to develop both in school and with Save the Children's help really showed (read more about Linh Xuan center, and integration efforts in Ba Vi, here: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Social-Isssues/214932/Schools-bar-students-with-HIV.html). 

On Thursday and Friday, I'll be switching gears to work with the street youth here in HCMC, interviewing them to do a review for one of Save the Children's big projects called Project Nam. Thursday night I will join their evening club meeting. These street youth (many of whom I have gotten to meet before) are quite impressive, and I can't wait to meet with them. 

Finally, on Saturday and Sunday, my colleagues and I will travel to An Giang province to attend a street youth-focused event at An Giang University on Saturday afternoon. 

I'll update more about what happens as the week goes on! 

Long overdue-- Ca Mau trip, Ba Vi camp, and Quan Lan island!

Hi everyone!

It has been way too long since my last post.. things have gotten very busy here. In the midst of trips around Vietnam and a three-week stint back to the states, I have had some fantastic opportunities that I'll briefly summarize here. Below are three short articles that have been/will be featured in an expat magazine (called The Word Hanoi) and some pictures that go along with each article. The first is about a work trip I took to Ca Mau province at the bottom of Vietnam, where I met with lots of inspiring youth who work on stigma reduction and/or infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. The next is about a camp that Save the Children held about two weeks ago in Ba Vi, the rural community where I did my research study this past winter and spring. And the third is about an amazing beach trip to Quan Lan island (in the north, right next to Halong Bay) last weekend with three friends, one from Spain, one from England, and one from Vietnam. Although words and pictures can't do justice to what I've been able to experience in the past few months, I hope that you enjoy!

Ca Mau:

It’s not every day that you hear of someone deciding to take a trip to Ca Mau, the southernmost province in Vietnam. But lucky for me, I found myself there a few weeks ago on a work trip. From trips along dirt roads lined with coconut trees to meetings with inspiring HIV-infected youth, it was an unforgettable 48-hour journey.

At 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, an hour after our departure from Saigon, we landed in one of the smallest airports I’ve seen up close. Pink lotus flowers dotted the grass around the landing strip, and my colleague and I were tempted to forego our meetings and spend the day taking photos instead.

After dropping our bags off at Anh Nguyet hotel – cheaper yet more luxurious than many of its big city competitors ($30USD/night, buffet breakfast included) – we drove an hour away from Ca Mau city to Nam Can district. On the way, we passed a number of beautifully constructed tombs. According to my colleague, in the south those who are buried in these tombs stay inside them for eternity. (In the north, the body only remains in the tomb for three years, after which the bones are collected and put into a smaller container in another tomb or a pagoda.)

Upon arriving in Nam Can, we spent the morning making house calls to kind families whose homes have been ravaged by HIV/AIDS, and the afternoon participating in a training with the incredible volunteers who work hard on the families’ behalf. For lunch, we feasted on canh chu ca, a delicious fish and vegetable soup dish. After the training, we walked to a café to have some Sinh To Bo, and watched as children swam fishnets across a small lake to help local policemen catch fish.

Afterwards, we took a two-hour taxi trip (which involved a boat ride across Dam Cun river, whose bridge is just beginning to be constructed) and unbeknownst to me, arrived at one of Ca Mau’s biggest tourist attractions, Cha Diep.

Cha Diep is a massive complex of churches, each equipped with huge organs, beautiful stain glass windows, and row after row of the same pews I used to kneel at during church services back home. The most beautiful church of all contains the body of Father Truong Buu Diep , who was respected during his life but has become idolized all over Ca Mau in the 50 years since his death. Every cab driver in Ca Mau prominently displays Father Diep’s face on his windshield. Father Diep’s grave is displayed in the biggest church in the complex of Cha Diep, full of stone angels and burning incense.

Our next day in Ca Mau was much like the first – peace, coconut trees, and some of the most delicious seafood I’ve tasted in Vietnam, mixed with meetings with hard-working, motivated locals. We traveled to Tran Van Thoi district, an hour’s drive in the opposite direction from Nam Can, where we met with teens who were blasting Justin Bieber from their headphones and were thrilled at the chance to practice some tieng Anh with a foreigner.

For those interested in traveling to Ca Mau for some du lich, Phan Ngoc Hien Street is known for its cuisine and Lam Ngu Truong is a popular place for bird watchers. Above all, find a local guide or two who can show you around and be prepared for a monsoon or two to break up your day. 

Ba Vi "Colors of the Rainbow" festival:

A Rainbow that Made A Difference

From August 11-13, Save the Children in Vietnam held a “Colors of the Rainbow” festival in Ba Vi, Hanoi, a rural district about 60 kilometers outside of Hanoi’s city center. The camp, as well as the conference that followed, was created to address the problem of stigma and discrimination against children living with HIV/AIDS, and specifically the barrier that they face in attending public school.

The festival sought to address the concerns of people in the Ba Vi community about integration of HIV-positive children into schools. Moreover, there is a government-run center in Ba Vi called “Trung tâm số 2,” where 53 HIV-positive orphans live. The government has tried several times to integrate the children into Yen Bai A and Yen Bai B public schools, but to no avail – parents of children who attend public school there line up in front of the school and protest integration of the orphans each time it is tried.

I conducted research in the winter and spring of this year to determine why parents so strongly object to integration, and found that much of the resistance relates to misunderstandings about HIV/AIDS transmission via casual contact.

Save the Children staff knew that we needed to come up with a way to both educate parents about the realities of HIV/AIDS and give them and their children a way to meet these children, to help them see that HIV-positive children live, breathe, laugh, and learn in the same way as non-infected children. We decided that a camp, culminated by a conference with government leaders and other community stakeholders, was the best way to do it.

The three-day festival was held at Dam Long, a beautiful resort in Ba Vi. Stroll through the resort’s grounds and you’ll see monkeys, deer, rabbits, and other animals playing freely amidst breathtaking scenery. The flat ground and clean air made for the perfect location to hold the camp – even when it monsooned on the first day, the children still managed to have a great time (with the help of a large umbrella that we set up).

The first day, roughly twenty kids and their caregivers from the center, thirty children and their parents from public schools in Ba Vi, a handful of government leaders, teenagers from all over Vietnam (“peer educators” who have been trained by our staff on the facts about HIV/AIDS and stigma), and roughly ten college-age volunteers from Hanoi came together to kick off the camp. The kids were randomly assigned to color-coded groups and played teambuilding activities to get to know each other better.

The next morning kicked off with a game show and parent-run panel that tested each child’s knowledge of HIV/AIDS and helped reinforce the message that integration into schools for children with HIV/AIDS is critically important. That afternoon, the parents visited Trung tâm số 2 to see how the children there live their daily lives.

On the morning of the third day, the parents participated in a workshop with three doctors from the Infectious Diseases department of the National Hospital of Pediatrics, where the doctors explained exactly how HIV/AIDS transmits and answered parents’ questions. The children, in their groups, created team slogans that related to integration and stigma reduction.

That afternoon, we held a conference that brought together government leaders from both Hanoi city center and Ba Vi, as well as the school administrators, parents and children from the camp, other community leaders, and local and national TV stations and newspapers. At the conference, doctors and researchers presented research on HIV/AIDS and stigma, and parents, children, and school staff participated in a talk show and panel.

At the end of the festival, parents commented that they learned a great deal about the realities of HIV/AIDS transmission, and that they were pleasantly surprised by the intelligence and enthusiasm of the HIV-positive children.

“Before, when I imagined my kids and the HIV-positive children playing together, I was really worried because my daughter is very active,” one mother of a child in Van Hoa primary school said to me. “But after the festival, I understand the whole idea [of integration] and have much less worry when my child plays with them.”

The festival combined face-to-face contact, education, and fun to teach people that children with HIV/AIDS are just like other children, and deserve the same rights and privileges. Ultimately, while it remains to be seen whether camps like these have the capacity to change parents’ behaviors, I have high hopes that integration of HIV-positive orphans into public schools in Ba Vi will happen soon.

Quan Lan Island:
           When most people think of Quang Ninh province, Halong Bay immediately pops to mind. But last weekend, I found myself in Quan Lan, a hidden island about an hour past the Bay, where the crowds were small, the beaches were big, and the seafood was the freshest I’ve had yet in Vietnam.

At 5:45 a.m. on Friday morning, we drag ourselves to the Luong Yen bus station on the outskirts of Hanoi and find a bus that will take us to Van Don – a port city near Halong Bay – for the going rate of 125,000 VND.

After the five-and-a-half hour ride, we reach Van Don, grab some street food at a market near the bus stop, and catch a cab to Cai Ong port. Here, we buy tickets for a 45-minute motorboat ride (280,000 VND round trip) to bring us to Quan Lan, a pristine, untouched island far from the hustle and bustle of Cat Ba and the rest of the bay. Upon reaching Quan Lan, we get in a tuc-tuc (picture the tuc-tucs in Bangkok, only bigger) and head to the center of town.

Despite its remoteness, Quan Lan offers a wide variety of hotel accommodations both in town and on the beach. For starters, the Minh Quang Hotel in the center of town has two-person rooms that go for 300,000 a night. Next door is the pricier but classier Ann Hotel, where a room for two people is 650,000 VND. And on Son Hao beach, one of the biggest beaches on the island, Van Hai resort supplies four-person bungalows on the sand that cost 800,000 VND/night.

We opt for the cheapest option, drop our stuff off in our rooms, and head to Son Hao beach about five kilometers away from town. The rain doesn’t stop us from jumping in the water and getting in a good swim before it gets dark. That night, we have a delicious dinner for 65,000 VND (which required a bit of bargaining) and head into town to see what the nightlife has to offer.

While there are no western bars to speak of, the town doesn’t completely shut down at night. We find a fun karaoke joint with about fifteen Vietnamese guys drinking shots of beer and singing “Bèo dạt mây trôi,” among other selections, and decide to join in. Not only do we get free beer and some great photos out of the evening, but there are even some English songs for us to sing.

The next morning, we wake up early and head back to Son Hao beach for the first half of the day. After going for a swim, we try to have lunch at Van Hai restaurant – the only one at this beach – where we see lots of tour groups feasting on some of Quan Lan’s seafood. Foreigners who come here, beware: you will not be given a menu to read, and will have to purchase seafood in bulk (0.5 or 1 kilo). Yet we manage to get delicious oysters for 10,000 VND each, and head out of Son Hao feeling fairly satisfied.

After Son Hao, we head to Minh Chau beach, another seven kilometers outside of town. What this beach lacks in bungalows it makes up for in restaurants. It’s also got a bigger crowd and a more lively atmosphere. When the sun goes down, each restaurant lights a bonfire on the sand; there is also techno music blasting from speakers and people doing karaoke at various points along the strip. That night, we feast on fried mussels, morning glory, omelet, and rice for 70,000 VND/person.

Sunday morning, we walk to a beach only 200 meters away from our hotel (called Quan Lan Beach) and swim there for a few hours before heading back to our hotel. We lunch on fish and clams, get a tuc-tuc back to the port, and arrive back in Hanoi by 7 PM.

 While a visit to Quan Lan is fairly inexpensive, be prepared for various small charges that will pop up during the trip: to get to and from most of the beaches, you’ll have to either rent motorbikes for 150,000 VND/day or hire a tuc-tuc, which will cost either 200,000 VND for a round trip from town to Son Hao beach and back or 300,000 VND for a trip to Minh Chau beach. And to get into each beach, there’s an entrance ticket of about 20,000 VND (unless you go to the small Quan Lan beach, where the ticket is 15,000 VND).

These fees are a small price to pay for what Quan Lan offers: beautiful beaches with none of the hassling that you’ll find in some of the more popular seaside destinations. The island is not one for tourists looking for bar-hopping and lots of shopping, but for anyone trying to get away from it all for a weekend (we didn’t spot a single café that advertised wifi service), Quan Lan is your place. 

**There are about a million Quan Lan pics I could include.. to see them go to my picasa page where I've uploaded all the photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/115019264134726098665/QuanLanAug2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCLK5zuSJsrLFrAE

Thailand!

This post is extremely delayed, my apologies. Things have really picked up here in Hanoi! I’ve moved to a new house, on a street called Nguyen Thai Hoc. Unlike my previous house, which was close to West Lake in Tay Ho district (where the majority of expats live), this 1-room apartment is near Hoan Kiem lake, in Hoan Kiem district, and the more downtown parts of Hanoi. It’s also a lot closer to my work, which is in yet another district called Dong Da. Moving was a hilarious experience. Although I came to Hanoi with only three suitcases, I have somehow accumulated so much stuff that it took three separate trips with multiple help from neighbors and friends to lug all my stuff from Au Co to Nguyen Thai Hoc. I went through my phonebook and called up every taxi driver I knew to help me out, and I am indebted to them for actually getting all my stuff over here (including a massive bookcase and a small closet thing I bought for $20). One taxi driver even carried my suitcases up three flights of stairs during one of the trips!

My research has also sped up recently, and we’ve only got five interviews left before we’re finished! My boss, a fellow coworker, and I have begun planning what we will do with the results. We will likely be incorporating the findings into educational material targeted at parents, teachers, and students at the primary school level. This will include a take-home game that an awesome gamer at Dartmouth’s Games Laboratory is helping me put together. Right now, we’re envisioning that the setting of the game will be a playground at a primary school, and the mission will be to get as many friends as possible. Some of the friends will have HIV, and others will not. Yet if a player only tries to be friends with the people without HIV, he or she will lose the game. We’re still working out the details, but the main purpose will be to teach players that children living with HIV are no different than those without the illness, and they can and should be your friend too.

In other, non-work related news, my roommate and I along with his friend Dre just took a visit to Thailand, a beautiful country that is so different from Vietnam despite the fact that they’re practically neighbors. For starters, everyone bows which was a blast (upon my return to Hanoi I’ve tried to bring the bow with me but it has only resulted in strange looks). There are fast food restaurants and 7-11s EVERYWHERE. I had heard about all of the McDonalds and Burger Kings and Subways before, but hadn’t expected that they would be so prevalent. It’s very strange walking into one of them, though, because to me they are marks of a highly developed nation, but when you walk into the store from the busy, bustling, dirty city streets of Bangkok, it almost feels like you’ve entered a completely different country for a short period of time. The people in Thailand are also more heavyset than those in Vietnam, and we saw a lot more beggars on the streets. The whole experience was very eye-opening.

I spent a little over five days on the trip. When I arrived late Thursday night, I went to a street called Sam Sen in the heart of Bangkok. Chaz (my roommate) and Dre had already been in the city for a few days and were staying at a fantastic hotel called Sam Sen Place (on Sam Sen 3 for anyone planning a trip). I managed to get the presidential suite at the hotel for only 1,000 baht (about $30) because all the other rooms were booked and I arrived so late that I got a discount. The room was BALLER, I felt like a queen!

I dropped my bags off, and Chaz and I went on a short walk over to Khao San Road, one of the busiest and most touristy streets I had ever seen in my life. Every two seconds, you pass by another outdoor bar or café blasting some sort of music, massage parlors, people offering you a ride in their Tuc-Tuc (their open-air form of transportation, see this link for a picture: http://i.pbase.com/u39/dougj/upload/25831303.219_1943CS.jpg) – all this in addition to the street food stands featuring pad thai, fruit drinks, kebabs, crepes… pretty much anything one could imagine. There were also stands selling t-shirts, purses, jewelry, knock-off make-up, hats, shoes, dresses, etc. The people working these stands seemed much more money-hungry than their Hanoian equivalents: if a storekeeper did not think that you were planning on buying something, he or she would kick you out. I couldn’t believe it!

The next morning, I got up early and went on a walk near our hotel where I met some great storeowners. One guy ran a delicious bar/restaurant that Chaz, Dre and I ended up eating at the last night (he made the most amazing green curry with shrimp and fish and chips). I also met a group of Indian guys who ran an Indian restaurant not too far up the street from our place. There were tons of Indian restaurants all over Bangkok. Then I went back and met up with Dre and Chaz, and we walked up to the road right before Khao San, where the restaurants are quieter and the food is delicious. After feasting on green and red curry and pad thai, we walked around the city and tried to go to Glenn Palace (http://waheedaharris.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/b-2.jpg?w=500&h=667) but unfortunately it was closed. That night, we went to Khao San once again and the next morning we were off to the beach for 48 hours in the sun.

The south of Thailand was all flooded, which I was informed of at the airport upon arrival in Bangkok, so we had to go eastward to hit the beaches. This meant foregoing the cheaper and less touristy beaches for ones that were just as pretty but more expensive and crowded with vacationers. We were told by the people who run Sam Sen Place to check out Koh Samet and we found a bus/ferry ride for 350 baht. Yet when we went to the stand to book our tickets, we were told the bus rides to Koh Samet for the rest of the day were not in service. So we asked the woman at the ticket stand what a cheap, close, and fun option was, and she told us about Pattaya. Little did we know, however, that we would find ourselves in the tourist capital of the sex industry. Upon opening our lonely planet we saw two haunting words: “Backpackers Beware.” Indeed, the guidebook’s description of the place was all too accurate, but we still had a good time!

The beach itself was absolutely beautiful, and there were tons of huts where you could sit (although every five minutes people would come up to sell you corn on the kob, fried shrimp and chicken, hologram pictures, jewelery, ice crema, you name it). I also stumbled upon some volunteer work the second night: Heart-to-Heart was putting on a concert in the center of town with some famous musicians from Bangkok to raise money for flood victims in the south, so I grabbed a box and asked for donations the whole night and made a few speeches on stage encouraging other people, specifically the English-speaking Westerners, to donate money. Apparently the guys playing were some of the most famous in Thailand, so it was cool to get to do some work alongside them! After two days, Chaz, Dre, and I traveled back to Bangkok where we spent one more night at Sam Sen place and then I bid adieu to the country and headed back to Hanoi. I hope to make it back soon to go to the south and see the beaches there, though I can’t imagine they’d promise more adventure than Pattaya did.

Below are some pictures from the trip to Thailand: 

^A friend from Australia that I met on the plane who had spent two weeks backpacking around Vietnam and was going through Thailand to head home.

^Bangkok!

^One of the storeowners I met. 

^The street food in Bangkok is even more out of control than in Hanoi. 

^The place that Chaz, Dre, and I went for lunch like every day in Bangkok.

^On our walk to Glenn Palace. You can see it in the distance.

^Not Glenn Palace, but another cool palace we stopped by on the way.

^We think this building was some sort of Ministry of Defense headquarters

^Khao San, the biggest tourist attraction in Bangkok.

^Chaz in some baller massage pants he wore when we all got Thai massages.

^Beach at Pattaya! 

^Chaz and Dre on Walking Street in Pattaya.

^Delicious pad thai I had my last in Bangkok.