Hue You Guys!

Although the cloud cover is much heavier, the "Hue" of our trip has certainly brightened as we settle into Hue (hway).

As we broke through the low blanket of clouds, the geometry of the rice paddies was a welcome change from the unending sprawl of HCMC. The air is wet and cool---streets are silent compared with the cacophony of horns and bark of street-side jabber in Saigon.

The tones of the language seem so primal to our ears. Sounds in one sentence can include "co/" [to be] pronounced "cawh" like a bird call with ascending tone, and "khong" [no/negation], pronounced hckumm (and make your mouth move like a big fish eating a smaller fish, you can extend the jaw forward with the sound if desired). Good.

Meeting with Liz and Tom and getting up to date on the actual state of TATC (ThinkAboutTheChildren) on the ground here was a bit discouraging at first. Some things had not turned out as planned and some had been completely canceled after initial "approval". All of our activities here must be pre-approved by the government which is a blanket term for the many institutions encompassed therein. Negotiations must be made at various levels from the provincial eventually down to the city council. Whenever we go outside the city as a group we are accompanied by representatives of the Foreign Affairs committee. As Tom said today, initially we look down at these policies and procedures as a part of a backwards and broken system only inhibiting our intentions to help, when actually we are only beginning to see that they have their own way to go about these things and are relatively well intentioned themselves.

We have spent the last few days delivering food to various 'villages'. Mostly families who live on the 'beach', land right on the water---the WORST place to be if you want to grow food or avoid the floods, which come from 6 to 10 times a year. Visiting their homes has definitely been eye-opening for everyone, but TATC is narrowing its focus to Duc Son orphanage, and Mrs. Don's orphanage in HCMC (where the paintings are from).

We have been playing with the kids and Duc Son every day this week. The nuns there have been so kind and welcoming to us, it is really a special place and the kids have been boiling over with joy while we're there. I never imagined an orphanage to be such a happy place. We have made arrangements to be able to spend more time there in the next few months taking photographs and talking with each nun and child. Hopefully we can set up a program where children can be sponsered. Duc Son needs a new building that is on higher ground. They have the land, but the building will cost around $100,000 US. If we can create a sponser program, that will enable them to fund the new orphanage as well as create an income flow to support their needs. Minh Tu is the head nun and is selfless. It is clear that the children's well-being is her first priority. She never speaks of herself, only of the children. She and the other nuns are exceptional women who are devoting their lives to the 200 children at Duc Son. We feel deeply connected to their work and want to help them however we can. We have been bringing food with us each time, yesterday we brought vegetables from the market. They were especially excited when they saw the large bag of mushrooms...maybe we can help them learn how to grow their own. One of the nuns can speak English and is very willing to help translate---she studies at the university in the morning in the city. She has been at Duc Son for 16 years and is very appreciative of our interest to help and receptive to the idea of this project.

Liz's friend, whose english name has become T-Bone, has been incredibly helpful. SO helpful we REALLY don't know what we'd do without him. He's not only a masters student working on his thesis and teaching class, he makes time to guide us with translation/negotiation/consultation (insert ....tion of your choice). He is in the environmental studies department and intoduced us to the English club (that he started) in his department. Having them come out with us has added a whole new dimension to our experience.

Kids in the club range from Tuan, who is doing research on wastewater treatment at a local landfill (and loves trash almost as much as we do) to Pho who Paul spoke with at length on a dragon boat ride to a pagoda outside the city. He is the only son of a poor family and feels tremendous pressure to find a good job (which as I understand is difficult). He told me about the destruction of the "beautiful places" in his country and the concentration of outside money to the tourist track, with the rural poor being completely neglected. After a pause he turns to me and says, "Tell me about your country."

Then I felt tremendous pressure to give hime some sort of truthful picture of a country that he only knows through the movies and gossip. I told him about suburbs and subdivisions and he thought it uninteresting not to build your own house, and asked me what I grew in my garden. I definitely felt from him a tinge of pessimisim or disdain for the typical passer-through---but I told him about what we are doing at the orphanage and I told him about my grandmother, in her lifetime living without electricty or plumbing to all of the conveniences and ammeninites of a modern house. We seemed to come to an understanding that we have more in common than he thought, that our worlds were not so seperate, but it was probably mostly my imagination----drifting from downtown Hue with its shops, tourist agencies, and hotels ... . .past puttering covered wooden longboats where some fishing families live and work (also onboard could be cooking fire, pecking chicken, and/or young babe) . . . . .. a young boy behind a water buffalo plowing a field shared with a group of boys about the same age playing soccer barefoot on the uneven dirt . .. . . metal rooved shacks with tarp or woven sides, crowded together hugging the water line where women do their laundry on the steps next to 'trees' that grow leaves on top but whose bottom half looks to be from the plastic bag blossom family.

Outside the city the rich and poor are even neighbors. Families who have government job salaries or relatives who send money from abroad living in 'luxurious' homes costing as much as 5-10 thousand US, while next door are families scraping by, in sheds, off of how the daily catch sells at market.

We leave soon for Hoi An...

we're exhausted...Off to eat the abundant noodle.

Byebye. Lovelove,

po & evo

more pictures have been added...take a look