The School Team . . .

This year the school team was divided into 3 groups, the painters, the market, and the food distributors.  Brianna was glad to be on the painting team.  Little did she know, however, that the team was to paint the entire school!

The market team sorted out the many donated items and had to sort them out and create a market for the local community.  Throughout the school year, the students earned vouchers that they could use to shop at the market that our kids put together!  For many local families, this may be the only shopping they do all year.  

The food distribution team did just that.  My friend Martha is on the school team and here is what she wrote.  "Today we had food distribution.  Each month Catalyst distributes food to people in their community.  The food consists of rice, beans, oil, noodles, milk and formula.  The amount given will last a family of 4 for one month.  Many people from surronding areas arrived, thinking they would also be receiving food.  We said we could give them all but rice and oil, they were not happy about that.  One mother with a 9 month old and a 6-7 year old was in tears, she just wanted to feed her children.  It's hard to watch.  If we give food away for everyone, the program doesn't work.  The idea is to educate the children and teach the parents, for that they earn vochures for food and other items.  If a child scores well on tests and gets good grades, they get vochures.  If parents attend special trainings on the weekend, participate in community events, they get vochures.  If they don't do any of the above, no vouchers.  It's the give a man a fish, eats for a day, give a man a fishing pole he eats everyday philosophy.  Even knowing all of that it's hard to watch a mom have nothing to feed her children."  


The school team also had a lot of fun!  Since we were in Rach Gia for the entire trip, the kids got to play with the kids at the school and they seemed to really appreciate each other!  

  

  

The 3rd picture shows the chickens used in the "catch the chicken game."  

I understand that the Vietnamese American kids didn't do so well in that one!

Delays in the Blog

I forgot to mention that Brianna and I had been trying to post while we were in Vietnam, but we had trouble getting onto the blog site.  We had decent Internet access in our hotel, but there are some sites that are difficult to get on no matter when you try!  Those of course, are the sites where free thinking takes place!  In 2008 I was told to try posting in the middle of the night.  It sounds crazy, but due to the time change, I was often awake by about 3:00 am and what can you really do at that time!  Well, that's the time when there are fewer censors working in Vietnam and it is easier to get on those sites.  In 2010, I was often awake in the middle of the night, but I guess the censors were too!
I didn't think of it until this weekend, but I could have emailed the blogs to Phil and asked him to post the pictures and text from home!  This year may not have worked out too good since he was at home battling pneumonia, but not I have a plan for 2012.  Now that I am back on U.S. soil . . . no problem sending these out!  Now though, the jet lag is killing me!  Saturday, Phil and Brianna were out of the house.  I went to bed about 11:45 am for a quick nap even though I wasn't tired.  I thought it would allow me to stay awake past 9:00 pm.  Unfortunately, I didn't wake up until 5:00 pm!

The Building Team . . .

During this Aid Expedition, the building team is working at 2 sites.  Half of the team is building a playground at the Catalyst Foundations school.  The other half of the team is beginning the construction of a house only a few blocks away from the school and where our medical team set up.  I was able to see the construction taking place on the playground daily, and I had intended to see the home construction, but we were so busy at the medical site that I didn't get there until the last day.

 The playground started as a grass covered area and the team had to dig up all of the grass before they could pour the cement.  I don't know how they did it considering it was between 95-103 degrees each day.  I was very fortunate since the medical team was in the shade all day, and the heat still got to me on Monday and Brianna didn't feel well later in the week too!  We had quite a few people on the building team who were ill from either heat or food related illnesses, but they kept going like Energizer Bunnies!  

  

  

This is a picture of when the project was almost finished.  The team was in the process of installing the "sails" that will provide shade!  We had a ribbon cutting ceremony at night when the local community cooked dinner for us.  More details on that later!

This is a picture of the family that will move into the new house that is being built and they are standing in front of their current house.

To get to the building site, everybody needed to cross the monkey bridge!That means everybody and some of the supplies needed to cross over the narrow bridge.  We may actually be considered fortunate since in 2008 I saw monkey bridges that were only several inches wide!  It was amazing to see how easily the kids ran across those tiny bridges.  I'm sure Brianna could do it since they are about as wide as a balance beam, but I don't think she could do it while carrying a 40lb bag of rice.  At least not without a little practice!

The larger supplies came by boat.  

The walls are literally going up around one of the new residents!

When I walked over on Thursday, the walls were almost done and they were ready to start the roof soon.  Here is also a picture of the living room.  

  These are a few words from my friend Sandy who was on the building team.  "Work has been progressing along but with very little tools and no machines, everything is done by hand. I am on the house team. yesterday we laid bricks in out 18'x6'' two room "house". Today we began the floor. We first stuffed rice bags with clay that was dug out of the ground from area that will be the latreen and carried it to the floors. The clay was then pressed down with a weighted hand press. Next step was to carry sand from about 500 yards up a narrow path in pails and rice bags to cover the clay and press that down. Next was to carry rocks in same manor....we finished the back room and were told to wait for the "inspector" before we continued further. Of course in the process, the front wall accidentally got knocked over. It was a labor intensive day to say the least. The heat is unbearable, I have never sweat and been so dirty at the end of a day as I have been the past two."