Vietnam 04/07

Trung Khanh, Nthn Vietnam Current mood: tired Category: Travel and Places Out in the field 17-19th April- One night in the semi large city of Cao Bang, then to the Trung Khanh district where our ENSADE II project is being implemented. It's a reproductive health focused project and is going well and meeting its objectives so far.. ADRA staff there were good, met Thai, the project officer who was fun. One afternoon when we had a couple of hours free they drove us out to a massive cave and we walked through it. It was different from caves in Aust and NZ cos there were no barriers (as expected!) and you could walk anywhere and touch anything…which I did, haha. Spent two days attending commune activities and trainings... and as a part of the monitoring we went to a village health workers home for a bit of a chat, and I must admit, I was struggling to stay focused cos it was so dirty and muddy, mosquitoes and bugs, and the tea cups they gave us to drink tea from were teeny, and were so old and stained and who knows when they were washed…. (grin and bear it Charlene, they're lifestyles are different to yours)…its all a part of a days work for adra. I feel a constant wave of feelings as I travel through Vietnam, or any developing country….i see a bunch of chickens running across a street or into a house,and it makes me laugh cos they just look funny. 5 minutes later I see a man plucking a chicken alive and think about how much I hate human cruelty. Then I see some gorgeous kids and I'm smiling inside again, but only until 5 minutes later when I see an old lady struggling under a heavy load in the hot sun or in the rain and wish that her life of harsh realities could be swapped with mine cos she wouldn't waste her life like so many of us foreigners do on countless meaningless things. I see a man riding a motor bike, one hand steering, the other holding up a massive tv antenna as if he was driving around trying to find some coverage, and I crack up at the sight. 5 year old kids working out in a field all day, or stacking bricks when they should be playing with other kids, being 'normal' but have to help their families to survive day to day, hand to mouth. But what is normal? How can I put my stamp of normal anywhere near their situation? Normal for them is to have a pig pen in their house and listen to pigs squealing instead of a blaring tv. Normal is getting sick and living with it instead of going to the cupboard or handbag and grabbing pills and medicines to stop the pain. Numb the pain. Escape. That's the difference. We can choose to escape. They cant. But who am I to say they want to. Who am I to say 'us' and 'them'. Why do I separate myself so much from the situation? Because when I can escape from it, then it stops being my problem. When I go back to NZ, then I am allowed to forget about all the times my heart was stirred and cramped with the misfortunes of those I came into contact with. I do want to tell everyone about what life is really like, but who will listen? And if they do listen, they might think about it for a minute, have one pulse of sympathy resonate through their bodies, and then escape to their every day lives where they don't have to do anything about it. It reminds me of a quote: "I saw the horror of the Rwandan crisis on tv. It was so unspeakable in its scope and sadness that I knew as a human being that I had to take action. So I switched channels." Quoted in 'Symposium on Mission and social action' 1997 But what can you do? Give money? Is it really going to help? First of all, yes it does help. The more money we get, the more people we can reach, its as simple as that. But its an attitude thing. It's the way we live which determines how the rest of the world lives. There are so many things we can do to help others in our own sphere. Do a fly-and-build to build a classroom for an orphanage, help run a soup kitchen, if your attitude is right, and you are driven by a passion to help people, the way will be made clear on exactly how to do it. Ask God how you can serve Him by serving others. It's a blessing. What do you think?