My time on All Hands Project Leyte

This post is probably going to sound super cliché in some spots (hopefully I don’t come off like this article does), but I’m certainly going to write it anyway. My experience in the Philippines is one I really want to share… mostly because it has really given me more momentum to continue with NGO and charity work. So here it goes. Once again… I apologize for the length of this post (you've been warned!). 

Over my time off of work for Tet holiday (the lunar new year), I had the pleasure of going to the small town of Kananga on Leyte island, the Philippines, to volunteer with the typhoon Haiyan relief effort through a group called All Hands Volunteers. My first step on this volunteering journey was of course getting myself there. I had never traveled very far alone by myself before this trip, so I have to admit I was a little nervous. I managed to make my 3 (yes, 3!) flights from Hanoi to Cebu no problem. From Cebu, I had to take a ferry to the city of Ormoc on Leyte island. I had read that Filipino ferries were not the most reliable, so when I missed the ferry I planned to take (the last one of the day, too) by 10 minutes I started to think my smooth-traveling luck had run out. I ended up catching an slow, overnight ferry, where I meet 2 really nice Filipino women who kept me company. Their comments on how brave I was for traveling alone in the Philippines made me both worried and proud of myself at the same time. Once I got to Ormoc (at 4:30am, might I add), I hopped on a bus that took me to Kananga, where I found a bicycle driver to take me to the town hospital where the All Hands base is. I got this sudden anxious feeling when I realized was in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, guided by a complete stranger in a foreign country… but one look up at the incredible stars above me and the sight of the bright pink hospital down the road made it go away instantly.

Lucky for me, there were some volunteers who were already awake when I arrived, and one of them (an awesome, 40-year-old, tattooed-up, American guy named Jeff) came out to make sure I didn’t get ripped off my the bicycle driver and even offered me his bed to nap until the work day started. That just goes to show the amazing character of all of the 40-ish All Hands volunteers and staff I meet! I could talk about each one and how dedicated and caring they are… but I’ll just leave it at saying it was so nice to meet people who had devoted themselves to helping those less fortunate than themselves. What is also really cool is that we were a really diverse group of people, so I have friends to visit all over the world now!

So as for the work that I did, Project Leyte had moved bases to the Kananga Municipal Hospital about a week before I got there. We were restoring the hospital from top to bottom, trying to repair the damage that Haiyan caused to it. My first day I was on the “debris team”, which meant I was cleaning up all the garbage, glass, scrap metal and wood that was around the hospital. My second day I signed up to be on the interior painting team, because I have experience with it thanks to the painting business I ran 3 years ago. When the All Hands staff found out I had painting experience, I ended up with the responsibility of leading the painting team (on my second day!). We ran into tons of technical issues with the painting (as in, paint was peeling right off the walls), but we solved them with some trial and error solutions. The painting team  were also in charge of repairing and painting the cabinets and shelving of the hospital (which turned out to be MUCH more difficult than I remembered it to be). I know this is not really what you think of as “disaster relief” work, but I felt good knowing I was helping give the people of Kanaga a fresh, clean hospital.

One of my working days, I managed to get away from the paint by getting first pick at which team I would be on by volunteering to do dinner dishes (yes, that’s how team assignments work at All Hands). I went of the “safety” team, which meant going to a local high school to make some of the damaged classrooms safe for use. This usually involves taking down loose ceilings and roofs, and on the day that I went there, we took down 2 giant A-frames (the triangle pieces of steel that meet to make a roof). The experienced volunteers I was with made an awesome pulley system to get these massive pieces of metal down from the roof, and it was so cool just to even be a part of that! I also just helped moved a lot of debris, and tried cutting the A-frames with a angle grinder. The children of the school were what made that day really special for me though. As I walked around the school grounds with my wheel-barrel full of scrap wood or metal, all I could hear were the kids asking me “what’s your name?” or “where are you from?”! One student, a 12-year-old boy, even gave me a letter addressed to all the volunteers, thanking us for helping he and his people to recover from Haiyan. It was such a humbling and touching moment, and made the all the sweat and the sore back at the end of the day well worth it. When I was walking through town a few days later on a hike to a local waterfalls with the other volunteers, I heard kids yelling my name, and I realized that it was the high school students who must remember me . How can you not feel overwhelmed with happiness when you’re welcomed like that?!

After work was done every day, you could usually find most of us volunteers at a local house just down the road that sells beer (appropriately named “beer lady”). Then there was dinner and the daily meeting, where the team leaders talked about the work from today and what was to be done tomorrow.  My nights were filled with great conversations, bond fires, card games, and of course more beer. That’s the remarkable thing that happens when you have no internet or constant electricity… you connect with the people around you instead of staring at your phone all day. It’s also surprising how little you miss internet and electricity when you have great company who keep you entertained anyway! One of the more eventful nights while I was on the project was when a typhoon passed through Kananga! It was a 3 out of 5 on the typhoon class scale (to put it in perspective, Haiyan didn’t even register in this class system), and we prepared very well by securing the hospital and getting emergency food/water. Being in a typhoon was scary for me at first (even though these size storms are a very regular occurrence for Filipinos) but it turned out to be not a huge deal. There was also a small earthquake that night… which didn’t even wake me up. So I guess I can say I lived through 2 natural disasters in one day, but really they were not disasters. There were no reports of damage or loses from the locals in Kananga from this smaller typhoon too which was reassuring.

Overall, my experience in the Philippines gave me a whole new perspective on disaster response and risk management (which is a field I hope to get involved in during my carrier). I saw first-had how people lives are dramatically changed by natural disasters, and how they can still smile and be incredibly generous even in the face of such loss. I realized that disaster response work really means getting things “back to normal” for the communities affected by disasters and understanding their needs (even if that need is a newly painted a hospital). I also realized how complicated and frustrating this kind of work can be, when you don’t have access to the materials and funds to effectively respond to the community’s need.  But I also realized how truly rewarding and impactful the work is. I can say I helped get a hospital back up and running… and that’s pretty freaken cool. I can’t wait to see the pictures of the finished hospital, which should be done next week, and to hopefully return to Project Leyte this summer (SURPRISE MOM AND DAD! :P).

Fitting in in my home away from home

The other day on a 3-hour bus trip back to Hanoi from a field trip in Nam Dinh province, I found myself reflecting on what it means to call a foreign country “home”, and what that means for development work. A foreign country CAN feel like home, and for me, Vietnam has become a country I can say I feel “at home” in. I have people I care about here, I have a routine here, I have a place to live here. However, no matter how long I am here I will never be able to go a day in Vietnam without sticking out as a foreigner in some way… whether it’s because I don’t speak the language fluently, I make a cultural mistake, or simply because of the way that I look. It can get frustrating when people act a certain way or say certain things to you just because you're a “Westerner”. I know when I walk down the street and I hear the word “tay” (which means Westerner in Vietnamese) it is usually not meant in an offensive way, but at the same time, sometimes I just want to turn around and say “Yeah, I’m white, what’s it to you?!”.

Don’t get me wrong, I by no means think that Vietnamese people are prejudice or unwelcoming when I say they treat me different for being a foreigner.In fact, most of the time foreigners get treated specially in most situations... except maybe when it comes to negotiating prices. I just think the frustration comes from the fact that I don’t think twice when I see a “foreigner” back in Canada, and I wouldn't treat them differently simply because they are not from Canada. Seeing people from all over the world is part of daily Canadian life, and not necessarily part of daily Vietnamese life (especially in rural areas).

Looking past these feelings of frustration, I have come to terms with the fact that if I am going to work in development, I’m going to have to get used to “sticking out”. I cannot change the fact that I am a Westerner, no matter how humble I may act or how much I assimilate myself into whatever culture I work in. As a development practitioner who plans to work abroad, I will always be a guest in someone elses' home… trying to understand and solve problems that I will probably never have to face myself. That fact both excites me and terrifies me at the same time. Placement so far has given me a little taste of what it feels like to try and solve these complex problems, but I know I’ve only scratched the surface.

What I did this Christmas vacation

Happy New Year readers! After 2 weeks of traveling around South East Asia for the holidays, I’m back home in Hanoi and it feels pretty good! I figure since a lot of people have been asking how my trip was, I should write a blog post about it (as difficult as that will be). I apologize in advanced for the length of this post, but I’m goning to try to do my best to summarize the trip of a lifetime that I had! If anything, this blog post is for me to try and document my experiences and thoughts while traveling.

My adventures began in Bangkok, Thailand where I meet my fellow INDEVOUR Darrelle, who is working in Nepal. It still blows my mind that I even got to travel with an INDEVOUR on placement in a completely different country! In Bangkok, Darrelle and I did many of the temples and museums, and took in as much history of the country that we could. We did indulge in the more touristy things like tuk tuk rides, massages and shopping on Khao San road, but that was all part of the experience for sure. We even meet up with another Vietnam INDEVOUR, Danielle, and her mom too! 

After 2 days in Bangkok, we found 2 other INDEVOURS Mahmoud and Zain and took an overnight bus/ferry to Koh Tao island where we did our scuba diving course. While the journey there was not the most fun, the beautiful beach and scuba diving certainly made it worth it! Diving has to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life. When you breath underwater, and see fish and coral reefs up close for the first time, it just blows your mind! I’m totally hooked on the adrenaline rush diving gives you, and I plan on getting my advanced certification over time. Besides diving, we explored the island quite a bit (with various means of transportation…) and, of course, enjoyed the beautiful scenery! It was a wonderful place to spend Christmas day too, and my friends certainly made it one I’ll never forget, with “presents under the tree” and everything.

After Koh Tao, Mahmoud and Zain went back to Bangkok, and Darrelle and I got on another ferry to go to another Thai island, Phuket. Phuket certainly was more touristy and busy than Koh Tao which I wasn’t a huge fan of, but we took advantage of the beach and shopping during our short 24 hours there. After Phuket, Darrelle and I hoped on a plane to Penang, Malaysia. Now I’ll admit, when I first thought of places I wanted to travel to while in Vietnam, Malaysia didn’t come to mind, but I was so happy that I ended up going there! So many things about Malaysia surprised me. The amazing public transit (we didn’t take a single Taxi while in Penang), the incredible food, and mix of cultures especially! In a single day, I bought a tailored Sari in the best Little India I’ve even been to, visited a floating mosque, and passed Hindu temples, Christian churches, Chinese girl schools, and Buddhist associations. All these cultures and religions were interacting and living together perfectly… it made even Canada seem less multicultural then I thought it was! Penang is also known for its food, and it certainly didn’t disappoint! I ate the best Indian food I’ve ever had, and tried traditional Malay dishes like Laska and Char Khoy Thao. Penang’s also one of the main nutmeg producers of the world and was part of the spice war, which I learned all about at the Penang Tropical Spice Garden! Darrelle and I also climbed the famous 5km, 30 degree, Penang Hill! The trek up was exhausting of course, but the view and feeling of satisfaction at the top were spectacular! It was pretty cool to ring in the new year in Penang too. Darrelle and I meet some other backpackers on New Years eve (some of them Canadian!) to celebrate, and saw some beautiful fireworks at the Penang City Hall.

From Penang, Darrelle and got on another plane to Singapore, where we meet up with yet another INDEVOUR, Jordan, who is working in Botswana and traveled South East Asia over her holidays too! Again, the public transportation in Singapore was awesome! We were navigating the city like locals on the subway our whole time there. We did all the main tourist attractions of course, like the Singapore flyer, Marina Bay park, the merlion statue, Botanic Gardens, and Chinatown. It was so interesting how developed Singapore was, especially after I read about the extreme poverty and struggles of the Chinatown migrants just 50 years ago.

The last stop on travels was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Like Penang, the mix of cultures there was also such a cool thing to see! I noticed mainly Muslim and Hindus as the dominant religious groups in Kuala Lumpur, which I gathered by the dress, customs, and places of worship I experienced. My favorite part of Kuala Lumpur was the Batu caves, which was few Hindu temples and monuments built into a cave! We also visited some museums, the National Mosque, Central Market, Petaling street, and Petronas Towers.  It was so much culture and history to take in, I loved it (even if we did get trapped soaking wet on a tour bus for 3 hours in traffic)! Our trip ended really well, with spontaneous fireworks on our hostel rooftop while we were playing cards on our last night.

So that’s what I did on my crazy 2 week adventure.  I got to see and do many amazing things… and now that I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience, here’s what I think I take away from it all:     

      1. I’ve got the travel bug bad! The whole trip, I couldn’t wait to see more places, eat more new foods, and try more new things. I loved learning about the place I was visiting from the locals themselves, and reading about the history.

      2.Take time when traveling to take in your surroundings, and appreciate the little things. It reminds how lucky you are to be having the experience you are. I mean, I got to do and see things and do things not many people have, like being blessed by a Monk in Bangkok, scuba dive over Christmas, and eat lunch with a monkies right above my head in Penang… how cool is that!?

      3. I’m more adaptive to my surroundings then I thought I was. I suppose while living in Hanoi, I got pretty used to not having things that I have back in Canada (in terms of brands, restaurants, services). While traveling, we ran into some of those comforts of home. I admit I indulged in Starbucks, but I was never tempted to go into any other “Western” place I saw simply because I was missing it.

      4. North American public transit has a long way to go! If my friends and I could get ourselves around almost only by public transit in 3 different countries, it can happen in Canada too.

      5. True blending and coexistence of cultures fascinates me, especially in places where I wasn’t expecting to experience it, such as a “developing” part of the world like South East Asia.

      6.Trips don’t go 100% as planed, and you have to take the good with the bad. I may have had a bad experience with an unreasonable motorbike rental shop in Koh Tao, but I also had a great experience with the hospitality of our hostel staff in Penang! You have to not worry when things go wrong, and not sweat the small stuff. You’ll laugh about it later anyway!

      7.It’s okay to be touristy sometimes. It’s part of the reason you travel and way you take in local culture, right?! Just don’t take any pictures that will offend anyone, and do your best to follow cultural rules. Everything else is fair game
8.The people you travel with determine the kind of trip you have. I am so happy that I traveled with the friends that I did, because they are all as outgoing and open as me! They made the experience the life-changing one that it was, and I think it made our friendship even stronger.
9.As amazing as traveling is, home really is where the heart is. On Christmas, my heart was of course in Canada with my family and I missed them more than I can say. But when my fellow INDEVOURS and I were comparing our placement experiences, I would get waves of homesickness for Hanoi. Even now, I keep thinking of all the little things that I will miss about Vietnam when I have to go back to Canada in a short 3 and half months.

Wow… that really is a lot of learning crammed into two weeks. And I want to say thank you again to the friends that had this experience with me! Now that it’s all over, it’s time for the home stretch of placement, and a trip to the Philippines at the end of January over Tet for me!

Until next time, Internet…

Long time no post...

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, mainly due to school work wrapping up, so I figured I should give an update! I’ve certainly been keeping myself busy, going out with Vietnamese friends and my roommates. They’re even teaching me how to cook! And this city is really growing on me more (as frustrating as the traffic, pollution and language barrier may be sometimes). I have my favorite places to eat street food, for coffee, for shopping, for biking, for live music, and for a drink on a Saturday night. And I keep on discovering more of these “favorite places” every day. I feel like I’ve built a life here in Hanoi, and it’s one I’m going to miss when I have to leave in a just 4 and a half months. I can’t believe how fast my time here is passing! 

 As for work, things are going well. Apart from my routine article writing, website updating and social media work, I've designed our New Years cards and notebook. This task proved to be more challenging then I expected because of the many opinions that I needed to be incorporate. As my co-worker said, it was a case of "too many cooks in the kitchen". I'm also helping prepare for a big project launch that will be happening next month, which includes developing a climate change adaptation "drama" that will be performed by locals at the launch. Although I have been slightly frustrated and disappointed by the fact that I am not more involved in SRDs projects (and the fact that I am not a communications expert), I feel like this project launch is a good chance for me to finally offer some development expertise!

And of course, the holidays are upon us. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas without the snow, the traditions and the people I love back home, but there certainly is an air of holiday cheer in Hanoi with all the decorations and events around the city! When I first got to Vietnam, I was planning on going back to Canada for the Christmas. But after a lot of internal debate, I decided to take advantage of being in Asia, and I’ll be traveling with some fellow INDEVOURS over the holidays instead. Although not being with family this time of year is very hard, I am excited to get to have a “different” Christmas and New Years, as I go scuba diving in Thailand and travel around Malaysia and Singapore! The care packages from home are certainly helping the waves of holiday blues I get from time to time.

My holiday travels aren’t the only ones I have planned. From January 30^th to February 5^th is the Lunar New Year celebration of Tet , which has been described to me as “Vietnamese Christmas”. It’s a very family-oriented holiday, so most businesses close as people travel to their hometowns for the week to spend time with relatives. Seeing as Hanoi (and other Vietnamese cities) will be pretty dead during Tet, I decided to go to the Philippines to volunteer with the Typhoon Haiyan reconstruction effort, through an organization called All Hands! I’m so excited to be a part of All Hands’ Project Leyte, especially because I really want to get some on-the-ground experience in disaster relief effort considering I’m looking to pursue my Masters in disaster management. I’m also fundraising for the project, which you can find here! I’ll share more about the project I get more details about exactly what I will be doing.

Well, that’s all the updating I have for now! Happy holidays everyone… and indulge in an extra Christmas cookie or two for me. Chúc Giáng Sinh Vui Vẻ!

A field trip at last!

After much anticipation and waiting, last week I finally got to go on my first field trip for work. My destination was the district of Can Loc in Ha Tinh province, central Vietnam. The project that I visited is SRD's VM038 project, "Taking a value chain approach to improve rural livelihoods in the context of climate change and natural disasters". The main goals of this project (as the name suggests) is to help the farmers, especially women, improve their ability to make a living in agriculture through improving their market access by taking a value chain approach. The project aims to do this while taking into account the challenges of climate change, by improving the local's adaptation and disaster risk management skills. Reading the project's proposal document as preparation for the trip and getting to know more details got me really excited to see the project! These kinds of projects are exactly the kind of work I hope to do as a career (which, as a side note, means I guess I'm destined for NGO jobs). I love that this project embodies a more sustainable approach to poverty reduction. It places it's beneficiaries at it's core, and more importantly, is helping them cope with issues that they are facing on a daily basis.

A co-worker and I departed Hanoi on a night train to the the city of Vinh, and when we arrived at 5 am the next day we hopped in a cab for an hour to get to Ha Tinh town. The commune of Vinh Loc (one of the the farming villages we work in) is about a 10 minute drive from Ha Tinh.

In Vinh Loc, my co-worker facilitated a workshop on gender equality for the farmers. They discussed the difference between a man's day and a woman's day, the barriers to equality in their community, and the gender inequality in other parts of the world. They also made plans for overcoming those obstacles to gender inequality. I was so inspired by the enthusiasm that the community members showed for this workshop! They were all excited to participate, and were very open to talking about the somewhat serious topic of gender equality. The atmosphere was optimistic and happy, with tons of laughter and music throughout the day. Even though I could only understand a little of what was being said during the workshop, I felt the drive that the farmers had for bettering their community. I felt unbelievably welcomed in Vinh Loc, having lunch with some locals in their home and being greeted with smiles everywhere I went. I also got to ask the leader of the farmer interest group about his thoughts on the project and visit some farms as well, which was really rewarding. I learned that the project has helped farmers cope with disasters and improve their incomes by introducing a rice variety that has a faster germination period so it can be harvested in only a few days. The leader also shared with us that he felt the project could be applied in other farming communities prone to disasters.

The next day of my field trip, the district of Can Loc came together and participated in a competition that SRD organized about climate change. There were 2 groups that competed, and they performed songs and skits that spread messages of climate change/disaster awareness and community spirit. There was even climate change trivia! Many locals, of all ages, came to the community center to watch the event. I thought the competition was a fun and approachable way for the farmers to get informed about climate change! There was no shortage of laughter and comedy during the event for sure. I think the crowd's favorite moment was during one of the skits, when a woman played a drunk man and stumbled all over the stage while pretending to smoke a tobacco from a dieu cay (farmer's pipe). I loved to see that the farmers of Can Loc were so passionate about climate change issues. They understand these issues not from textbooks or journal articles as I do, but from their own experiences of climate change effecting their lives; and that was a really invaluable thing that I got to experience on this field trip.

              

The competition was followed by a community meeting and dinner. The meeting consisted of both leaders and ordinary community members sang songs, and talking about the recent activities and progress being made in the district. Dinner was a huge celebration of the community, and I was again overwhelmed with the friendliness of everyone! I couldn't keep count of the number of handshakes I received and times I was cheers-ed. My coworker told me that the villagers don't often see many foreigners, so they were very happy to meet a Canadian like me.

Overall, the trip was a great chance to see my organizations work "in action", and to learn more about Vietnamese culture. I really got to see what NGO work is like on the ground, and I absolutely loved what I saw. I am very thankful that I had the opportunity to go on this trip, and I hope to travel for work a lot more of course!

Climate change and Typhoon Haiyan

First of all, I reassure my friends and family (again!) that Typhoon Haiyan did not reach me in Hanoi. Though the storm’s projected trajectory did say it would hit Hanoi at one point, all that we got was some heavy rain. That being said, mass media has already well documented Haiyan’s impacts in the places it did strike. Haiyan could be one of the strongest cyclones to make landfall ever recorded, with the highest measured wind speeds clocking in at 315 km/h as the storm hit the Philippines. The destruction and loss caused by this terrible storm are so heartbreaking to see. Death toll and economic loss estimates keep rising. News reports continue show the dire situation of Filipino victims. Emergency supplies, aid, and humanitarian efforts are starting to flood into the country.

For me, Haiyan has opened my eyes to the reality of climate change victims. When in Canada, the stories of natural disaster victims were part of my motivation for getting into the development field. Now they’ve even become my reason for pursuing masters in climate change and disaster management. But living in South East Asia, where these extreme whether events occur on a regular basis, has made these stories hit closer to home. I can’t help but think about how I am only a boat ride away from those Filipinos who have lost friends, family, and livelihoods due to Haiyan. It has made the impacts of climate change more real than ever for me. Of course the direct link between climate change and weather events like cyclones is a hard one to make, as this article shares.  However, we do know that rising sea levels (caused by climate change) make storm surges from cyclones bigger, which is why these storms have become more damaging for island nations like the Philippines. If Haiyan has taught us anything, it's that it can not be denied that climate change is threatening the lives of the already poor and vulnerable (whether you believe Haiyan was caused by global warming or not). “There is no need for exaggeration and there is no excuse for inaction.”

With COP 19 (the United Nations conference on climate change) discussions happening now,  I can only hope that the devastation caused by Haiyan is a wake up to policy makers! It often takes events like this typhoon for major action to be taken…  but whether action really will happen this time remains to be seen.

Ha Giang adventures!

I’m think I can safely say that I am becoming a little more Vietnamese with every passing day. By now, eating with a knife and fork is odd to me, I can navigate through rush-hour traffic on my bike no problem (even with a passenger on the back…), and “ôi giới ôi” has become part of my daily vocabulary. But this weekend, on a trip to Ha Giang province, I got to see a whole other part of what it means to be Vietnamese.

I got the opportunity to go on the trip with a group called Hanoi Couchsurfing, with about 70 people in total! After a grueling night bus from Hanoi to Ha Giang city, we rented motorbikes and I was luckily paired with a great driver. Then we hit the winding mountain roads, and spent the day driving to the small town of Dong Van. Along the way, I got to take some incredible photos and make some new Vietnamese friends. The sheer beauty of the province was breathtaking. I felt like at every turn, there was another amazing mountain view to be mesmerized by. The stops at lookouts/restaurants/cafes, and the bond fire we had in the evening also made the experience a real adventure!

On the trip, we also got a chance to see what life is like for the ethnic minority, farming, communities in the area. We visited a traditional home, went to the local market, and gave some kids fruits and sweets. I took in so much just by passing through neighborhoods…  seeing the day-to-day lives of locals.  I saw children as young as 3 and women as old as 70 carrying enormous baskets and herding livestock down the steep roads. That includes at 5am, when we were on our way to a mountain peak to see the sun rise. Having the chance to experience this part of life in Vietnam, and not just read or research about it, was truly eye opening. I couldn’t help but want to spend time with these interesting people, and learn more about their lives. I realized that this curiosity is why I’m in the development field!  I want to help give opportunities to people like those I met in Ha Giang. Now that I have a field trip planned for work later this month, I hope that I will finally get to help my organization do exactly that!