Day 6

Today we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel, which I missed dearly. Then we took a ride over to HSU where we heard two speakers talk about two different organizations that they were a part of. The first speaker was a representative for ENDA which is a group which has been doing community development projects in Vietnam for some time now. He explained that their overall objective was to create financial self sustainability in communities where people don’t know how to save. They teach people how to save based on the money that they earn, and they don’t give out loans until they know that the borrowers completely understand the concept of savings. This made me feel really fortunate to grow up in a country where the concept of money and savings is taught so young. In the U.S., you almost feel like money is just something you know about naturally, but I realized that here, some people grow up not knowing how to manage their money at all.
The next speaker was one that we had met earlier when we went to the Binh Duong province. She was from the organization DRD, and she explained to us that their goal was to bring about awareness and equal opportunities for people with disabilities in Vietnam. When I heard that less than .1% of disabled people ever go to college, I just couldn’t believe it. In the U.S. I feel like there is so much support for disabled people, that if one of them wanted to attend college they would have so many opportunities through the many scholarships and government aid that is available to them. It was sad to see that even if someone was smart and disabled, they could still not get college degrees. The presentation though, left me with hope for the disabled persons of Vietnam.
After the presentations we all split up into our groups to go out and do different activities. I had chosen transportation for my group, and was excited because I knew it would be a chance at riding on a scooter! I’ll never forget when An said to me that she felt so cool while we were on her scooter. I asked her if she brought a jacket, thinking that she was chilly, and she laughed and said that she felt cool because she had a foreigner on the back of her scooter and it was the first time she ever had one as a passenger! I laughed back and said that I was the one that felt cool because I was riding on her scooter with her! After parking we went to the bus station where we rode a bus for extremely cheap! This really weird Vietnamese guy sat next to poor Julie while we were on the bus since she had an open spot next to her, and he was sweating profusely and talking his mouth off to her. Its funny because even across countries, you can always tell when a guy is trying too hard and a girl is just not feeling it. We got off at the next stop (thankfully for Julie!) and walked a bit until we reached the ferry that went across the river to District 2. I was shocked at how many people actually used the ferry for day to day transportation. The people would just ride their scooters up onto it until it was packed and then it would make the two minute crossing to the other district. We began walking in district 2 and before we were there for even a minute there were people hassling us about buying rides on scooters to get to the other side. The area from what I saw of it was extremely poverty stricken. Part of me wanted to stay to explore a little more since it was so different from district 1, but we decided to just take the ferry back to the other side since we were on a limited budget and the whole point of the day was to experience different modes of transportation. We went to eat at a food court since the Vietnamese students were told that we wanted American food, but since I had no problem with the Vietnamese food, I decided to eat from the same restaurant they ordered from. An ordered a big bowl of soup which she saved for last and explained to me that in Vietnamese culture, they eat soup last, and usually the whole family eats from the same bowl. I thought this was cute, because in a way it was like they were bonding with each other because it would have been very easy to split up the soup into different bowls if they wanted to. After lunch we took a short cyclo ride. It was funny because I was told by my group members that the cyclos were meant for two people, yet when we hired them out, the driver made sure to split us up so that I was in one alone… I guess one of me equals two of them (if not three—haha!). There was one last mode of transport for me to experience after that—a taxi. We still had about an hour so we decided to make the best of our time and go to a shopping mall! I bought two pairs of fake True Religion jeans for around ten dollars each… amazing deal! Then Julie had noticed that I wore colored contacts and she asked me how much I paid for them. I told her they were a hundred dollars for the yearly’s, to which she was flabbergasted about. She told me that she wore colored contacts too and that if I wanted she could bring me to the place where she got them because they were only ten dollars a pair! At that point I didn’t care if they weren’t FDA approved, I said “yes!!! Take me!”. So we go to what looks like a local eye doctor shop, and she asks them for me to see the different colored contacts they have. I asked her if we needed a prescription, to which she seemed confused at the entire idea. I guess being that Vietnam is a developing country they haven’t yet exploited all the ways to make money through healthcare like the U.S. has! I picked out a pair of contacts, paid my ten dollars and left. I wish I could have stocked up on them but there are just so many goods here that are so much cheaper than in the U.S. that I could only afford to do a little bit of each!
The time came when we had to meet back up with everyone and we all shared stories of our day. Our next activity was to go to visit a local art shop where all the artists are disabled and the money on the paintings goes to the organization DRD who supported the artists. The paintings were nice, but in my opinion they were a little pricey. Travis and I joked with each other that we could try to barter for better prices, but decided to just sit back and be quiet instead. It was really amusing when Travis tried to buy a bottle of water at the stand next door because the lady quoted him a price, he bought it and received a warm bottle of water. When he asked her if she had any cold ones she said it would be double the price! Standing in the baking hot sun and being really parched he didn’t bother arguing with this one, especially since in retrospect, it was only the equivalent of a few cents difference. I guess there’s no getting around the fact that we are tourists and therefore they can charge us extra for anything.
After our day we went back to get ready for dinner. We walked to a restaurant pretty close by to the hotel and did a giant tour around the downstairs area of the restaurant. The cooking stations were bordering the restaurant and it was pretty cool to actually be able to see them cooking the meals. We went upstairs to our table and ordered our drinks, and the first course came out. Being that we were starved, Travis and I filled our little plates with what looked like a calamari type dish. Some people started digging in, and our guide Ruby then decides to tell us to be careful and not fill our plates too much because the dish we were eating was actually pigs ear. Some people grimaced in disgust and quickly put down their chopsticks, but I wanted to try something new so I had it anyway. The texture was horrible—very chewy and rubbery. To make matters worse, the taste was just as horrible. It had a sour flavor, and was just not well seasoned at all. We quickly put aside our plates in anticipation of the next course. The rest of the meal was edible fortunately, and we went back to the hotel on full and happy stomachs.