We made it!!

Well, after three flights and 24 hours gate to gate, we arrived safely in Hanoi on Friday morning. After picking up our visas and Claiming our baggage, we were met by two of the GVI (Glocal, the people who organized this project) that folks will be supporting us on this trip. We were driven into town to our hotel, freshened up a little, then had some authentic Vietnamese food for lunch - pizza. At least mine and Tom J. 's was topped with squid, prawns, clams and cheese.

After lunch, we met with the GVI support team to discuss cultural issues in Vietnam, what we should and should not discuss, insights into the world view of the Vietnamese people, etc. .. The people of Vietnam are very friendly and hardworking. The one topic I feared might be an issue - the "American War" of the 60's and 70's - is not really relevant to most of the current population. It's just something they read about in history books. (which, after visiting the Hanoi Hilton, is not exactly what we studied in our history books). Our main contact here summed up the differences between the Americans and the Vietnamese by using driving as a metaphor. In the U.S., driving is pretty rigidly adhered to - marked lanes, signals to turn or change lanes, awareness of other cars all around us, traffic control lights, etc. In India, driving is much more "organic". To the outside observer, it seems to be total chaos - people drive in any lane they want (including the oncoming traffic lanes), they rarely signal, they never look around them before making turns, and large intersections with no traffic lights are very common , resulting in a crazy free for all. The thing is, though, it works for them. They are not driven by the same cultural forces that drive us. They are very comfortable with ambiguity and gray areas, and not so concerned with timetables, statistics and facts and figures. Relationships and harmony is much more important than task completion. Everything gets done, just not as fast as we Americans would like to see it. This is what makes the methods used by GVI succesful so. They are helping the people of Vietnam by building trusting relationships first, then accomplishing specific tasks in concert with the people being reached out to.

GVI Tomorrow we meet with our people again to nail down the schedule for rest of our stay, go over the curriculum for the hygiene lessons, Sapa via train and leave for tomorrow night. We will have a couple of hours to do some more sightseeing and shopping in Hanoi prior to heading north. We will arrive in Sapa early Sunday Moring, get unpacked, meet the people there, and enjoy the culture and beauty of that area. Our work starts with the kids Monday morning, and will be intespersed with work on the water supply system.


Once we get to our final destination of Sapa, I'll have much more info and pictures to post.

Till next time ....