V2-2010

Today is our last day in Hanoi, our plane leaves at 11:00 pm tonight. We are tired. The last few days have been super busy and fun. But all good things must come to an end!

Yesterday we spent time walking around Hanoi with Vietnamese friends. We ate traditional fish fry for lunch. We went to a store called Fanny and had the best ice cream ever, even better than in the states! We went to dinner and had our debriefing with GVI staff. We ended our night with other translators and GVI staff from previous Cool River trips. It was so fun to catch up, to tell them about our time up north, to hear about their lives, and to tell them about our lives. While on these trips, it amazes me how quick and deep friendships form. These Vietnamese people are such blessings to us!

This morning we headed of to an orphanage with a suitcase of diapers. We were able to spend about an hour with the 6 months to 2 years old (1o babies), just loving on them and playing with them before bath time. We were also able to visit the newborn room briefly as it was nap time (6 babies).

Here are some pictures:



There was another trip from GVI team from Australia working at the orphanage. They were building a recreational area outside (hard labor). It was great to share stories and to see the range of GVI projects.

As we end our time here we are so thankful for the various of places and activities we were able to participate in. We will miss the friendliness and community of the people, the food, and seeing amazing things happen everyday.

The ceremony today was amazing! We are in awe and sensory overload. We arrived at 7:30am to a huge event. We exited the van and were welcomed into the ceremony with a procession of music and children waiving Vietnam flags. We were given front row seats at a table (everyone else just had chairs) and the sign at our table was translated to say "delegates." We felt unworthy, in shock, and amazed as we sat down and were poured tea. It was emotional to think that the tea we were drinking came from water filters we installed last year.











Above is a picture of half of the people at the ceremony. To the left of us, not shown in the picture were all the Headmasters of the schools in Bac Ha. To the right, seated after the students seen here were all the government officials.

Below is the actual certificate awarded to the school. In this picture the certificate is resting below the shrine of Ho Chi Minh. The certificate was marched into the ceremony.



Many officials both from the government and the school system gave speeches. Brian was able to give a speech to represent Cool River's work done and also GVI's dedication to Northern Vietnam. It was a huge privilege! He did a really good job!

After the ceremony we were able to go around and greet all of the headmasters, government officials, and teachers we knew from this trip and previous trips and congratulate them. I don't have any pictures, but we danced with the children and teachers to local music. We were able to dance with middle school students from our trip last year. We ended our time at Bao Nhai eating lunch with basically everyone who is anyone in the school system. We felt so privileged, amazed, and happy to be included in everything.

I have to tell you, Cool River and GVI, our church, our money, and our time, has truly changed a village! I hope we are able to communicate effectively the weight and importance of our trips here. We came here to work because we love the people and want to help, never expecting anything. The events that lead up to this award and ceremony are such a blessing! We were a part, but due to our interest in the school, the hard work of the school administration, and the government giving extra attention to the school, all of us working together has brought us to this day.

We are so thankful to be here and to have experienced today.

Water Fitler at Bao Nhai Primary School : We finished the water filter testing and everything is working 100%. The water filters are working to their full extent. The school now has extremely clean water to use for drinking and cooking. These filters will serve 125 students (43 of which live at the school's boarding house Monday-Friday), 22 teachers, and about 7 administration.

Here are pictures of the work done. See the previous post for details.




We will finish this post tomorrow, we have a lot to say regarding the school and conditions of the boarding house. For now, we are having dinner with some teachers and the Headmaster of Ta Chai (the 1st school , out of 2, that Cool River installed a computer lab). Busy, busy busy!

Today was a very special day for us. We ended our teaching time and water filter installation in Bao Nhai by inviting the Headmasters of Primary School A & B, the Secondary Headmaster, and Vice Headmaster. We wanted to invite these women to lunch to honor all of their work to make the students of Bao Nhai successful. These women at the school are very driven and true advocates for the students. Tomorrow is also Teacher’s Day, so the timing was just right to have this lunch. We also invited one of the government officials to join us for lunch. It was a great time to catch up with him and learn more about his life.

It was a great opportunity to talk with them about work, life, and to learn about each other’s lives. They wanted updates on all the people who had visited Bao Nhai in past trips. They also shared their excitement regarding our previous projects in the town. At the end we gave them a small gift and thanked them. We thanked them for trusting us with their students. We let them know we are always thinking of them and Bao Nhai. They let us know we are welcome all the time and they would love if we could come more often.

We feel so privileged to work with this group of women. We are so thankful for their friendship and for their gratitude of taking the gifts our trips have given them (water filtration, computer lab, bathrooms, retaining wall) and making the most out of them.

The ceremony tomorrow is for the Secondary School to receive an award for the school meeting the national standard. GVI with volunteers from Cool River Church have all helped the school meet these standards. Tomorrow the whole town, whole school, and many people from the government and other organizations will be at the ceremony. They have asked us to give a speech. We cannot believe this is going to happen. We are so excited!

They were even telling us how big of a deal the ceremony is for Bao Nhai. The town had a pre-ceremony festival last night, and it brought the town together in a wonderful way. Cool River: we have had a part of this amazing work! We cannot even describe how all we have done and the attention it has brought, and all of the resources that have been added from the government has created this community of hope, far beyond words. We feel so privileged to be a part of this work! We have been a part of bringing hope to this community!

More to come after the ceremony! We have to be at the school at 7:30am! It’s going to be an early day!

Here is a video of our bike ride today. This video was taken on our bike ride today as we returned from the top of Bac Ha. We were not driving, we had hired drivers. It was a wonderful time weaving through the villages where we have done work over the past several years. It gave us an even better insight into how and where the minority families live in Bac Ha.

Please Note: The internet at the Homestay is not working so we walked into town to post this blog, we are committed to our followers. We have tons of pictures and some really great videos we want to post, but at this time we cannot. We hope to post pictures when we are in Lao Cai waiting at the train station on Tuesday afternoon.

Tomorrow is our second and last day of teaching at Bao Nhai Primary School B. Below is information about the school and our water install.

Bao Nhai Primary School B is set high in the mountains of the Lao Cai Provence in northern Vietnam. The school serves multiple minority group children from tribes such as the Hmong and Zoa people, as well as Vietnamese children. Rocky dirt roads lead to the school where some students walk as far as four miles to attend school. The primary school has a small handful of mentally handicapped students who are given the chance to master each grade before being moved up. The headmaster and staff are very dedicated and hard working often staying late to help minority students who may miss classes due to helping their families with farm work. A new water filter is now up and running (see Brian’s post) at the school bringing clean safe drinking water to over 125 students and 22 staff. The students are very attentive and quite while being taught but enjoy the games and silliness just as much as American children. While waiting for our lessons to begin the students sang several popular songs.

Installing the water filter at Bao Nhai primary B: The water filter installation went very smoothly. The entire system consists of a large cement cistern, one 400 liter water tank, a supply line from the cistern to the tank, and two water lines from the tank that connect to two Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) water filters. The cement cistern is filled by runoff from the mountainside near the school. However, this water is deadly. So, the water filters we chose remove nearly everything from the water, including viruses and arsenic (both of which occur naturally in the water here). Clean water in Vietnam is a huge problem. Most of the water is not drinkable so most people boil the water. However, this does not remove everything harmful (i.e. arsenic). Water-born illness is the second leading cause of death in Vietnam. We are beginning to address this problem with the R.O. filters.

A plumber that we hired installed the water tank ahead of time. It looked great! It was a professional installation! We were impressed. We placed the two water filters into two rooms the administration had chosen ahead of time and hooked them up. We didn’t have any power so we could not test the filters. Hopefully power will be restored on Monday and we can test the filters. This leads us to consider installing solar panels so the filters will work during a blackout. Once the filters were in place, Brian and a local farmer got to work on burying the supply line. One hour later and two gallons of sweat, the line was buried. It was clear that the local farmer spends all his days working with the dirt, so he completed 2 feet on ditch per minute verses Brian’s 1 foot per minute. Stay tuned, we will update you with the test results soon!

Tonight our team had dinner with the Colon family (Pastor of our church) in Sapa. It was truly a blessing to be able to have this time together. This trip has been a dream for Kevin and Amy to bring the girls to Vietnam. And I must say, the girls are amazing world travelers as they have explored Hanoi, Bac Ha, and Sapa. The girls were full of so much joy and smiles. It was amazing to hear their perspective of Vietnam and how much fun they have found in the simplest of things. And all of them have mastered the use of chopsticks! We are so excited to see how this trip will be used to bless the Colon family!

Today one word rang loud and clear: FLEXIBILITY

Here are the various situations:

1. This morning our normal van was going to be late so we had to take a shuttle bus into Bao Nhai. The Health and Hygiene material is in the van, but will arrive on time. No problem!

2. Our shuttle bus could not make it past a rocky hill (the muffler and back of the bus was damaged trying). We need to walk to the school with all of our luggage since we are heading for Sapa afterward and a projector and screen. The school is at least a mile and a half of rocky road. We are already late. No problem!

3. A motorbike comes to pick us up as we walk, for sure, no problem!

4. We arrive at the school and learn that there is not a classroom for us to fit the 60 kids we are teaching in, so we will need to teach the class outside with the projector. No problem!

5. We set the projector and slide show up and start introductions with the students while we are still waiting for our suitcase of props, no problem!

6. As soon as our suitcase arrives the power goes out and we will not be able to use the slide show, no problem, we just grab out the printed out slides and go with it (boy are we glad we brought those for the just in case scenarios).

In all the last minute situations today we were able to work as a team comfortably to make it work. We felt peace and comfort and found joy in the detours. Today was never what we thought it would be, but it was better in many ways!

We started our day off by visiting our dear friends at Bao Nhai Secondary School. The administration there is amazing! And I must say the administration at the school is like a second family for us. It was great to sit around and sip tea and catch up over the last year and introduce our new teammates.

Here is a full view of Halong Bay from the roof of our boat.

Today has been another long but rewarding day for our team. We have officially begun our work in Bac Ha. We drove up to our hotel from the train, at breakfast, and had a quick practice at Health and Hygiene. We then drove down to lunch at our favorite restaurant in Bao Nhai. We showed up at the first out of two elementary schools we will be teaching Health and Hygiene. We met with the Headmaster, had introductions, and then quickly went to our room to set up. The school had a projector for us to use, but it was not in the room and there was not an extension cord to use. There was a bit of chaos figuring out whether or not we were going to have a projector, and moving our curriculum around a bit as 90 noisy 1-3rd graders sat and waited for us to begin. Our teaching session ended up being a "on the edge of your seat" fun adventure. We had props everywhere, excited kids both yelling out answers and raising their hands, and us trying to figure out what was next, who said what and how to involve all the kids.

The day was very tiring, but rewarding. We figure you have to start somewhere. And it will only get better. We were very excited to see the enthusiasm of the students. We were not sure if they were going to be shy. They for sure are not shy!

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2 boats
1 bus- off and on twice
2 taxis - one in which we were pulled over in
1 van
1 overnight train
1 van
Time not on these forms of transportation= less than 3 hours of a 24 hour period!
Time spent together as a team=priceless

This is a super quick blog, more to come tomorrow. We have been in Hanoi traffic and have to hurry to catch the train.

Halong Bay was amazing. It was a time to adjust to and learn about the country and Vietnam culture and take time to prepare for our Health and Hygiene training. We explored the bay with over 300 islands on our tour boat where we slept. We visited a rather large cave in one of the islands, went kayaking at sunset, ate delicious fresh seafood (crab, squid, local fish) and fruit, sun bathed on the roof of the boat, and enjoyed the beauty of Vietnam. We also were able to meet fellow world trackers and hang out and enjoy our Vietnamese tour guides and cooks.

Words can only go so far, so we promise to post pictures as soon as we can.

Please pray for our time up north. We have had a few obstacles this afternoon and we even more feel our need to be up north and bring health to the schools.

We are headed up to Halong Bay early this morning for an overnight boat cruise. During this time we will continue to learn about the Vietnamese culture, practice our Health and Hygiene training material, and just have some fun. I doubt there is internet on the boat (you never know). We will update as much as we can. If you don't hear from us for a few days, expect a big post when we get up to Bac Ha on Wednesday.

We started off the day with breakfast at the hotel. It is on the top floor and has a balcony with an amazing view. We enjoyed the birds eye view for awhile after breakfast. Afterward we walked around the area and took pictures.



Late morning we met up with our friend Tim (went up North with us on past trips) and our translator for this trip, Mihn. We took a tour around the French Quarter of Hanoi on an electric powered tourist cart. We saw so much it is hard to put it into words!

It took us 32 hours to arrive to Hanoi. On our way we enjoyed our stop in San Fransisco to enjoy some sourdough bread and then the yummy Korean food on the plane, know as Bibimbap. The team made a quick pit stop in Korea for Starbucks, and headed on the plane for Hanoi. We thought it was funny and also enjoyed the Christmas music and decorations at Starbucks and the Christmas music on the plane while boarding.

We arrived at 10:30pm at our hotel in Hanoi. We are all so curious about what the daylight will bring. Tomorrow will be a busy day as we connect with GVI staff, see the sites of Hanoi, and visit our Vietnamese friends.