Two weekends ago, I was lucky enough to be invited by the NGO staff that I work with to one of their project sites! I was really excited to get this opportunity because it would give me the chance to actually see what the organization does in terms of their environmental goals. As I mentioned before, my NGO focuses in behavior change and organizing local people to address particular environmental issues they face. In Nam Dinh, a province southeast of Hanoi, in a tiny little town called Thinh Long, they conduct the "Safe Dyke project" which addresses how the people of the town can recognize damage to the dyke that protects their community from the ocean, which they are right next to. In 2005, the dyke broke and the entire town was under water forcing the community to move. This was devastating to many families, since the salt-water flooded their vegetable farms, some of which were funded by loans from the bank that the people still had to repay. The breach in the sea dyke pushed people into huge debt, which was difficult to come out from.
So with that said, Sunday morning I got up super early to meet Ms. Ly, a staff member who runs the project in Thinh Long, and visits every month to hold community meetings. Also coming with us were Hai, an engineer and lecturer at Water Resources University in Hanoi, and two student volunteers, Linh and Chi. The drive was about 3 hours, though I have to say it would be more like two and a half if the last bit before the town had decent roads. I was really tired and fell asleep on the way there but from what I saw the entire way to Nam Dinh was rice paddies and small towns, but when we got closer and closer, I noticed that there were a lot of really big catholic churches, which seemed odd to me. It looked so strange in a background of of all flat land with rice fields. I asked Ly about it, who told me that in Nam Dinh about 60 percent of the population is Christian. These cathedrals were all so gothic and mysterious looking. Here's a picture from the guesthouse of one in the distance.
Anyway, we pulled into the town of Thinh Long and rested for a little while at the small hotel until going to lunch, which was delicious. All weekend we had a series of beef, fish, and pork dishes, cooked by us in the middle of the table on a hot pan, a popular way to eat here. The staff didn't speak too much English or go too much out of their way to translate their conversations for me, which was too bad, so I just relaxed and tried to be patient. Here's another picture taken from the guesthouse.
After lunch we went to the town meeting hall to set up and people from the town slowly started showing up. At first it was basically all old men, which made me wonder if they were the only ones allowed as leaders, but then lots of old women showed up too. The men and women roughly sat on two different sides of the room with their friends, not sticking too much to sitting with family. I suppose in a small town like that everyone feels like one family, because everyone talked to everyone, and there was even a small kid running around climbing into everyones laps and I couldn't tell which one was his Grandmother. Later on I asked why the only people in attendance were older men and women and the volunteers told me that younger people couldn't skip school or work for the meetings every month. Here's some pics of the meeting hall when we first arrived.
When the room was full and chairs everyone sat down, there were a few performances by some singers/actors, who seemed to be singing very tradtional old music and wore these crazy ancient looking costumes. I couldnt understand the details of what they were saying but it was about the sea dyke and their responsibility to the environment. For the most part the audience was respectful but it didn't seem to be rude to just talk to your neighbor, because it didn't stay very quiet during this series of performances. During the speeches in between everyone was very attentive though. After a few more speakers, Ly and the others broke the room up into about 5 groups, and everyone went through a list of questions about various issues regarding the sea dyke and how the people felt the project was progressing, or what was standing in the way. Again it was difficult for me to follow everything and the volunteers were busy, so i mainly sat in the back taking pictures and smiling at this cute little boy. Here is a picture of the performance, a short video clip of one of the small group discussions, and
Afterwards, Hai told me about a problem in the town that many of the attendees were concerned about. At the river mouth there's a company that keeps digging up the river bottom, for clay and earth, and the land around the river keeps sinking in, which has decreased the amount of land. I tried asking more questions about this, and I guess since the company is owned by the government there's not a clear way to stop it from happening. It connects to the dyke safety some how but the translations were getting more and more difficult so I'm not sure, sorry!
We were invited to dinner by one of the men in the town, which consisted of this huge guy talking and everyone laughing and telling me how funny he is. The man made me take three shots of rice whiskey with him, which I thought was hilarious, and then he proceeded to tell us all that he is the "whisky king." Here are some of the men we ate with. One of them wanted to talk to me the entire day, because he knew English from being trained a long time ago during the war, when he would have to talk to captured Americans.
We went to bed fairly early, and the next morning got up to see a few different pagodas and churches, which were really cool. It was pretty funny watching Linh take constant pictures of Chi posing everywhere, and they wanted me in their pictures a lot too. At one temple they talked to a fortune teller who told them if they'd meet any new love interests soon.
All in all, I wish I could have done more to help out during this whole trip, but not knowing Vietnamese pretty much limited that. It was soooo great to get a feel for the small town they work in and how they run these meetings to get people thinking. A lot of the people, for example, voiced a strong desire to educate the children about the environment and maintaining the sea dyke.
Also on our way out, we drove along the water edge and I saw the dyke for myself. I couldn't believe how close all the farms were to the water, or the amount of trash that is washed up on the dykes. It seems absurd, but goes along with the rest if the country with not having reliable places to put trash. I just think it's sad because it would be a nice place to hang out by the water if it wasn't so dirty, but they have no reason to hang out by the water unless they're fisherman, which there are a lot of. Here are some pics of the ocean and dyke, the fishing boats on the beach, and some pictures of the center of town where we stopped to get the famous rice of Thinh Long.
You were quite descriptive, don't apologize! With such a language barrier, I'm impressed you got so much out of it! Interesting photos, also... sounds very worthwhile, although you do outline the larger issue of what Vietnam needs to do to control their refuse.
ReplyDelete