New home

"It matters not where you live, so long as you live where you are" - Anon

Well the in-country orientation (ICO) is now over and each of the volunteers have now gone to their respective placements throughout Vietnam including, HCMC, Thai Binh and Da Nang. For a quick round-up of the final week of ICO please take a look at Trish's movie;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDHwzELO0EA

The volunteers in Da Nang had a dramatic start to their placement, as it was in this area that typhoon Ketsana made landfall. Warnings however were provided, the authorities were well prepared and, although tragically there were fatalities due to mudslides in the central provinces, emergency procedures worked effectively.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8281159.stm.

The newly placed VSO volunteers in Da Nang are safe and sound and apparently will even soon be starting work.

For those of us based in Hanoi, life has proved far simpler, having already spent 3 weeks in the city we have already had the chance to familiarise ourselves with our surroundings and have been able to find accommodation. I had an immediate choice to make, of whether to live on my own, something I have become very used to or to share with someone else. Well it soon became apparent that the best value was to share a house, and it became even more apparent that myself, Trish and Louisa would find it easy to get along.

So after a few frenetic days of travelling around various districts of Hanoi, we finally settled on the Dong Da District of the city, a locale that was relatively convenient for all, with me being the luckiest as I am within walking distance for work, and there is even a footbridge to cross the road!! The area has everything we could possibly want, a market with fresh produce literally on our door-step, a pleasant lakeside Bier Hoi just around the corner, a large supermarket just a short bus ride away, and for me a barber that does a fine cut-throat shave.

The house is a typical Vietnamese town house, tall and narrow but with plenty of space. The first floor opens out onto street, or should that be alley, and contains living area, kitchen and a small shower room, the second and third floors have two bedrooms and bathroom each and the final storey consists of a large landing, utility area and spacious roof terrace.

During my first night in the new bed, there were some ominous creaking sounds, which were the precursor to the complete collapse of the frame, proving, not for the first time, that I am taller, wider and, yes, considerably heavier than most Vietnamese. But the charming landlord was soon around to fix things and it is now reinforced and very solid, just right for a cool nights sleep under the mosquito net, fan and air-con. The standard of accommodation has exceeded our expectations for the budget, so we are all very pleased. Having settled in I have now began my assignment and I am very much enjoying the experience.

The public nature of blogging means that I shan’t be going into specific detail about my work, but in future blogs I will provide observations about my life here and describe some of the context within which my assignment takes place. So I hope you will join me next week, when I will describe a little about Vietnam’s turbulent but spectacular development story.

Tôi có thể có một bia xin

"No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut"

Sam Rayburn (1882 -1961)

say that again please?

Well the second week has now passed and our fascinating In Country Orientation (ICO)continues. For a quick recap on week one please feel free to watch the delightful slideshow put together by Trish, a co-volunteer, and soon to be my housemate, along with Louisa, who also has a starring feature in the show; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppN8ImThZds.

Each day we have two Vietnamese lessons and we have now progressed from saying our name, to the more complex conversations required to barter at the market. It is to language that I now turn in this blog, for, unlike Sam Rayburn, if I am stay here for two years I will definately need to open my mouth. Yesterday we had our first practical session at the open air market. I refrained from buying a duck as I didn't want it waddling around the hotel bathroom and bought a grapefruit instead. Well at least I thought it was a grapefruit but it turned out to be something else, it was quite tasty though, whatever it was. The fact that I managed to buy anything was quite an achievement and testiment to the skills of our patient and good humoured language teacher who puts up with our outrageous pronounciation.

So why is Vietnamese so difficult? Well for those of you not familiar with this sort of language, it is tonal. This means that the sounds you make and where they are in the word, are equally, if not more important, than the combination of letters that make them up. There are six tones in the Vietnamese language; mid, low falling, low rising, high broken, high rising, and low broken. Thus every syllable can be pronounced in six different ways. Where these sounds occur in each word, is indicated by the diacritic-laden letters that you see in Vietamese writing, (thats the strange squiggles you see at the top and bottom of the letters).

The consequence of this is that different tones can completely change a words meaning. For example depending on how it is said ma could mean ghost, cheek, but, rice seedling, tomb or horse. The possibility for confusion is near endless for example, you could go to buy some oil (dầu), long tone high pitch falling, and instead say (dâu), short tone, low pitch, sudden stop, which means bride, or mistake trousers (quần) for a pub (quán). These are not the sort of confusions you wish to make in polite conversation. Just to make matters more confusing the dialect in the north is different to that in the south. In HCMC (Saigon) the low rising and high broken tones are both pronounced as the low rising tone, and to make matters that bit more interesting the Vietnamese spoken around Hue, in the centre of the country, is considered unique even by the Vietnamese.

So if you have followed me this far...you may wonder how it can be learnt. Well far from frustrating it is quite fun, learning Vietnamese improves your listening skills and exercises facial muscles you didn't know you had. The lessons on the ICO are very practical and the laughter loud, you don't even want to know the embarrasment caused if you ask for pork incorrectly, and most of all the language, like the country and people, is very beautiful as the high and low pitches swoop and glide in a musical manner. So I will persevere, and hopefully my efforts will be rewarded by even more unusual purchases at the market.

However, I have mastered one phrase, and for those of you wondering what the title of this blog is, it states..

"May I have one beer please?"

To which once it arrives the answer can only be,

"Chuc suc khoe!" or "Cheers"

See you next week for house hunting adventures in Hanoi.

Arrival

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”

Freya Stark.

Xin Chao! Hello and welcome to the first Bromblog from Hanoi. It has now been nearly a week since I first stepped of the plane at Na Boi airport, passed through the swine flu medical screening and stepped into the heat and humidity of Vietnam. Unlike Freya Stark I am not alone but am instead welcomed by the wonderful staff of the VSO Vietnam office, Son, Trang and Thuong. I'm efficiently transported to the Au Co Hotel where a welcome basket of fruit, biscuits, tea and coffee awaits me.

In the evening we gather for a Vietnamese welcome dinner and I get to meet, mostly for the first time, the other volunteers in the team. We are diverse bunch in age, experience and nationality coming from the UK, Kenya, Ireland, Canada, Germany/South Africa and Pirkka from Finland who unfortuneatly is still to arrive due to some visa issues. We look forward to seeing her soon.

This shows the range of VSO partnerships both North and South and it is a good mix of experience and backgrounds.

Day 2 is really the start of our In Country Orientation (ICO) designed to enable us to gain confidence in our new environment. The first part of which is learning how to cross the road! The rules of which are simple, step out, preferably not under a bus, keep walking and don't stop until you reach the other side. The mopeds really do swerve to avoid you and the cars, mostly, really do slow down, stopping in the middle really just confuses the whole experience. If there is a large group of you, do not cross the road in single file, as in a school crocodile, as the mopeds cannot swerve around all of you at once and it causes havoc. Instead cross the road in a horizontal file with the bravest person in the hit zone at the end of the row. If you do not obey these rules, you will only ever see Hanoi from one side of the street and never be able to get from one section to the next.

So with the Great Road Expedition mastered, our next adventure was to the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnography. This is a super start to the training, providing a fascinating insight to the 54 different ethnic groups belonging to 5 ethnolinguistic families, (more about language later), that inhabit Vietnam. The largest of these is, unsurprisingly, the Viet comprising 86% of the population, but there are many more such as the Black Hmong, Yao and the Lolo people. Most of these have colourful dress and unique customs, particularly the hill tribes, however these ethnic minorities have often not benefited from Vietnam's economic progress, and how to ensure that they benefit from Vietnam's successes in poverty reduction whilst preserving their culture is an interesting development debate, as it is in many places, that I hope to learn more about during my time here.

Giarai burial tomb and Bahnar communal house at Ethnology Museum of Vietnam

The museum is also home to the delightful Hoa Sua restaurant, not only does this provide excellent cuisine, together with wonderful French style desserts, such as flambe apple crepe, (I was tempted by a rich chocolate mousse), but it also serves as a training facility for disadvantaged young people providing them with the skills they need to work in Vietnam's burgeoning tourist sector, a rapidly growing and important part of its economy.

So I am afraid this blog only takes me through to the second day of my time here so far, but it is long enough already. Our ICO also includes 2 language lessons a day, background in the socio-political environment and development issues, the work of VSO in disability and HIV/AIDS and something I am really looking forward to the opportunity to spend a weekend with a Vietnamese family. It also includes all the numerous practical issues such as setting up bank accounts, including internet banking, mobile phones, emergency procedures, including evacuation procedures, for example, in the event of an avian flu outbreak, which hospitals to use, registering with the Embassy and police etc.. etc... etc..... as well as finding somewhere to live. Each of these is a seperate topic in itself so next week I think I shall write about our often hilarious experiences with the Vietnamese language.

See you next week

Ian

Things I can't pack...

"There's no place like home".
_ Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), Wizard of Oz

Well I think I have finally succeeded in packing the suitcase. Weighing in at 21 Kg, just under the limit, I might even be able to squeeze another book in.

However there are some things that just won't fit so here are just a few....


















..and of course friends and family. I'm sure I will be keeping in touch with you all and hopefully seeing some of you in Vietnam... So take care, good luck and the next post will be from Hanoi.

leaving the safe harbour

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
- Mark Twain

So the day has finally come when I leave the safe harbour of my employment to embark on my new journey of discovery as a volunteer in Vietnam. The experience at Varian Medical Systems has been great, working for a company that does so much good in the fight against cancer by producing state of the art oncology equipment to treat the disease. The people have been superb and their send off was lovely, my easily packable guide to the countries of the mighty Mekong will stand me in excellent stead. So thank you Varian for a wonderful journey and to any colleagues reading this good luck and all the best for your future.

However, as Mark Twain says, it is not the things you do that will disappoint, but those you don't. The opportunity to live and work in Vietnam will not come around again, so it is time to catch the trade winds in my sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Tomorrow, the preparations for this adventure continues with the completion of the legalisation of my documents. My passport should be back with me next week complete with visa and over the remaining two weeks the flat shall be cleared in preparation for my new tenants. The date has been set for departure, September 6th, and the initial arrangements for my arrival have been supplied by the VSO programme in Vietnam, the first 3 weeks will be exciting indeed.

Finally don't forget that the Prestonville Pub will be hosting a charity night this Saturday, August 22nd. It will be a grand night with live music provided for the Butchers of Blues. The music starts at 9:00pm, the pubs the best in town, the cause is VSO...so see you there..!!

The Prestonville Arms... the best pub in Brighton ..there certainly won't be one like this in Hanoi

Preparing to go...

"There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it."

Charles Dudley Warner

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog, this is my first entry so keep with me if things go a little awry.

I will shortly be going to Vietnam with VSO, (Voluntary Service Overseas), to work in their HIV and AIDS programme. The past couple of months have been very busy, my flat has had to be emptied in preparation for letting, a cathartic experience that finally meant donating some 20 years worth of accumulated books to charity. Together with medicals and vaccinations, I now feel as though I should be immune to most things, though the comprehensive VSO medical briefing has made me aware of the wide variety of illnesses and general hazards that I am still likely to encounter, including the rather gruesome bot fly maggot.

The past few days have been spent at Harbonne Hall, VSO's delightful residential training center just outside Birmingham. The time was spent learning skills that I shall need in my placement in Vietnam. These include a variety of techniques often based upon role play and theatre. I tried conducting meetings through puppets, a first for me and something I should have tried ages ago, as I have often been to meetings that have seemed like a Punch and Judy performance. It was also a fantastic opportunity to meet with other potential volunteers many of which were going to countries as diverse as China, Rwanda and Namibia. The skill mix and age range was also very diverse reflecting the variety of opportunities that VSO offers to fight poverty and tackle disadvantage in some of the poorest areas of the worlds.

VSO volunteers at Harbonne Hall, Aug 09, off to Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Cameroon, Rwanda, China and Vietnam...can you spot me?

Another delight of Harbonne Hall is not only the resource centre, packed full of information, but also the delightful bar and the charming local Pub, the Bell Inn, which incorporates the village bowling green. A few pints of Summer Storm makes for an interesting walk through the olde worlde church graveyard after last orders. So now we have all departed and we will soon be going our seperate ways. I have come back to a newly decorated flat, well done to my decorators, Gary and Graham, it is only a shame that I shall not be living in it. In September I will be in Vietnam beginning my in-country training so you will be able to catch my updates and photos here.