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December 28, 2008
Vietnam Number One!
Earlier this evening, Vietnam beat Thailand in the final of the annual ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Football Federation tournament. The team won the tournament with a perfectly placed penalty kick that bounced off the head of one of the players right into the corner of Thailand's goal. With the game already past the 90:00 mark, that was it, and the team went out onto the field to celebrate with its Portuguese coach...
The crowd at the streetside cafe where I was watching the game went wild too. Everyone stood up, yelling, and beer mugs were clanking against each other for the next ten minutes. Once the game was over, the Saigonese took to the streets with their motorbikes to celebrate - waving flags, singing the national anthem, and chanting what I made out as "Vietnam Number One."
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 10:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 21, 2008
Please Help...
When I go out with my Vietnamese friends, I normally bring along my Lonely Planet Vietnamese Phrasebook (Purchased in the Backpackers District for just over two dollars). It is a good reference when I am having a conversation and helps me to learn new words. My Vietnamese friends often find it interesting to look up English words as well in the dictionary in the back of the phrasebook...
Anyway, last night during a conversation with my friend Binh, he pointed to the word "poverty" in the dictionary and told me in Vietnamese "please help." This was a sobering thing to hear - especially since we were sitting at a table of about fifty beer drinking revelers who were celebrating the birthday of the wife of one of my friends...
I was a bit surprised to hear that from Binh, because I figured that he got along fairly well. He parks motorbikes at a restaurant and his wife has an office job with a Vietnamese company. However, with a combined salary of just over $200 per month, it must be a challenge to provide anything more than the necessities for their two children. Not absolute poverty, but a difficult situation, nonetheless.
Back to the question - how do I help Binh? I did not know what to say when he asked me to help him. I think that I am a pretty good judge of character, and Binh is one of the most genuine people I have met so far. He is also smart and well read, and counts Victor Hugo among his favorite authors. Binh is definitely not lazy - I think that one of the things holding him back is that he does not know what opportunities are out there for him.
Tomorrow, I am going have a brainstorming session with him to see how he can use his unique skills to make some money. I am convinced that that is much better than giving him money or even helping to pay for books for his kids. The goal would be to help him recognize a business opportunity that he could take advantage by providing a valuable product or service to people...If we think of something, perhaps I could work on getting him a microcredit loan.
This entry is to be continued...For now, here is a shot of Binh and me. Business partners?
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 9:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 16, 2008
Monthly Salary: 1.8 million...
I just had dinner with my friends Yen and Phuong, whom I met when I first moved to Saigon. I rented a room in their grandmother's home for about one month, and we have stayed in touch since. This is Phuong, whose smile is so contagious that I can not help but smile back - even at her photo.
Back to the 1.8 million...That is Phuong's salary for working twelve hours per day, six and a half days per week at the local dry cleaners. The 1.8 million is in Vietnamese Dong (VND), and at the current exchange rate of about 17,000 VND per US Dollar, her salary is just over $100 per month. We did the math, and that comes out to less than $.33 per hour...
It is late, so I am going to leave out the commentary on this entry. It suffices to share this wage information with people in America. Even after living in Vietnam for nearly six months, I am still find these numbers amazing. However, by living with family and being frugal, people can get by on the kind of money that people in developed countries would spend for a night out on the town...Oh yeah, and Phuong treated us to dinner tonight...
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2008
Mosquito Borne Diseases
I took this photo in Siem Reap, Cambodia, last weekend. This sign was posted in front of a hospital that I heard is run by a Swiss physician who offers reduced cost healthcare to the locals. It is a noble and worthwhile contribution given that good quality healthcare is out of the reach of most people in Cambodia, which seemed to be a much less developed country than Vietnam.
Anyway, speaking of Dengue Fever, I probably have it if there are any mosquitoes carrying the virus in a town called Tra Vien, Vietnam. I spent the weekend at the family home of some of my Vietnamese friends. The house was surrounded by rice paddies, and while I did not see many mozzies during the day, at night they came out from their damp hiding places in force.
There must have been a hole in the mosquito net, because I woke up in the middle of the night itching all over my body. They even managed to bite my scalp, through my hair. In the dim light, I spotted at least twenty of them sharing the space inside the mosquito net with me, having an absolute feast and completely ignoring the mosquito repellent I had applied earlier. I should have known that Vietnamese mossies would be formidable opponents...
As with most of the tropical developing world, mosquito borne diseases are a public health challenge. Like many people, I am now half-waiting to come down with Dengue or Malaria...Maybe that will make for a good blog entry...
Posted by mt_mrobinson at 8:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack