A Rainy Day Workshop Works in Phong Nha Ke Bang

So we held our successful "Workshop: Community-Based Tourism Potential in the Phong Nha Ke Bang Buffer Zone" on the 7th with representatives from the three communes and local and regional authorities. Wow. I'm still kind of giddy a week later. I'm somehow light years ahead professionally of where I thought I would be one year ago right before I started this Master's program. I was waiting tables at the time. And I just planned and ran an all day workshop attended by important people and introducing a revolutionary idea, assisted of course by the capable workshop-running pros at Counterpart. However, I was the tourism "expert" and I designed and gave many of the presentations, and I planned out the workshop activities for the participants. And it worked!

The objective was to create a clear and unified understanding of the concept of CBT and how it could be developed in this area, and then let the participants come up with their own ideas for tourism offerings and then help them rate which ones had the most potential and were the most feasible. It couldn't have gone better despite being rained out of our first location (we walked in to see women in ponchos pushing the still rising water out of the room with mops). Everyone was pleased with the results, everyone seemed to understand the CBT concept, and everyone is now super excited to share the info and ideas with everyone else back in the villages and get this project off the ground.

The momentum and the support is great right now, just as I'm leaving. I just wrote a job description for my replacement. It's a little sad, but I am very proud of what I've accomplished here in two months with little initial experience. And I am leaving Counterpart with a lot of clear documentation that can serve as a road map for future CBT development. My boss Victor even asked that I not refer to myself as an intern, since I had a lot more responsibility and had accomplished more than a traditional intern. He saw the arrangement more as an equal exchange of knowledge and experience. So how come I'm being paid as as intern...?

One funny side note: In the meeting hall where we held the workshop hung two signs up at the very front. The first one said "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom!" The second one said "Long live the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam!" I liked the juxtaposition.

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