Advertisement
Published: November 22nd 2023
Well, now the rain has stopped and the water levels have dropped we are able to get to the family we are supporting with our trip. The volunteering part of the trip is important for Way To Travel, and of course for those on the trip!
A percentage of our trip costs are put into the pot to pay for the supplies and local labourers. We provide the unskilled labour for as long as we are in the area. Unfortunately, because of the problems getting to Hue with the floods we’ll only have two days working rather than three, but as me ol’ ma would have said, it’s better than a slap in the belly with a wet kipper.
The family we’re supporting have been chosen through what sounds like quite a complex procedure, involving village and provincial local authorities to agree the project, complete the paperwork and sign off on the work needing to be done. From what Mr T has told us it’s very time consuming, and the local authorities are communist party officials.
Our family live in a very rural area about 25 minutes outside Hue city. Our coach was unable to access the roads
leading up to the home so we walked the last 300m or so across a concrete bridge and along a very muddy path with numerous muddy puddles left over from the floods. Only two days beforehand this path was underwater!
Dragonflies were swarming above our heads as we approached the home – dozens of them! It was an extraordinary sight, and they stayed with us for the whole of two days we were there.
We were met and greeted by several local authority VIPs when we arrived at the home of our family, along with the onsite project manager and the other men who are working on the build.
The family is mum, Mrs H, age 53 with ‘tumour disease’, her daughter, Miss M, age 27 with brittle bone disease – she has had over 46 fractures and is severely physically disabled – as well as a young daughter-in-law, her 2 small children and sometimes her husband, the son of Mrs H. Mrs H’s husband is mentally unwell and has chosen to live by himself in a small house a little way away from the main house.
The main house is reasonably well constructed from concrete
blocks, and has concrete floors. The outside of the house is unfinished, with no rendering on at least two sides. There is no bathroom, loo or kitchen in the house. The family goes to the loo in the garden area.
A few metres from the main house there is an old pigsty split into five parts, each approximately two square metres. The part nearest the house is used for showering and washing. The adjacent part is used for cooking; there was a single pot on a fire area. The third part was storage, and the last two parts which were used for storage were now cleared for us to convert them into a chicken coop for 50 chicks that were to be donated by Way To Travel.
As well as the kitchen coop we were helping to build a shower and toilet block just outside the back of the building. The brickwork had already been done by the five local labourers who had started work the previous day.
Susan, Diane and I started day one as the Chicken Coop Chicks, cutting and splitting bamboo poles, and wiring them together to make a bamboo mat for the chicks.
Hi ho hi ho!
Photo by Kathleen. Mr T showed us how to waire them together, and we made a good start. Then one of the local labourers came and showed us how he would do it, so we gave that a go for a little while before Mr T came back and told us to do it his way. Chiefs and Indians come to mind! Anyway, in the end we worked out our own way and soon had the construction completed!
We then had to fill some holes in the wall of the pigsty with rocks and concrete to stop the chicks from escaping and prevent any predators getting in to the coop. While Susana and I were doing that with help from Mo, Diane bashed some holes in the wall which didn’t already have some, to support the bamboo poles that the mat would be sitting on.
Once the holes were either made or filled, and the mat was in place we started making tarpaulin curtains that would protect the chicks from inclement weather.
The rest of the group had been working hard on the toilet block, mixing cement and mortar, rendering the outside wall and moving earth to fill holes. It
was a warm day, and much sweat was sweated!
We had some discussion about whether we would be able to provide some extra financial support to help provide a few ‘extras’ for the family, including a covered walkway to allow Miss M to be more independent in accessing the shower and the loo. To mobilise, she shuffles on the floor on her bottom, and if she needs to move larger distances her mum picks her up ad carries her. Mrs H is about 4’6” (approx. 1.4m) and as a guesstimate weighs between five and six stone (approx. 80lbs). She often carries Miss M like a baby, but sometimes gives her a piggy back. Although Miss M is tiny herself, it must be quite a strain for Mrs H, especially as she has her own health issues.
Mr T gave us the costs of the ‘extras’ including buying some food, and other essentials for the family, and it totalled around 18,700,000 dong (around £620), not a lot when it's split between 17 of us. We did a collection and with some peeps donating more, we reached just over 25,000,000 Dong (around £825 or $1400CAD)! This also included a gift
from a UK friend – thank you Sue!
Once back at the hotel, we each did our own thing. Susan and I showered and wandered out to find some dinner, finally agreeing on the restaurant called Risotto, just around the corner from the hotel. Some of the group had eaten there the previous evening and recommended it. And quite rightly so! The owner and our waitress were very friendly and helpful - absolute delights! We enquired about what Toad Juice was (yes really!!) and the owner brought out a fruit which neither of us was familiar with – after a bit of googling and Mr T’ing, it has been identified as ambarella, aka golden apples or jew plumbs. Sadly it’s not the ripe season for them, so Toad Juice wasn’t available, but we were given one of the fruits cut up on a plate – it was the texture of an unripe pear and was a little acrid, but pleasant enough.
I ordered penne pasta with pesto, and Susan had seafood risotto. Both were beautifully served, and really yummy. I tried some Vietnamese wine which was certainly drinkable, while Susan drank what she said was the best passion
fruit juice she’s ever had.
Some of the rest of the group arrived a while later and joined us, and a good time was had by all.
The second day of the project saw us going shopping at the local market to spend some of the money we’d collected for the family. We bought cooking essentials – rice, oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, salt, pepper – as well as toothbrushes, lights for the toilet / shower and chicken coop, treats for the kiddies in the form of sweeties and small toys, other bits and pieces, and of course, loo paper!
We then took all the goodies to the house and got stuck into our day’s work.
The chicken coop had wire net fencing put around the sides to enclose the area above the 80cm-ish high walls, the tarpaulin curtains were finished and hung and the floor was covered in husk ready for the chicks.
There was more rendering to the shower / toilet building, the area between the back door and the shower / toilet building was flattened, and rocks were bashed and moved in preparation for the concrete walkway (one of the extras), the
floor and walls were tiled, doors were hung, and holes were dug to take the supports for the 500l water butt that will be holding rain water for the shower and loo. The hole diggers were me, Susan and Aidee, and we needed to be fairly precise. The distance between the holes needed to be 120cm centre to centre, and the we worked out using Pythagoras theorem that the diagonals need to be 170cm - see, you do sometimes need to use the maths you learnt at school!
Well, we managed it, and it was fabulous when the legs for the tower, which had been constructed on site by a man with a hand held welder, fitted perfectly into their holes. I must admit, I did hold my breath for a few seconds as it was lifted up before being dropped in!
We also chain-ganged 450 cement blocks from the front of the house to the back. These will be used to build the wall surrounding the walkway between the house and the shower / toilet block. It took me back to chain-ganging rhododendron branches up the slopes on Lundy!
In the afternoon the chicks were delivered,
and we each took one out of the box, named it and put it into the now complete chicken coop. Mrs H and Miss M went first, and they seemed very happy. Having said that, I didn’t see Mrs H smile once while we were there, not even for photos. Miss M did though! I named my chick Sophie and Susan’s was Jordan although she’s not sure why.
It was a great thing to see, knowing that the family now had a source of eggs, meat and money.
The local authority VIP officials came and said goodbye, thanking us for our work and gifts. Of course we had thanks from the family too. Mo gave a lovely little speech from us saying how important it is for us to have supported the project, and that it’s a gift to all of us taking part as well as to the family – so very true! A framed photo of the team was put up on one of the walls inside the house.
Lunch on both days was provided by a local caterer and was a delicious spread of soup, sticky rice, various meats and fruit. Any elimination requirements
of the group either meant a wild wee, or if preferred a short ride on the back of a scooter to a neighbour’s home – few people did that more than once.
I felt quite emotional as we left and actually shed a few tears, knowing that what we had done would certainly change the family’s life for the better, but also knowing that their support needs would carry on into the future.
Mr T had arranged a food tour of Hue for us in the evening, travelling by rickshaw. I honestly couldn’t tell you what we ate across the 3 restaurants we visited, but it included lots of rice flour in various guises, shrimp, pork, crispy pancakes, and other delicious authentic Vietnamese cuisine.
Susan and I went to bed feeling we had achieved something over the last couple of day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.037s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0142s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
