MissyS

As soon as I stepped out onto the tarmac at Dar es Salaam airport, I was assaulted by an olfactory stew of vegetation, sweat, dust, and burnt charcoal. I felt blanketed by nostalgia. I don’t have full sense of smell (Woods calls it “smell blindness”), and most of the time I don’t smell anything at all, but those specific smells have a strong association with the Tanzania of my memory. And there was certainly no mistaking where I was once I entered the airport and dealt with customs. There was a disorganized crowd standing in a cluster by a row of windows and armed security milling about looking bored. Customs agents called out names, and one at a time people shuffled forward, then shuffled back to the crowd, and then shuffled forward again, etc. There were ... read more

These additional photos are courtesy of Mr. Vinh.... read more

I am now sick with a bad cold or the flu or some such nonsense. But earlier this week I was having a much much better time. Monday, Mr. Vinh and I took the car on the road around the park to take promotional photos and to check distance and difficulty for each section of the proposed biking route. We also re-visited the Tam Co or "8 Volunteer" or "8 Girl" cave where 8 youth volunteers were killed during the war when the cave where they were taking shelter in collapsed during an American bombing raid. There is a temple built to all youth volunteers killed in the war and the cave entrance contains a shrine. We also visited a Botanical Garden and hiked the trail that winds through the forest. I stayed overnight in Phong ... read more

On Wednesday I visited Chay Lap Village, the location of our pilot community-based tourism project. A lot of progress has been made since I was last involved last summer. A CBT Village Management Board has been set up and they have been busy. As with everything in Vietnam, there have been many bureaucratic hurdles to get past, but now the focus is on constructing the homestay buildings and training the local people. One household was chosen for the pilot. We'll start small and develop more as everyone learns. Two traditionally styled wooden houses are being built on the family's property. They chose an excellent location, pretty far off the road (nobody gunning their motorbike engines at 5am), in the shadow of beautiful green mountains and surrounded by the family's gardens and fruit tree groves. The houses ... read more

So, I've been home over a month and I have about two entries I wrote in Vietnam that I never posted and one more I should write to conclude the trip. This is just an entry promising that I will post these entries in the next day or two. And a little update: I just started taking martial arts classes with a crazy Vietnamese grandmaster who was the Southeast Asian champ. He swears he will teach me Vietnamese if it kills me. That would be helpful (learning more Vietnamese, not getting killed) in case I am able to return to Vietnam next summer. Victor already said that he'd love me to come back. But of course, I can't afford it if I'm not getting paid as a consultant, so it depends if they need me to ... read more