From Susan's blog:
Another day at the work site. Load the bus at 7:30 for breakfast – “same, same” meaning same time, same restaurant, same breakfast. That is one of the few disadvantages of traveling with a large group instead of on my own as there are not that many restaurants that can fit 80 people and get everyone served in 30 mins. Therefore, there is not much variety.
Our job for the day was similar to the first day but more cement pouring then shoveling and grading. The team got 3 squares of cement poured the first day, but it was slow as we were mixing the cement by hand. The Vietnamese would mix the cement on the ground and then we would shovel it in to the wheelbarrows and pour it. We were able to get a cement mixer from somewhere but the town had a power outage for most of the afternoon so we could not get any electricity. We started the day off by laying out the shade sails again to figure out where to put the poles. Before we could pour more cement we needed to know where the poles needed to be placed. The poles are 5 meters high and will be used to tie off the sun shades. Hard to describe, but if all goes well there will be photos to explain in a few days. Funny thing was that they didn’t seem to fit the same way that they had the day before. Odd. So, we moved them around until we found a configuration that we thought would provide shade for the yard and leave an opening for the towers of the playground. Once we had the pole locations identified several team members dug 4-5 foot deep and 2 feet wide holes. That was tough work.
I got put to work building the forms for the cement sections. This involved a lot of measuring, plumb lines and hammers and my tendency to want perfection and precision was appreciated by Dave S who is one of our team leaders. He also strives for the best we can do. We got 2 and a half rows completed. With the cement mixer working today, it was a challenge to keep up the forms with the cement making team. We had a limited amount of material for forms so we would have to wait for a section of concrete to form enough to be able to pull out the used form and put the form in the next section. Besides building forms there was still a lot of digging, weeding and grading the rest of the yard to prepare for cement. Our team put in three of the four poles and angled them so that we would have the proper angle for tension of the shade sails.
Sometime during the day someone was instructed to go buy rope to attach the shade sails. They came back with rope that was about 2 inches in diameter. Humph….something did not translate well on that request. I think asking for strong rope without also clarifying that it needed to be thin rope to fit through the eye holes, was the mistake. So, we knew there would be a few more hardware store runs tomorrow. Of course there is nothing like a Home Depot or Lowe’s here. We have found some small shops that have supplies with the help of the Vietnamese local students.
We finished pouring concrete for two and a half rows of the yard, which is about 1/3 of the yard. We quit at about 4:30 so we would have time to go back to the hotel and shower before dinner. This time I was smarter and took my shoes off before I went in to the hotel so I did not dump sand and dirt all over the hotel room.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Medical Team - Tuesday
From the Peterson Family's blog:
Tuesday started and ended similarly as Monday. We ate at a local Vietnamese restaurant which was very good. It is all very exhausting. We have to meet at 6:30 am and go eat. Then we take a bus to the restaurant and eat and then go to the medical center. We set up all of the stations (everything and I mean everything must be removed and taken away in the evening so it will not be removed during the night) and then the people are allowed to come through. They go through various stations with nurses (after registration) and then doctors if necessary and flouride treatments for the kids and hearing and vision test and then blood draws and vaccinations (if they have been tested).
The police came today and took some medicine but left it when they realized there was no profit. One of the translators I was with was so mad but there is nothing you can do. As it was when I was here the last time, the people seem to work around the system and seem to have a lot of spirit. They are very nice overall and love the children.
Anyway it was a very long day and now we start again on Wednesday. Hopefully it will go well and it will definitely be hot.
*Caroline's notes:
The volunteer Vietnamese doctors from the hospital are no longer with us so our numbers have drastically decreased. But now we have an actual "line" of patients instead of a mob of them waiting for us. Now at each table there's a care provider, a translator, and a patient - and most importantly breathing space. We would LOVE to have a dentist or a whole bunch of them for the next expedition. I think most of the children's ailments could be solved if we extracted their abscessed, infected teeth! On Tuesday we saw 229 patients!
Tuesday started and ended similarly as Monday. We ate at a local Vietnamese restaurant which was very good. It is all very exhausting. We have to meet at 6:30 am and go eat. Then we take a bus to the restaurant and eat and then go to the medical center. We set up all of the stations (everything and I mean everything must be removed and taken away in the evening so it will not be removed during the night) and then the people are allowed to come through. They go through various stations with nurses (after registration) and then doctors if necessary and flouride treatments for the kids and hearing and vision test and then blood draws and vaccinations (if they have been tested).
The police came today and took some medicine but left it when they realized there was no profit. One of the translators I was with was so mad but there is nothing you can do. As it was when I was here the last time, the people seem to work around the system and seem to have a lot of spirit. They are very nice overall and love the children.
Anyway it was a very long day and now we start again on Wednesday. Hopefully it will go well and it will definitely be hot.
*Caroline's notes:
The volunteer Vietnamese doctors from the hospital are no longer with us so our numbers have drastically decreased. But now we have an actual "line" of patients instead of a mob of them waiting for us. Now at each table there's a care provider, a translator, and a patient - and most importantly breathing space. We would LOVE to have a dentist or a whole bunch of them for the next expedition. I think most of the children's ailments could be solved if we extracted their abscessed, infected teeth! On Tuesday we saw 229 patients!
School Team - Tuesday
From the Nelson Family Blog:
Today was a very busy day for Grace’s team. The kids started their day with a tour of the garbage dump where many of the Catalyst kids live, and work sorting through the trash for pennies a day. Caroline, Catalyst’s amazing leader, felt it important that our kids understand why they are working so hard on the Expedition, and what they did all that fundraising for. The kids had the choice of staying on the bus or walking through the outskirts of the dump (don’t worry – they wore proper footwear and were fully supervised). Grace opted for the tour and took all the photos above. I asked Grace if she would like to write something for this post, and she declined – it was just too sad for her to talk about much less write about it quite yet. I think the photos will speak for themselves. The teddy bear on the woven mats under nothing more than a tarp is what I thought about tucking Grace into bed tonight. It should be noted that this is the “new dump” – when the old dump closed many of the families who lived there moved to the new dump, and apparently the conditions at the old dump were even worse, which is hard to fathom.
After their visit to the dump, the kids returned to the school for arts and crafts with the Catalyst kids. There were stations for tie-dye, friendship bracelets, beads, sidewalk chalk and drawing, as well as a game of soccer. All the kids had a great time. After the fun and games, the team set up for a market in the school’s courtyard. All the donations the volunteers brought – clothes, toys, personal hygiene items – were available “for sale” to the school kids and their families. The kids earned “Catalyst Dollars” (although I guess it would be Catalyst Dong) by doing their school work and getting good grades, and their families earned additional coupons for participating in Catalyst activities. The items were priced and the kids had to pay 20% of the price marked – making both the school kids and the volunteers do some math to figure out pricing and make change. They were also able to use real money they had saved, which was given twice its face value. The toys were the most popular item, although some kids were apparently required by their parents to spend some money on personal hygiene kits (shampoo, toothbrush, soap, washcloth, etc.). There was also a housewares section and the ladies crowded around made it look like Black Friday shopping for the limited supply bargain. FCVN kids, your fun packs were sold at the market and I saw kids with your letters. It looked like the community had a wonderful time, and being able to shop for their items must have been empowering. Between the incentive it provided the Catalyst kids, and their families, the opportunity for our kids to organize the items and be the salespeople and the math lessons, it had to be the most rewarding shopping experience in history.
Today was a very busy day for Grace’s team. The kids started their day with a tour of the garbage dump where many of the Catalyst kids live, and work sorting through the trash for pennies a day. Caroline, Catalyst’s amazing leader, felt it important that our kids understand why they are working so hard on the Expedition, and what they did all that fundraising for. The kids had the choice of staying on the bus or walking through the outskirts of the dump (don’t worry – they wore proper footwear and were fully supervised). Grace opted for the tour and took all the photos above. I asked Grace if she would like to write something for this post, and she declined – it was just too sad for her to talk about much less write about it quite yet. I think the photos will speak for themselves. The teddy bear on the woven mats under nothing more than a tarp is what I thought about tucking Grace into bed tonight. It should be noted that this is the “new dump” – when the old dump closed many of the families who lived there moved to the new dump, and apparently the conditions at the old dump were even worse, which is hard to fathom.
After their visit to the dump, the kids returned to the school for arts and crafts with the Catalyst kids. There were stations for tie-dye, friendship bracelets, beads, sidewalk chalk and drawing, as well as a game of soccer. All the kids had a great time. After the fun and games, the team set up for a market in the school’s courtyard. All the donations the volunteers brought – clothes, toys, personal hygiene items – were available “for sale” to the school kids and their families. The kids earned “Catalyst Dollars” (although I guess it would be Catalyst Dong) by doing their school work and getting good grades, and their families earned additional coupons for participating in Catalyst activities. The items were priced and the kids had to pay 20% of the price marked – making both the school kids and the volunteers do some math to figure out pricing and make change. They were also able to use real money they had saved, which was given twice its face value. The toys were the most popular item, although some kids were apparently required by their parents to spend some money on personal hygiene kits (shampoo, toothbrush, soap, washcloth, etc.). There was also a housewares section and the ladies crowded around made it look like Black Friday shopping for the limited supply bargain. FCVN kids, your fun packs were sold at the market and I saw kids with your letters. It looked like the community had a wonderful time, and being able to shop for their items must have been empowering. Between the incentive it provided the Catalyst kids, and their families, the opportunity for our kids to organize the items and be the salespeople and the math lessons, it had to be the most rewarding shopping experience in history.
Building Team - Tuesday
From the Cohen-Conelly blog:
Work has been progressing along but with very little tools and no machines, everything is done by hand. I am on the house team. Yesterday we laid bricks in out 18'x6'' two room "house". Today we began the floor. We first stuffed rice bags with clay that was dug out of the ground from area that will be the latreen and carried it to the floors. The clay was then pressed down with a weighted hand press. Next step was to carry sand from about 500 yards up a narrow path in pails and rice bags to cover the clay and press that down. Next was to carry rocks in same manor....we finished the back room and were told to wait for the "inspector" before we continued further. Of course in the process, the front wall accidentally got knocked over. It was a labor intensive day to say the least. The heat is unbearable, I have never sweat and been so dirty at the end of a day as I have been the past two.
The other half of the building tram has 1/2 of the concrete poured for the playground, as well as two of the four pole cemented in for the shade covers. The means of measurements over here are quite something, we are told...about like this for everything, leveling is measure with string. Somehow it all gets pulled together.
School Team - Monday
From the Wylie family blog:
The hotel we are in is fine. In the states it would rank maybe 1 star, here it's probably 3. After taking a shower we have a river running through the bathroom. If everyone statrts flushing our bathroom seems to collect all of the sewage oder, pretty I know, but I had to share! The gekos have managed to find other rooms to hang out in, thank heavens! We do have a flat screen tv, a fridge, wifi, a/c,hot water, and a lock on the door, so no complaints really!
Today our team, the school team, made our way to the school to begin the monsterous duty of seperating art supplies, clothing ,shoes and a multitude of other items. We are a team of 29 children between the ages of 8 and 14, a group of teenagers and 4 adults. We then have our teams split into 3 groups. One group is painting the building. They consist mostly of the older boys. Then the other teams are sorting items for our market we will be holding for the people of a specific area. These folks will be given vouchures to purchase clothing, shoes and toys. The kids will be organizing and running the market. We are also preparing for a camp in the morning and another camp in a day or 2.
The kids will be running stations; tye-dye, beads, friendship bracelets and arts and crafts. All of the village children will come to enjoy, 300 kids to be exact! Should be fun, I think!!! Oh and did I mention how hot it is??? No, not in tis post you say? Well, it's HOT!!!!! 15 bottles of water per day per person. Even with that you don't find the need to use the rest room very often! It's also really humid. The sweat never actually dries to col you as it is meant to be! You just spend your day soaking wet! Always happy to see the shower at the end of the day!
The hotel we are in is fine. In the states it would rank maybe 1 star, here it's probably 3. After taking a shower we have a river running through the bathroom. If everyone statrts flushing our bathroom seems to collect all of the sewage oder, pretty I know, but I had to share! The gekos have managed to find other rooms to hang out in, thank heavens! We do have a flat screen tv, a fridge, wifi, a/c,hot water, and a lock on the door, so no complaints really!
Building Team - Monday
I've decided that instead of restating what some awesome ae volunteers have already wrote I would just quote them...much more entertaining then reading my random thoughts. So this is from Susan's blog - she's on the Building Team.
Today was our first full day at the work site. Our primary task for the day was to shovel out 3-4 inches of dirt from a 30’ x 50’ area which was the old playground. When we arrived, there were no shovels so we sent most of the people to the home to start laying brick for the house and a few of us stayed at the playground and strategized about how to put up the sun shades after the playground is assembled. It felt like a game of Tangoes.
But I get ahead of myself, we loaded the buses at 7:30am and drove to breakfast. There was a small menu we could order from and I ordered Café Sua (black coffee with condensed milk) and rice noodles with fish and shrimp. I think my body may go in to shock as I don’t usually drink caffeine or milk, and definitely not condensed milk. Oh well, I am doing ok so far. It is nearly impossible with our menus to not each breads either as every meal has noodles, bread and/or rice. I am trying to limit the breads intake but not completely as I would starve if I did that.
We arrived at the school at about 8:30am. The “shovels” arrived an hour more later and they had to be assembled. Hum….The shovel, hoe, pick parts were made of metal but they needed to be attached to the wood handles with screws or nails. I was desperately wishing for a Home Depot or Lowe’s at this point. Mental note – great idea for opening a new business in Vietnam. The tools lasted most of the day, but as they broke (handles snapped in half or shovels fell off of handles) we sent them over to the pile and the Vietnamese just put them back together again. Not a very efficient tool. After lunch, someone showed up with better tools (large Hoes). Yes, the quote of the day was “the large Ho’s saved the day”. Funny, but so true. Those hoes made the job so much faster!
As we dug out the grass and dirt we hauled it away in wheelbarrows and dumped it in a ravine near the school. As we got areas cleared and graded, then the frames for the cement areas were built by Dave S. We were able to get 90% of the yard cleared and two sections of cement poured by 4:30, quitting time.
Today was our first full day at the work site. Our primary task for the day was to shovel out 3-4 inches of dirt from a 30’ x 50’ area which was the old playground. When we arrived, there were no shovels so we sent most of the people to the home to start laying brick for the house and a few of us stayed at the playground and strategized about how to put up the sun shades after the playground is assembled. It felt like a game of Tangoes.
But I get ahead of myself, we loaded the buses at 7:30am and drove to breakfast. There was a small menu we could order from and I ordered Café Sua (black coffee with condensed milk) and rice noodles with fish and shrimp. I think my body may go in to shock as I don’t usually drink caffeine or milk, and definitely not condensed milk. Oh well, I am doing ok so far. It is nearly impossible with our menus to not each breads either as every meal has noodles, bread and/or rice. I am trying to limit the breads intake but not completely as I would starve if I did that.
We arrived at the school at about 8:30am. The “shovels” arrived an hour more later and they had to be assembled. Hum….The shovel, hoe, pick parts were made of metal but they needed to be attached to the wood handles with screws or nails. I was desperately wishing for a Home Depot or Lowe’s at this point. Mental note – great idea for opening a new business in Vietnam. The tools lasted most of the day, but as they broke (handles snapped in half or shovels fell off of handles) we sent them over to the pile and the Vietnamese just put them back together again. Not a very efficient tool. After lunch, someone showed up with better tools (large Hoes). Yes, the quote of the day was “the large Ho’s saved the day”. Funny, but so true. Those hoes made the job so much faster!
As we dug out the grass and dirt we hauled it away in wheelbarrows and dumped it in a ravine near the school. As we got areas cleared and graded, then the frames for the cement areas were built by Dave S. We were able to get 90% of the yard cleared and two sections of cement poured by 4:30, quitting time.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Medical Team - Monday
So here's a look at each of our wonderful teams.
Our Medical team consists of 3 doctors, 1 student doctor, 1 pharmacist, 7 nurses, 13 "assistants".. and 6 "crowd control". The entire team had collected about 3 storage bins full of medicine, suture kits and fluoride treatments. But we were still quite low in a lot of medicines we really needed due to the natural disasters in Haiti and Chile. And going into it we knew we would really need a dentist for extractions.
On Monday we would be working side by side with 26 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists from Trieu An hospital in Saigon. And we would need everyone as we approached the "clinic" we had set up and there was already well over 400 waiting for us. Unfortunately the patients were there way before we had any time to really set things up and then...chaos! It was a somewhat organized chaos but craaaazzzyyy most of the time!
Each table had a doctor or nurse and translator completing the medical history forms. Ideally it would have bee nice to have some breathing space but instead our patients who lived in the community were definitely anxious to be seen by someone, anyone who could help them; so each table had 10-15 people around it. Our doctors worked hard to diagnose the ailments and prescribe medicine and most important to see as many of the children as possible. Our non-nurse volunteers worked the hearing, vision, height, weight stations. And then some of them worked along side the dentists and hygienists to apply fluoride varnish on hundreds of little mouths. Our goal also was to get approximately 100 of "our community" (those that are living and working in the garbage dump and are active participants in Catalyst Foundation's community development projects) hep B tests and vaccinated.
After all was said and done, we saw 755 patients on the first day!
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