Week 6 - Marble Mountains & the sad reality of life here.

Hello everybody!
Well as i'm sure you are all aware, the Euro 2008 Football Championships started yesterday, and the games are on here in Vietnam. Unfortunately the matches start at 2300 or 0145, so people do watch the 2300 game in cafes, in the evening, but then watch the replays of the second game the next morning before work, (at 0600).... it's going to be a tiring month for me i think! Life here this week, has definately had it's ups and down's. Many plus points form this week have included a team building exercise, organised by yours truely! (which i have to say went well, considering the language barrier), and today's tourist trip to the 'Marble Mountains' with Nicole (Australian Occupational Therapist). After hiring a motorcycle for the second time, in two weeks, and after a bacon sandwich breakfast, we headed off 30 minutes down the road (at 0800) to the marble mountians... as is common here many people will drive up alongside you on route to anywhere, ask you 'where are you from' and then tell you, that by complete coincidence they are heading that way too, and "oh yes you must come see my friends shop, very very close and you can leave your motorbike there for free, you just buy one samll thing" (which is priced at some astronomical figure)... so we did! (oh dear!) To Call the place a mountain would be a lie, but it was a large rock formation, with caves, pagoda's and had clearly been some kind of monk-like sanctuary. It had fantastic views and some amazing dark caves, requiring access for only those people who are double jointed, or who can fit into a small box! Still, after surviving through the unofficial pot-holing course, we enjoyed the larger based caves which were lit with that special 'indiana jones' lighting, where one beam of light focuses on the cave floor, leading to a spotlight effect!! Not being someone to ignore the spotlight, I did a quick rendition of West Side Story, before leaving the cave to rapturous applause, from the other tourists.... (ok well the bit about raptuous applause isn't quite true!) A quick trip to 'China beach' (very famous in the war, as this area was used by the USA to land their planes and take off for bombing missions in the south). During a very relaxing swim in the ocean Nicole managed to burn herself to the point where you can now see exactly what shaped outfit she was wearing, including sunglasses! The team building exercise at work on Friday went well, and the staff appeared to enjoy the concepts of team work, and ways of communication in the workplace, but i must share one particular interesting exercise... each person was given the chance to take as many sweets out of a bowl as they would like, what they were then told was that for each sweet they had, they must tell the group one factt abou tthemselves that nobody else knew. Normally people give such information as 'my favourite colour is'.... or 'when i was younger i wanted to be a ...' but oh no, some of our staff clearly felt more able to share more personal aspects of their life including... how old they were whilst still sleeping in bed with parents, the age at which they stopped wetting themsleves, or my personnal favourite the age at which they first were intorduced to the concept of love... (read into that last one what you will). It is just an interesting take on what any one individual wouuld consider to be personal or not so personal information.... On a far more serius note I feel it necessary to share my experience of a home visit I did this week, to a 15yr old boy with Scoliosis (when the spine curves). This boy lived with his family, including granparents who looked after him during the day as the parents had to work to afford to live. He could only lie on the floor and not sit up at all, without causing discomfort and some breathing difficulties. His spine was so severely curved to the left, his right ribcage was pushing out of its normal position and was beginning to press down on his right hip, causing the start of a pressure sore. The family don't have the money to pay for any surgery and i would suspect it is far too late for any kind of treatment now. If this had been caught earlier, and if treatment was available to all, then these situation would not occur here,but that is a reality of life.... no money, no help, no one checking the growth of children with health conditions. All children under 6 are supposedly entitlted to free health care.... but that government directive is not fully followed through. seeing this poor boy really gave me a reality check, and helped to reinforce the size of the task here, for all health organisations! Sorry to end on that note....
Regards from Vietnam
Dan