The more the astute of you who realise week 26 is the 6 month mark, I guess this is my 6 month anniversary of being here in Vietnam, and it's been every bit the experience I expected, and so much more!!!
I can't really avoid talking about the rain again, even though last week's post was all about the rain and floods. Even as I type this the rain storms continue, knocking out my three favourite TV stations - HBO, Star Movies, and True Sports!!! Luckily no such disaster occurred last night as I watched the Chelsea vs Liverpool game (0-1 to Liverpool, but you all knew that right?). John my colleague (and Chelsea fan), and his girlfriend Michelle had cooked a meal, and I must say it was pretty tasty, a great warm up to the main event, as Liverpool broke Chelsea's 86 unbeaten games at 'Home' record. It had rained last night and was heavy enough to have me wear my rather large raincoat, which meant I drove all the way to John's house on a motorbike without realising I didn't have my helmet on!
The rain has got to my brain I think! It certainly has got to my wardrobe in more ways than one, as just today as I pulled out a pair of pants (trousers) which I haven't needed to wear for weeks, and they had mould on them!!! In the wardrobe!! And I really don't have that many clothes to be throwing away! In fact, recently I notice that some of my clothes seem to be dirtier after being washed than before the wash! And don't get me started on how difficult it is to try and get clothes dry after washing! Thank god for some room to dry clothes in the house, because there isn't a radiator in sight! Today was a great example of how the weather affects my routine.... because the morning was reasonably dry, I decided to rush home at lunch to get some washing out, this meant having to settle for some bread (2000 dong - 8 pence) and some instant noodles for lunch at home... getting the washing out was one thing, but I then spent the entire afternoon watching the clouds swarm overhead, and I got so paranoid that the rain would come, I left work early to get my washing inside! You'll be happy to know I managed it... and now I won't have to wait a week to have dry clean clothes! The picture below shows you just what kind of fashion I have had to resort too in these desperate times! (see below)
Tuesday night this week was yet another night filled with wet weather incidents, as literally seconds after I had arrived home and sat down for a beer with my neighbour, a rain storm began, and soon had the next door cafe flooded within minutes.... see below....
The interesting part of this picture, is that inside the cafe, two girls had just finished their cooking class, and were just tucking into their food, as the water began to run into the cafe, within ten minutes the girls were eating their food in 3 inches of water around them! It was quite the amusing sight!
Leaving the rain behind us for now, I'll just mention a few things that have been happening at work recently. As I mentioned last week, we now have two German volunteers who bring another cultural element to the mix, and add a fourth nation, to the now multicultural mix of Vietnamese, Australian, English and German. I must also say I admire their desire to try and offer their expertise through the use of a second language (English with Vietnamese staff), I have to admit I still struggle to understand the Australians as much as anyone! I think it's all the sun that goes to their head! Just kidding - but I have learnt a fair bit about the Australian mentality that is very different from my own!
So, not that I like to use these blogs to publicise myself as an OT, but i do want to talk a little about my work, and my best achievement of the past couple of weeks has definitely been with a boy called Sy, who is a real trooper (works really hard) in physio. He has Cerebral Palsy and finds it difficult to walk normally and has to use a frame to walk by himself. I was told he walks a few hundred yards to see his grandmother, and having seen the state of some roads in the countryside here, that's a real achievement. few weeks ago I managed, quite randomly, to find a tricycle, which had some straps on it, and wondered if Sy would have the strength in his legs to use it. When Sy first tried to ride the tricycle, he just couldn't push the pedals hard enough to make the wheels turn, as his feet and legs are badly affected by his condition.... this was going to be a problem! This is a problem we have, when we put him on a stationery bike seat in the clinic. But in the clinic, we bandage his feet to the pedals... so, using this idea, we tried the same technique on the tricycle, and it worked! Now I know what you are thinking.... you can't bandage the kids feet to the tricycle every time he wants to use it! - and you'd be right, we couldn't do that so another solution was required!
The solution had to be something a little more inventive. So realising we needed to simulate the added support given by the bandages, I figured we could simply strap his shoes to the pedals, this would act in the same way as the bandage, but still would leave the problems of a shoe being strapped to the pedals. In the end, we bought some new sports sandals, (with the normal Velcro straps), and made some additional straps, out of additional Velcro, which we used to strap the sandals to the pedals... this would allow for the shoes to be taken off the pedals easily, in case of heavy rain! (see picture of finished tricycle below)
Sy's father took the tricycle home today after we completed the final trials, and I hope Sy will soon by a little more mobile around his neighbourhood. We will go and visit him this week to see how he's going! I think the state of the roads where Sy lives may be the deciding factor in how mush he can use the tricycle to get around.
Other work stuff, has included more visits to An, a boy with Muscular Dystrophy, who was hit, in whilst his wheelchair, by a drunken motorcyclist, breaking his femur bone. This has left An with a plaster leg cast for almost 6 months, as surgery is not an option. This leaves him unable to sit up, which contributes to the already existing weakening of his arms and chest muscles. Our major contribution to An's situation has been to design a specially shaped (triangular) wedge cushion, which allows him to at least partially sit up, and coming up with fun ways for him to strengthen his chest and breathing muscles - by blowing up balloons, and my personal favourite, playing the harmonica, (which he told me he had done previously) - though i don't think his neighbours are so happy with the introduction of the harmonica. Signing a person's plaster is a very common thing in the UK, but not here. However, An allowed me to start this trend, and write on his plaster cast as you can see from the picture below!
So I promise I'll try and leave the rain out of the next weekly update. Here's to a dry week! Hmmm...Regards from Vietnam
Dan
...and locals had already begun to use boats just to get out of their homes, and travel around the affected streets. People were telling stories about how they had been forced to rush to move everything they had up stairs (if the had an upstairs), and my colleagues were telling me how they would be unable to go home, as the boats that carry them and their motorbikes across the river were not able to load up anymore... It took me a little while to actually make it to the river in daylight to see the extent of the problem, but the speed of the flood was what was so surprising. I had been at the river side Thursday morning, but by Thursday evening the markets were completely flooded and the river had risen to well above the 1 metre and covered the ground.. entire streets had begun to disappear.... see below...
So back to this week's main event, (and I don't mean the England football team's 5-1 win yesterday). Whilst collecting the wheelchairs, as previously mentioned, I met a woman, (Linh) who was working for another NGO near Da Nang. By chance she was in Hoi An for the night, so I met with her, and some of her colleagues at a local coffee shop here. I needed to get a young local couple to ride their motorcycle with me, to find the damn place!!! Everybody seemed nice, and so I agreed to meet up with Linh this weekend in Da Nang, during my now weekly trips there each weekend. Given that the weather was pretty severe, riding my motorcycle along the coast road presented a few challenges, including trying not to end up with a mouth full of mosquitoes!
After having some impromptu English classes and watching the rain fall, we finally headed out into town for a bite to eat and what turned out to be 3 hours of karaoke! The food we ate was a new experience to me, not just because I couldn't pronounce the word for what I was eating, but because it seemed very different to anything I have eaten here before... (examples include a prawn in a jelly substance, wrapped in banana leaf). The karaoke session was also a fun time, with hits such as 'Copacabana', 'Don't let the sun go down on me', 'With or without you' and 'mack the knife' being completely ruined in the name of entertainment.... I have to say in my defence that they don't have any modern songs on the karaoke play lists here!!
Ok, time is ticking on, and I need a good nights sleep... 
After a relaxing coffee by the river we called in at my office, to introduce my colleagues to my parents. This was not without incident, as my neighbour, (who had very kindly offered to give my dad a lift on his motorbike) clearly got confused and left my dad standing alone outside the orphanage! Something was definitely 'lost in translation'. After finding my dad, and bringing him to my office for introductions, I dropped the folks off at their rather swanky hotel, with beautiful pool. I was quick to join them in their nice resort for an evening swim, before heading off into the nicely lit old town for a nice meal at the 'Before & Now' restaurant,, where the chef tried to convince us to eat the biggest sized shrimps & prawns I have ever seen... we politely declined and went for the more renowned pasta speciality. A short walk around the town at night was followed by a return to the folk's resort, before I left on my motorbike to come back to my house.
Breakfast was next on the itinerary, as I joined mum and dad at their hotel once more, for a bite to eat, before they were heading off to Nha Trang for 2 nights. It was a short but eventful visit to Hoi An, and my neighbours were telling my folks how lovely I was... no prompting required! Honestly! Though my work colleagues (especially Miss Lai) were far more interested in telling my parents about my social activities, or at least their version of my social movements, which weren't all complimentary! Cheeky buggers!!!
I went on to meet my folks later that day, as they arrived in Saigon, and enjoyed a free complimentary drink at their rather swanky hotel. Later that night I joined Jess & Jason and their cycling group tour, for their farewell meal, and after a great meal, we hit the city nightlife. the bar we went in was not exactly spectacular, and after only 30 minutes of being in the bar, who was to walk in? (yeah you guessed it - my new celebrity stalker) Jeremy Clarkson and the top gear team.... the world is too small.... and just to prove he is stalking me, he and the film crew were here in Hoi An last night too!!! Maybe I need a restraining order? now just a quick mention of 'street life' in Saigon, during a walk down the street to /from the bar, I had one guy step forward from the side of the pavement, put his finger to his nose and sniff... he was trying to offer drugs! On the way back from the bar, near my hotel, a young Vietnamese girl grabbed my arm, and began asking me if I wanted to have "good time for one hour" in a near by hotel room, needless to say she was 'working'! She spent a good five minutes grabbing hold of my hand trying to persuade me to have "good time" with her... but eventually returned to her area of the street!
They remembered me, or so they said, and as one them was finishing up her shift, she came chatting to me. I was desperate to get to a nightclub, after 5 months of a quiet night life, so when Thuy (the bar girl) agreed to take me to a place in town, we soon found ourselves heading back down the road, with her flatmate, and found a fairly obvious tourist style bar! I was pretty surprised to find a 150,000 charge for Vietnamese, (not for westerners) clearly designed to keep local people out... I got suspicious and my suspicions were confirmed as it soon became apparent that there were a number of 'escort/working girls' circling the bar, looking for an interested western customers! The drinks were pretty expensive too, so I was relieved to see both my Vietnamese friends drinking Orangina!!! phew!- As I was paying!
