Ability Beyond the Horizon

So what do you think as a name for our organization?

To understand the depth of the name, it is important to define horizon. A horizon is an edge, an edge that appears very real, but is really just the edge of our perception, knowledge, or awareness. The horizon caused our ancestors to believe the world was flat, that should we sail too far, we'd fall right off the edge of the earth. It took someone like Columbus, and others, to push the envelope and thus determine that the horizon was really only an illusion that concealed much possibility and potential, in his case, North America.

The context in which I'm using "horizon" in this instance, is in viewing a person with a disability. Many people around the world, including right here in the US, see someone with a disability and all they see is the impairment, the limit, the horizon. The reason I wish to name our group "Ability Beyond the Horizon", is to remind us that, should we push further than our immediate perception, should we dare to invest a little more energy, we may find promise, potential, and Ability. History teaches us that looking beyond the horizon is often a worthwhile endeavor. Through our organization, I'd like to draw the awareness of the people of Vietnam, and elsewhere the path might take us, toward a different horizon, but one that still promises possibility. Through early intervention services, and hopefully one day other services as well, I believe that "Ability Beyond the Horizon" can make a cultural shift in the minds of people, so that when they see the person with a disability, they learn to look past the immediate horizon, and see a person, a person that can make a meaningful contribution to the world.

Thanks to everyone that sent in your ideas for a name, there were many great ones, and many that bumped me along to this current name which literally woke me from a dead sleep night before last. I was so energized, I couldn't go back to sleep, and had to get up and write it down. I'm convinced that if it were not for your suggestions I would have taken a lot longer to discover the right name for our group. I think this one really resonates, what do you think, is this a name, an idea, that people can get behind and support?

Thanks for following along on the journey. Exciting things are just around the corner.

~Mickey

What's in a name?? I need your help!

Hey everyone, its been awhile since I left Vietnam. As promised though, I'm trying to put together a non profit for early intervention services. I've not dropped the ball on this, but it takes longer than I anticipated. But, thanks to the help of a couple attorneys, who are incredibly busy right now but still doing their best to help, I'm now at the leg of the journey where I have to figure out the governing laws of the corporation. One of the very first things to answer is the name! That's where I'm lost, so I'd like to enlist your help.

The name is so IMPORTANT, this is going to be how people first taste the idea behind the organization. It needs to be something that really tells the listener the flavor of what we're about, so that they are interested in hearing the details. It needs to be something that will inspire them to want to give support to, something they can be proud of, and sounds good when they tell their friends, so those friends will also want to be a part of it. The name is a very weighty thing, and its making me nervous, so I thought I'd ask for your help :-)

Here's what I don't want, I don't want Vietnam in the name, or vision, visual impairment, blindness, etc. The reason is, I don't want to limit the potential of the group. I don't plan to stay only in Vietnam if this is successful, I'd like to roll it out to other countries that need the help also. I also don't plan to stick with just visual impairments because there are many others with disabilities that also need services. We can use the word Foundation, but not corporation, corporation sounds too much like money hungry oil mongers. The main thread I've got running in my mind revolves around potential and possibility. Everything I imagine doing with the group in some way opens up the path for a person with a disability to realize their potential. Right now, potential is not fulfilled due to lack of opportunity/education. What I want to do is blaze that trail open for them so they can move as far as they like toward their potential. Sounds idealistic I know, but my thinking is, reach as high as I can, and even if we fall short, we're still much higher than we expected.

So, do you all have any ideas? This is such an exciting time right now, and I'm hoping I can tap into your creative juices a little bit. No idea is a bad idea, please just start pumping them out, leave them in the comments or email them to me at visionteacher @ gmail.com pretty please. Obviously, I'll throw out most of them since I can only use one name, but I'm hoping somewhere in there will be the one that resonates with me, and really encapsulates what we're trying to accomplish. Poor Melissa last night was throwing out names left and right, and I was like, no, no, not that one, nope that's not quite right. So don't get discouraged! I'll keep you posted on the process, and hopefully will have a name for you very soon. I need it to go to the next step!

~Mickey

Wrapping up with final thoughts

Well I'm back home now. The flight was grueling. It turned out to be 48 hours total of traveling across the world. I flew from Hue to Hanoi, then sat there for about 11 hours, then flew from Hanoi to South Korea and sat there for another 8 or so hours. Then across the pacific to San Francisco, on to Houston, and finally touching down in Jacksonville, arriving around midnight. Melissa was there to meet me at the airport, and it was really nice to see her, obviously :-) We stayed in a hotel that night, and came home around 3 on Saturday. It was a long journey home, but pretty uneventful, which isn't a bad thing.

Being home has been strange, its largely like I never left. Life kind of dropped right back into normal pretty immediately, except that neither of us are working right now, which is making me a little stir crazy. We're both off for school, and start back in middle of August. Long update ahead, but its the last one, so hopefully we can all make it through :-P

So, Vietnam, without the risk of being censored. Most of you may not know, and I couldn't say it while there, but Vietnam has a tendency to be very interested in what people put on the Internet about them. They read emails, and shut down email accounts if they find what you're saying to be disagreeable. They randomly block things, like my phone, for no reason, at least no reason I could discern. Websites that they find objectionable they just filter out, and you get an error as if the site were down. All this is done without any appeals process or number to call. When my phone was killed, they just blocked it, I couldn't call anyone and tell them that I'm not an activist, I'm just trying to call home. They didn't send me a note saying that they've blocked it, I guess they figured I'd figure it out.

So anyway, my blog has always been true, but there have been pieces I didn't mention simply because I didn't want to risk the whole blog being shut down.

Vietnam is a great place, and now, hopefully due to my project, a place I'll return to, because I'll have to. Steve, the Australian I mentioned a few posts back says that Vietnam is a place that just gets in your blood, you can't help it, and some people just get bitten by the bug. I think I was bitten. The people there are incredibly hard working, kind, intelligent, and just great. The food is amazing, the country is beautiful, and the potential for growth is huge. That being said, it has a lot of problems, many of them are cultural in nature. This is one reason why I'm starting this early intervention project, so that hopefully I can do a small part to change the culture of at least a few of the people as it relates to people with disabilities.

The government is technically Communist, but that is in my opinion, communist in name only. Communism as its sold to the people involves everyone working together and as a community rising up, the weakest members being cared for by the strongest so that all prosper. In reality, communism by Vietnam standards is really a government that is riddled with bureaucracy, and corruption. A few benefiting from Communism, while the rest just struggle to get along. This isn't because the people are bad, they're not, its just that the opportunity is there so they take it. When the average household income is something like 25 dollars a month, its too much of a temptation when you can get $100 in a less than honest means. Its no different than the corruption that exists here from time to time, its just here with the dollar being more of a world standard, the bribe or enticement must be quite high to make it worth the risk. There, for someone in government, 100 bucks might be two months wages for a simple turning and looking the other way. Honestly, in your hearts, how many of you can truly say that if someone asked you to just briefly turn a blind eye for 2 months salary, that you would not be tempted. The thing with corruption is that it doesn't appear to hurt anyone at first, its just such a little thing, and its a minor breaking of a rule. But, when everyone is doing it, you get catastrophes, because it all adds up. That's the problem with Vietnam, people will cheat if given enough motivation, and from the outside coming in, when their currency is worth so little compared to world standards like the dollar or Euro, its easy to make enough motivation to entice someone to cheat, just a little... See that's the thing with Vietnam, its not bad, the people are great people, but they're surviving, and they have families to feed. The same could likely be said for any country suffering from government corruption, good people with a lot to gain for their families by doing something just a little unethical. You may notice that most of those countries riddled with these problems exist in places where they are fairly low on the world totem pole, the drive to succeed is very strong, and just like with high stakes testing in the US, when the stakes are high, the consequences great, or terrible, the drive to cheat becomes very tempting. When the stakes are high, humans historically do whatever it takes and think about ethics later. That is humanity as a whole, there are always exceptions, so please I'm not meaning you specifically, but if you doubt my statements about humanity, read a history book, United States History would be a good starting place :-)

Another frustrating aspect of Vietnam is that they eat everything. If it has muscular tissue, its fair game for the dinner table. It does at first seem a more realistic way to look at foods, we tend to split hairs here about eating a cow and eating a horse, when functionally they fill the same niche in an Ecosystem, but for some reason a horse is yucky, a cow is yummy, in Vietnam they both qualify as being steak. This attitude though, has caused their country to be destroyed from an ecosystem stand point. Since virtually nothing moving is off limits, you don't even see squirrels in the trees. They catch song birds and either eat them or sell them. Sadly, the only time I heard a bird singing in Vietnam, it came from a cage. This could be a metaphor for the country, even when presented with such adversity the bird still chooses to sing...

They throw their trash out everywhere, so the rivers are polluted with garbage, the streets are normally clean because they have people that come through every night with a broom and sweep them, but the habit of tossing trash to the ground pervades. So where there aren't sweepers, there's garbage. Vietnam actually has native tigers and monkeys, I never saw them, but they're there somewhere, in very small numbers. If I were to guess I would say that with some cultural shifts, and strong protections placed on their environment, the Vietnamese could have a lush country brimming with ecological diversity much like Costa Rica. At this point it would take a long time to get there, but its worth the effort I believe. One of Costa Rica's largest industries is tourism, the reason for it is that you are in an Eden when you go to the country, but the people believe in it, and so it happens. You have to start with the individual, their belief is what changes the reality, it must be a bottom up approach. If you can't convince the farmer not to eat the monkey, government intervention will not be very effective.

So there are a few issues with Vietnam, but in all, the country has many redeeming qualities which I've highlighted throughout this blog. More importantly it has great potential to continue its upward movement. Apparently it was far worse off in the 60's than it is now, so in 40 years they've come a long way. Hopefully in 40 more they'll surprise us all.

In terms of my project, all is set in Vietnam for it, now I need to get it working here in the US. So my first step is organizing a non-profit, and then getting set up to take tax deductible donations. At that point, I need to start generating money. I'll let you know when that's all set up, so those of you who have already offered money can do so with a tax deduction. Thank you in advance, truly, I never really expected money for the project to come from the blog, but I'm very glad for it anyway. It tells me that my idea may actually be viable. While in Vietnam before I left, I actually met with the ex mayor of Hue, who is an incredibly kind person, and is very interested in my project. So much so, that he's putting some of his weight behind it in dealing with other pieces of the pie over there, helping to grease the wheels so to speak. That's exactly what I needed. With his help, and Nhi, who I couldn't have made any of this possible without, I've got the project set up in a week. That's INCREDIBLE in a country where government is known for being slow to move, its nearly a slogan.

So being a teacher, I often ask myself, what did I learn?

Vietnam taught me that being cranky about things that are out of my control does not do anything except make me cranky. When the electricity was out for 6 hours of the day I could make a choice. I couldn't do anything about the electricity, but I could choose how I dealt with it, either by being mad and whining about it for the 6 hours, or moving forward and doing something else. A shoulder shrug and moving on did amazing things for my personal stress level. I'm a pretty easy going guy, but this helped me to be even more healthy with this aspect of life. So much we encounter is absolutely not in our control, yet its what brings us the most stress in our lives, and for what? My being ticked off never brought the electricity back faster, and once I realized that, and made the decision to just not get mad about it, life got so much more pleasant.

Vietnam taught me that antibacterial soap is not necessary for survival, I never saw any, and I didn't see the black plague taking out the populace. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to wash my hands after going to the restroom, but is it truly necessary to use industrial strength space age super cleanser on the floor when Vinegar does just as well? Vietnam taught me to save my money and use the vinegar.

Vietnam taught me that possessions do not bring happiness. I've seen people in Vietnam that have less than the poorest people in the US, and they were happier than some of our most wealthy. One of the happiest people I met slept on 8 chairs pushed together in a 95 degree heat with near 100% humidity with just a fan every night, and never complained about it. Not only did he not complain, but when I offered to get him a bed, he didn't want it, he liked sleeping where he was. This wasn't modesty either, Nhi discreetly inquired, and he truly didn't want the bed. Weird...to me. I never saw anyone taking anti depressants, or ADD medication, I don't entirely know why, except that they just seemed like a happier lot of people. I have my opinions, but without having depression I can't really understand what the friends I know with depression are going through, so my credibility in commenting is not very high, all I can say is that in Vietnam, I didn't see it, I'll leave you to individually draw your own conclusions.

Vietnam for me held a mirror against the US, its not just a political difference, but almost in every way their culture is opposite ours. Even their language being based on tones and not phonetic, at the very root, Vietnam is different from the United States. In seeing those differences I feel like it has made me a better person. I think both of our cultures could take much from each other, not destroying our own culture in the process, but improving it. From the Vietnamese, we could borrow individual happiness and satisfaction as well as a work ethic that is unbelievable. From us, they could borrow environmental awareness, and personal freedom, and a little bit of time for their selves, hobbies are a luxury there. Vietnam shifted my outlook, and I think for the better, and I hope permanently. I truly wish that the next time something happens that is out of my control, I will choose to shrug my shoulders and move onto a choice that is in my control rather than ruining my day over something that is out of my hands.

Thank you for going through this process with me. Writing a blog has been something that has been incredibly helpful for me to organize my thoughts. I've gained more insights and delved deeper into my feelings by taking the time write them down than I would have just visiting the country. I would never have done that without having readers to read them. So thanks for sticking with me. I know I get long winded sometimes, I've gotten the complaints from some of you, but its been incredibly helpful for me, and so thank you for suffering through on my behalf :-) I intend to keep the blog up, and I'll probably shift its focus to updates on my project. Updates will be few I'm sure, definitely less than weekly. I hope you'll continue to read, and I hope my insights through this experience brought at least one insight to you. I'd love it, in fact, if you had any particular insights or creative musings to have them emailed to me, or left in the comments. What were your thoughts on this whole experience? Please take the time to "blog" about it to me if you like, I'd love to read it. Its the least I can do after putting you through all this over a month or more, and maybe you'll gain insight that I had not considered yet. I love you all, and thanks to everyone for reading, and I hope to bring more interesting information your way as time moves forward.

~Mickey

Wow! major change in plans...

Ok, so life has significantly altered course. So much so that the last post ended with me saying, "nearly half way there" or something like that. Well guess what, I'm actually going to be home Friday night at 10:50 or something. Its crazy and I'm still reeling. I'll explain all that in a bit, first, as promised, I'll update you on all the happenings with the project I alluded to in the last post.

I've mentioned before about an Early Intervention program for the country and how they really need one. Early intervention is when a specialist gets involved in a family of a child with a disability at a very early age, the earlier the better; in order to support the child, and family, and facilitate the typical development of the child as best as possible. Children with disabilities, without early intervention, often enter school significantly behind their typical peers. Those with early intervention, are often much closer to being on track, if not completely at grade level. Vietnam, much like our own country 50 years ago, and often less than that depending on where you look, view people with disabilities as essentially useless and incapable. This, we know is not true. Those in the "know", know that people with disabilities can often perform the same tasks that those without can, and often times with the same efficiency, but they often need accommodations.

In any case, Vietnam has a pretty dim view of those with disabilities, including those, and sometiems especially those, with visual impairments. The rub of it all, is that its kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. Because they do not expect the people with disabilities to succeed, the "village" does not invest in that person, just like with any person, an investment by those around them is necessary in order to reach their true potential. An investment of education, support, and love, are all critical to the full development of any individual. Because the society does not believe they can do anything, they don't educate the people with disabilities, and thus do not provide opportunities for success. So, guess what? The people with disabilities in Vietnam are often useless to society. No surprise when you look at it in that light. This isn't because they have to be, but because of insurmountable barriers erected by their cultural belief system. This is where my project comes into play.

I'm going to start a program for early intervention for children with visual impairments. What this will do, is facilitate a specialist getting into the home at an early age and hopefully educate the family about their child. With the family being one of the basic building blocks of a society, the hope is that by educating them we can slowly work to change the attitudes of the culture bit by bit. My hope is that we can start with blindness, but develop a model that works for Vietnam that can be expanded out to all children with disabilities. With the specialists entering in the home early, we can perhaps keep the child with the family even through school, getting away from the current institution model that's the norm. The child can be supported while growing up, keeping up with his/her sighted peers, and ultimately fulfilling a successful role as a contributing member of society, helping to alter the opinions of those around him or her regarding disability.

So the logistics of the plan now need to be ironed out. Usually, for a project like I'm thinking about starting, I'd need to move to Vietnam. I really don't want to do that. I like Vietnam, but we have quite the life established in Tallahassee, and I don't want to leave that behind. Luckily, I've got Nhi, my interpreter. It turns out that the students in the class aren't the only ones that I've swayed to "the way of the force" during my time here. She's interested in being the feet on the ground for me in Vietnam and to keep in contact with me in the states. This is a very fortunate happening, and the only way really that this would be possible. She's perfect for the position. She's very plugged into the community here, she speaks both languages, she already has connections with the school after this summer working with them, and she's been educated by me for the last 4 weeks or whatever it is. We already work well together, and she's a very assertive individual, read, she gets what she wants without ticking people off. I couldn't sculpt a better fit for the job. Next, I've picked two of my students to be the first "early interventionists" in Vietnam. They've got a good bit less education than we need to have in the states, but they have a will to learn, and a desire to make a difference. I think we can work with that, and fill in the gaps in knowledge as we go along. At this point, I'm working from the idea that any family education is better than no education. No education, literally in some cases, causes the child to never be taken out of the house, or given any opportunities. Sometimes friends of the family don't even know the child is alive. Some of them come to the school at 12 and can't even speak! So getting to the families, I think, is a priority for effecting real change for the people with visual impairments in Vietnam, and hopefully disabilities as a hole ultimately.

Nhi and I have worked out a rough budget for a 6 month pilot project. I will provide the direction for the project, the over seeing of the reports and education of the staff, as well as fundraising. Nhi will be the supervisor, and the liaison to the community, and says she might be able to drum up some local money as well. All in all a rough budget for 6 months for the project looks like about $1000. Is that crazy or what? I'd like to raise some additional funds so that I can make a trip back out here about once a year, to deliver more education, but that will be next spring at the earliest, so I don't really factor that into the budget yet. Nhi doesn't want any money for her work, yet. She wants to see how the funds go first and if there's money left over she may accept a stipend, but she won't promise. I think she's crazy, I didn't realize I was the only one willing to work for free around here, her job will be much harder than mine. I've told her this, but she really wants to do it. So I'll let her :-)

I'm very excited about this opportunity and hope that I can get it off the ground and cruising. Nhi thinks it has a good chance at success, and she's familiar with these kinds of things, she already works with two other projects dealing with much bigger budgets than we'll start with. Though, who knows where it'll end up if we roll it out for all disabilities, and then nation wide... But we have to start small and manageable. So for now, and the next couple years it'll be pretty small, maybe...

Moving along, I went to Hoi An this weekend, it was ok... I really didn't care for it too much, it was extremely hot, and the people were desperate for money and would come out to the street to pull you into their shops. It was very hassling. I did take a cooking class while there, and I'm excited about that and the opportunity to cook some neat things when I get home. I learned how to cook fish, or any meat really, in a banana leaf, I learned how to cook a meal in this little ceramic pot that I now need to buy before I leave here :-) And I learned how to cook what is pretty much their national meal, pho, which is a soup that's delicious. So dinner parties at my house when I get home! :-) My poor banana plants are going to regret my trip to Vietnam.

So back to my imminent departure. Bob's visa through some mistake in processing runs out this next week. We've really taught a lot in the 15 hours a week we're teaching right now, so Gabby elected to not have Bob change his visa and instead just make this our last week of teaching, and since Bob is leaving, she thinks I may as well go too... Now some side info, is that she's really unhappy with my wanting to start this early intervention program, she doesn't think it'll work and she's kind of mad about it, though wants no part of it, even though I asked her out of courtesy if she wanted to be a part of it. I was very happy when she said no. So I think that's part of her getting me out of here. The thing is, she's planning to leave herself, so I don't really see why she's annoyed by it, but whatever, its not about her. So anyway, she set me up to leave Tuesday morning and spend two days in Hanoi before heading out. I don't like Hanoi much, and there's no extended trips I can really take that would be functional and not hectic in two days. So, I've changed my trip and am flying to Hanoi Thursday morning now. I had to buy my own ticket to Hanoi, which is 50 bucks but its worth it to me. I'll leave Thursday night and get back to Jacksonville Friday night at 11ish. Its pretty amazing. I'm having a party for the people at the hotel on Tuesday that I set up last week, we're bussing them all out to the beach for 3 hours. That's another reason why leaving Tuesday morning was a no go. I'm going to miss something I was very honored to be invited to. Nhi's family is getting together for the "death anniversary" of her father on Friday, and I was invited to attend. I was very honored, and looking forward to going, I guess I won't be now. Gabby is just determined to do whatever she can to screw things up for me it feels like, its been an ongoing theme of this trip. When I get my feet on the ground in Florida I plan to write her an email outlining her lack of professionalism and how I think she could do a better job next time. Communication skills will be top of the list! But, since she's in control now of my stay here and my leaving, I need to play nice for a few more days.

So that's everything so far, I've added a couple pics, haven't gotten them all up yet, but there's nothing too earth shattering.

This guy was sleeping along the edge of the river, he doesn't live there, I guess it was just a mid day nap...









This lady worked in the market, I snapped this when she wasn't looking. Women are I think, the hardest working people in Vietnam. They are tireless and must work until they die because I see exceptionally old looking women working their tails off right along side 20 somethings. I have huge amounts of respect for them.

Oh and I forgot to mention, my phone thing I had worked out so I could call people like mom and dad, at their houses, yeah, that got killed. After I came home from Hanoi the phone just quit connecting to the server, I called tech support and they said the signal is not coming through, which means its been blocked. Very annoying, and seemingly deliberate, though I can't figure out what the motivation would be. So anyway, that's why I haven't called anyone, I still check email though!

A few more days, and much to do, hopefully I'll get good things accomplished between now and then. Until next time...

~Mickey

I get out of the city, and its exactly what I needed

So last week, I was sort of getting into a funk. People were annoying me, I was being uncreative, unmotivated, and just feeling generally not well. So, I was planning to visit Hanoi, which is the capital of Vietnam, old seat of the dreaded Viet Cong during the war days. My purpose for the visit was to try and get a visa to India, to see my great friends Anubhav and Nandini. I've not written about it here because I didn't want Nan's knowing about it. Anubhav and I were trying to make it a surprise, but sadly its not going to work out :-( So the cat is out of the bag, and I'm a little bummed about not making it to India, but I think Melissa and I will try to get it next year or something. Sorry Nans, I tried.

Hanoi is a hell for someone that doesn't like to be hassled. It was a little different from Hue. In Hue when you walk down the street the motorbike drivers try to get you to rent their motorbike and their guide services, or the cyclo drivers try to bike you around. That gets annoying, but in Hanoi, they'll follow you down the street. A pack of them, when there's no way you'll be able to use all their services, they just follow you until another victim happens along. I also had a horrible experience with the cab drivers, and hotel owners trying to cheat me out of money. I'd get a price for the trip before getting into the cab, then we'd get there and the guy would start whining about it being so far, and he wanted more money and so forth. One guy tried to give me half the change I was owed hoping I wouldn't get the exchange rate down in my head. That guy nearly didn't get paid at all, and I think he sensed that so came off my change. Then the first hotel room that cost me 20 bucks, a fortune for what I actually got, tried to charge me 5 bucks for a small bottle of water. So yeah, my experience with Hanoi, its busy, its dirty, and the people are greedy. It does have some pretty spots though, and I've been told I didn't get a fair look at it having only really spent 24 hours there. The rest of the time was on Ha Long Bay...

It is an amazing place, and my photos don't do it justice at all unfortunately. I paid $60 for 2 days and 1 night on a "junk" that toured the bay. Its extremely touristy, far more than is my typical pursuit but since I don't have my own boat and there's like 2000 islands in the bay its pretty much only accessible by taking a tour. The Lonely Planet Guide Book says that its really hit and miss on the tour you'll get, and the price is extremely variable. One person on my boat paid 85 for the same tour I paid 60 for to give you an idea. Our boat was probably mid range, we had decent rooms, but it wasn't very "new". I guess it is called a Junk. One room leaked, the girl that paid 85 got that one. She slept in a puddle that night. I didn't even know it rained, so boy did I feel like a jerk the next morning, being oblivious the rain. The food was excellent, but we had to run the German roaches off the table as we ate. They kept trying to walk onto the table with us, it was pretty gross, but we needed to eat, so we dealt.







Here's the dining room, looks really snazzy, even the roaches think so....






I met some great people, and I'm actually going to catch back up with them this next weekend when I visit Hoi An, so that should be fun. Aside from the roaches, and the leaky room, we had a great time. The chemistry of the 8 of us was great, and we just sat on the deck at night chatting about anything and everything. Much of it was American politics, Americans are not favorites in the world community right now, and these were international people. They think we're inept bullies and are terrified of what trouble we'll get into/cause next. I just sort of ducked my head, and didn't really know what to say about it, I didn't get us into the mess. They seemed to understand that, and felt sorry for me I think. The collection of nationalities represented were, 2 Australians, a family of folks from Denmark, a lady from London who is originally from the Ukraine, and a girl from Southern California.

There was a fantastic cave in the bay, I'll put a pic up, but go to the gallery to see more, you'll find the link at the end of this post. It was very awesome. We also went on a kayak trip, that would have been my time to get some great pictures, but it was a wet adventure so the camera stayed on the Junk. On day 2 we headed back to Hanoi, and I jumped in a cab for the airport, to argue more about money with a greedy taxi driver.

Despite the weird things here and there, this weekend away was great medicine for me. I've felt much better these past two days, and I look forward to this next weekend when I catch back up with my new friends. I would tell you their names, but honestly, I don't remember :-) This is typical of me, names just slide right off my brain, I'll never forget their faces, but their names just don't stick. I'll know their faces when I see them again though. Friends are made very fast when traveling, you don't know much about them, but you really enjoy the company for what it is, and then you move on. Kind of strange really. I'll spend an entire day with someone, and then at the end of it, I know I'll never see them again, where else would that happen except in a foreign country where one is starved for speaking one's native language?

Today I was invited to ride out to Nhi's village with her. She's my interpreter and she wanted to drop her neice home with her family and pick up some veggies while there. Talk about going off the tourist track, people stared at me, people waved and yelled "Hello!". It was really funny, they don't see white boys too much out there. I've put up some pics from the experience, I didn't take any at Nhi's actual house, but a few coming in and leaving. I try to be discreet with my photography, I don't want people thinking I'm making a specatcle of their lifestyle, so I left the camera in the bag. She took me upstairs to what was basically a shrine to her two late brothers and father. They had a whole room dedicated to them. She lit some incense for them, and told me a little about each of them.

In Vietnam the major religion is Buddhism, but really its more like ancestor worship, with a side of Buddhism. Every house, every store, has a little shrine where they have incense burning, and some offering bowls where fruit or vegetables are placed. Its usually the man of the house's duty to tend the shrine each day, though anyone in the family can do it. They have big dinners on the anniversary of people's passing all the way out to great grandfathers and who knows if beyond. Its very serious stuff here. I think they look to their passed ancestors for guidance and wisdom, and for them to look out for their family still alive. I've not verfied this officially but that's the sense I get.

In any case back on track. It was a great honor to me to be invited to Nhi's house, I really enjoyed it, and hope to go back. I didn't really say much, there's a large language barrier, so I just followed Nhi around while she picked vegetables for her dinner, and asked questions.



Here's what it looked like on the way to her house.












Some women washing their clothes in the river.





I think that's enough for now, I feel like I've been writing this forever and there's not much substance to it. Sorry Dr. Lewis :-) My next update will probably deal with the idea of my starting some sort of program here, that's going to be its own post though, so I'll leave you all with this piece to digest for a couple days, and when I get my thoughts together on the next mire I'm about to get into, I'll give you a synopsis. I miss everyone, nearly half way through though!

~Mickey

ps. Here are the latest pics, hope you enjoy, I don't have them captioned yet, but I'll try to get that done soon...
http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher/Hanoi
http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher/HanoiHaLongBay
http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher/MotorbikeTourOfHueNhiSVillage

Week 2...

Hmmm, my subjects are getting less than creative, I'll have to work on that for next time. The photo on the left is the Perfume River at sunset, with the mountains in the distance.

Alright, when we last left off our handsome protagonist was finishing up his first week in Vietnam, now we're nearly finished with the second week. So where are we? Well with a better sense of the workings of this whole place. My day has been adjusted a good bit from the original expectation. I start work at 7:30ish, I say ish because sometimes its nearly 8 by the time the cab arrives and everyone gets situated. This kind of scheduling really seems to only bother Americans and Europeans, as far as I can tell. The rest of the planet seems to have a comfortable and very relaxed relationship with time. Its taken some getting used to I must admit, but its really not a horrible way to live I suppose. So anyway, 7:30ish-10ish. The original plan was 7:30-10:30 and then 2:30-4:30. So my day has become quite truncated. I almost don't feel as if I'm working sometimes, though I know I'm dumping a lot of info on the people, it definitely doesn't feel like an entire work day. The reasoning for the day changing so much is that frankly, I'm running out of things to teach. Sounds outrageous I know, but in assessing their needs, there is so much development that needs to happen, nationally, culturally, individually, before much of what I learned in college would even have relevance to their lives here.

For example, the IEP, which for the non-teachers in the audience is an Individual Education Plan, a document federally required that requires for the education team of every child with a disability in the USA to have their education team meet no less than once a year to specifically discuss and set goals for that individual child to accomplish, hopefully, within the next year. Well anyway, the IEP is a cornerstone to the belief system we carry in the US, and really my guiding rules for my teaching, doesn't exist here. The foundation of the belief that created the document, the idea that people with disabilities are people too, doesn't exist here. So there goes teaching about that :-) Daily living skills is an area they were all interested in learning about. So last week we jumped into that, and come to find out, daily living skills is probably their strongest area. Daily living skills being those skills required for daily life, brushing teeth, cooking, personal hygiene, etc. In the states its a huge need for people with visual impairments, they often need assistance to accomplish these tasks. Here though, its a sink or swim kind of environment. So the kids learn these things really as a matter of necessity because there isn't someone to do them for them. So, there goes that idea :-)

So I begin by teaching about issues related to blindness, then I take my students and we work on traveling skills, and Bob takes his and works on Braille. I've been teaching O&M in a Buddhist garden, that's been pretty neat, here's a couple pics of that on the left. Then we're done for the day and back to the hotel. I'm finding great people that live in this town. Many of them are "Ex-pats" which is short for ex-patriots or people from other countries living somewhere else and working there. There are about 50 that live in Hue, and they're sort of their own little club. They hang out in certain places and so forth. One guy, is a principal at an "International School" here and his name is Steve. He's an Aussie, and is just one of those people you just love to be around. Very neat person, then there's another guy Arry I think his name is. He's dutch, and is pretty neat as well. Steve is in the red shirt playing the guitar in the pic on the right.

My interpreter who is native to Hue, her husband is an ex-pat and does land mine surveying, because there are still many undetonated explosives lying around from the war. He says nearly every day, or at least multiple times a week someone will stumble across one and maim themselves or get killed. Very sad. So that's how the evenings are usually passed, or playing with the children of the hotel owner. Incidentally, I think they've quit charging me for my food :-) I don't know for sure because its a running tab that will be picked up by Gabby at the end of my stay, but I used to have to sign for my food, and I have not done that in a few days now. She may be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of free food, I was also picked up by this guy when I was out walking who was very excited that I was American. He took me to lunch. Its kinda strange though, strange like fishy strange. He asked me a lot of questions about me, my family, what I was doing in Vietnam. He then, after lunch, asked me what I thought about the Govt. here. Well I'm not going to say anything bad to someone I don't know, and truthfully, though its quite different from what I'm used to, I wouldn't call it bad, not from my personal experience anyway. So that's essentially what I told him. He then dropped me off at my hotel after convincing me to buy him a bottle of wine for his family, they were having a party that night and he couldn't wait to tell them about this cool American, so we kinda broke even with him buying my meal, and me buying him his wine. He also took down my email address, he said it was so his family in the states could send me a bonsai, they're apparently into Bonsai. But, as the govt is known for monitoring email here, I'm thinking that this could have just been a way for him to monitor my emails perhaps. I don't know, its all very conspiracy theory but its definitely not too "out there". I hadn't put the email thing together until just now, so I'm kinda a little creeped out now. He was likely really just a farmer, whose dad really did work with the Americans during the war. But, farmers with email addresses around here are probably not too common. So anyway, cue the twilight zone music...

Anyway, I spent the afternoon in a karaoke bar, that was Bob's idea to invite the students to this place, Vietnamese love karaoke. Its a phenomenon here, and one I find horrid to be honest. I don't like it at home either, but I went. I told them I didn't want to sing, that it wasn't my thing at all, they bugged me enough about it. So I put in the alphabet song, yes that was an option, as was "Mary had a little lamb" and every Christmas song you could think of. They loved the alphabet song, so the joke was sorta wasted... I'm now here in a neat little coffee shop eating and ice cream sunday and updating my blog. Its a neat little place, owned by twin brothers who are Vietnamese and are internationally known artists apparently. They're quite interesting, facial piercings and tattoos, which is unbelievably progressive for this area, let alone Vietnam in general. They are really neat people though, and I'm working on setting up a thing where they'll teach the students at the school about art. Trying to branch them out from making brooms and doing massage.

Alright, so that's pretty much up to date. I'm flying to Hanoi tomorrow to spend the weekend, and will go to Ha Long Bay which is a national treasure and is considered one of the new "Natural Wonders of the World" I'm going to spend two days on a boat, and will hopefully have loads of pictures for you. So you probably won't get an update until Monday at the earliest, but it should be a picture laden one :-) Oh I forgot, I can call home now, Melissa and I figured out that I can use my home phone service on my laptop, so if I call you, it'll come up as my house phone. So I might be calling a phone near you... Much love from Vietnam.

http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher if you want to see pics that didn't make it to the blog.

~Mickey

ps. Many of you have asked about how to leave comments. At the bottom of this post you'll see a little number in gold I think, with the word "comments" written next to it. If you click that number it'll bring you to the comments page, I think you can leave a comment without having to jump through hoops. Hopefully...

End of the first week

Warning, lengthy post ahead, I’ll wait while you grab a drink…

Well I’ve nearly finished my first week in Vietnam. I’ve made some good friends already, in 5 more weeks it’ll be hard to leave them. The family who owns the hotel I live in are very nice. The hotel itself has its ups and downs, but that is kind of part of the character of it. Electricity here is a transient being, unfortunately he decides to skip town during the hottest part of the day, and usually right as we’re pulling up from our morning of work. Just when we would love to sit in front of a fan and have a fruit shake, the electricity goes off, the place turns into a sauna, and fruit shakes are impossible without the blender. It’s been hard for me sometimes to connect to my loved ones back home, because without electricity, there goes the internet, but even so, I’m talking with them more than I expected. With the time being nearly opposite from home, as I’m coming back to the hotel for lunch, its midnight back home. Then when evening rolls around, the internet often goes to the same place electricity went in the afternoon. This has caused me to adopt a very odd sleeping pattern. I usually go to sleep around 9:30-10, and then start waking around midnight to see if the internet is back up, if its not, I’ll go back to sleep and wake nearly each hour until dawn. When I find it up, I’ll stay up for about an hour or so connecting with home, and then sleep a few more hours before I’m up at 6:00am. This sounds brutal, but surprisingly I’m handling it really well. I usually get a nap in the afternoons, provided we have electricity, sleeping without at least a fan is nearly impossible for me.

In terms of my experience here, it has been incredibly eye opening. The Vietnamese people are the hardest working people I’ve ever seen. The hardships that they take as a matter of course, most of us in America would leave the country over. The students at the center that I’m working at sleep two to a bed on basically a sheet of plywood, in a room that is quite long, with maybe one ceiling fan. There is no privacy. They have no refrigerator, no air conditioning, and one TV that is about 13 inches or so. Yet they seem very happy in life, and quite content with their situation. Another example is this younger guy that works at the hotel I’m living at. I woke up the other morning after not really being able to sleep very well, and decided I’d go downstairs to practice the guitar, an instrument I bought for 20 bucks if you can believe it. So I get downstairs and there’s this guy already at work, its 5am, and they don’t open until 7. I look over to the far wall, and there’s a bed made up across 6 chairs that he’s put together. That’s where he sleeps, that room is sweltering with no fans on, and of course he didn’t have any on. Since I was awake, I helped him prepare the restaurant, moving the motor bikes out onto the sidewalk, arranging the tables, mopping, etc. It turns out, he’s in school for international finance and works here when he’s not at school, and sleeps in the dining room. Can you believe it? He never complained once! I’ve got my interpreter on the lookout for a fold away cot, I’m going to hopefully make a gift of it to him before I leave. Hopefully it’ll help him get through school without a sore back. Another example are these very old women that walk the streets with a bamboo rod over one shoulder, and a basket or platform suspended from each end usually laden with produce, or some wares that they are hoping to sell. Women that old in the states are barely getting up from their soaps, let alone toting probably 40-50 lbs up and down the street in terribly hot weather. My respect goes out to the people of Vietnam.

The family that lives here has four children, which is a lot for Vietnam. Apparently, the man’s brother could not have kids, and so he picked up the slack for the family, at least that’s sort of how it was explained to me. In any case, the kids are 8, 5, 2, and one month. The 8 year old is completely enamored with me, and acts as if I’m a long lost friend every time I enter the hotel. She runs across the restaurant yelling my name and gives me the biggest hug, every day. Her name is Quynh. She’s also quite the photographer and makes her way around the camera better than I do. I’ve added a couple pics she took of me, I’m her favorite subject, lord knows why, as well as a picture of her. I have to admit, I like her a lot. Her little sister is 5 and has been a bit distant from me up until tonight when she warmed up a bit. Now, I have a feeling I’ll be getting two very large hugs each day I come back to the hotel, you won’t hear me complain about it, those kids warm my heart, and keep me from getting grumpy when I know I’m about to sit in the stale, humid heat, for another 4 hours.

In terms of the work I’m doing, its been both frustrating and encouraging. Encouraging because my students seem very eager to learn, and really seem to crave the knowledge we’re offering. They work extremely hard in mobility, often wanting to practice something again if they didn’t do the skill perfectly. They seem quite dedicated to making a difference.

The frustration comes in because they, they being the administration, do not inform us of events that are happening. Twice this week half the students have not been in class for various things, today it was entertaining a group of visiting Vietnamese from America. I eventually ended class 45 minutes early because I would just have to reteach it on Monday anyway. I was admittedly pretty frustrated. I really don’t like to have my teaching interrupted, especially when I’m finally getting the students to engage in discussion. That has been very difficult, they feel like questioning the teacher is disrespectful, and so are very reluctant to ask a question, even if I ask them for questions.

We’ve talked a good bit about disability in Vietnam this past week. The country still hasn’t undergone their version of civil rights. This is probably due to the fact that for the most part everyone is on even ground here; the women are probably harder working than the men, and seem pretty empowered. The group without a say, are those with disabilities. There are many with them, much of it coming from the Vietnam war and Agent Orange, which effects 3 generations of people. Kids born from grandparents in the war are still at risk for having birth defects. The country seems to take care of them, but they are sort of like lepers to the population. Here in Hue, they have a school for the blind with 60 students in it. Gabby, who’s blind, gets looked at like she has 3 heads for walking around with her cane. Due to this, I’ve begun to encourage the school to reach out into the community, and make them selves known. Many people here don’t even know they have this school, and I really think community support is the key to getting these kids working and having productive careers as members of the Vietnam society.

The tactic so far is to have the teachers, when they go out into the community to carry their canes with them. Canes are new by the way, the school had two when I got here, and Gabby had 20 she had donated from Thailand that she had not given to them yet. The idea behind carrying the cane out with them is to generate curiosity from the community and open the possibility of discussion with people about the school and to tell them what the cane means, so that they’ll hopefully be more cautious should they see the students on the roads. I’m hoping that this will at least work a little bit.

Another concept I’m trying to introduce is early intervention. This is where the child that is born with a visual impairment, or any disability actually, receives services as early as possible in his/her life so that skills can be taught in their natural order, rather than playing catch up when the child is someday brought to the center, sometimes as old as 12. This society is embarrassed of disability, and it is not uncommon for families to hide children with disabilities from their friends and communities, essentially making the child a kid in the closet. So when they do come to the school, sometimes they are quite scarred, and may not even talk. It is very sad. So if we can reach even one child born each year before this happens to them, this whole visit will have been more than worth the trouble. The students seem skeptical but are interested still in exploring the possibility. My real hope, is that out of this group of 20, a couple leaders will emerge, who will carry the school forward, even after we leave. In six weeks I won’t be able to change the world of this school too much, but I may be able to get the snowball rolling, and hopefully in a few years, it’ll be a totally different place, one where the kids are learning skills other than massage, making tooth picks, brooms, and chop sticks, and are looked at as contributing, valuable members of the community.

Here's a couple of Quynh's photos of me.

So that’s the news so far, there’s much more, but this is getting to be quite long, so I’ll stop it there for tonight. I’m putting up pictures on a picasa site, most of them won’t make it to the blog. If you are interested in looking through them, you can find them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher. Thanks for reading, and keeping in touch, I love everyone and miss them very much.

~Mickey

First day at school

That folks, is a bicycle, and yes the person rides it that way...

Well I'm in Hue and I've finished my first day of work. On the way here from Ho Chi Minh City I rode in a plane with the propellers on the wings, that was kinda neat, never rode in one of those before. It wasn't as loud as I expected. They bussed us out to the tarmac where the plane was waiting and we climbed up the stairs kinda like the president does in all the photos :-) Of course it was a bus that wasn't all that pretty that took us to the not so stylish plane, but you know what, it got me to Hue without crashing, so I'm not complaining.

At Hue airport, Gabby picked me up. She's an interesting person, very brave really. What she's trying to do is pretty amazing, I hope that with our help she can somewhat pull it through, but to be honest, the deck is pretty stacked against her. She's pretty jaded and a little burnt out. She's the only blind foreigner here, and is very fiercely independent. The people I think are offensive to her, and they don't realize it. I don't think its intentional, they just don't know how to act. They call her things like Ms. Blind and stuff like that, she understands a bit of the language, and so they don't think she hears them, when in reality its very hurtful. She'll walk up to people to get information and they'll tell her to piss off, literally. They think she's begging, when she's not at all, she's a consumer like the rest of us. Because being solicited is fairly common, the people are just sort of rough about it, and ask questions later kind of attitude. She has opinions about people at the school, and I had to ask her today to hold her opinions as far as I was concerned, because I wanted the chance to form my own. She seemed to take it well. Here's Gabby and myself:

Bob is the other teacher I'm working with. He's a pretty neat guy, very accomplished in the world of business. He used to buy bankrupt companies and turn them around to be profitable. He's teaching sort of as a retirement from all that. He likes to talk a lot, and it causes me to sit and listen, or not, much of the time. I don't like interrupting people, and I don't want to step on his talking, so I'll just keep my own company. I like him a lot, but I find myself being more quiet when I'm around him, which as most of you know is not really like me :-)

I've taken on a leadership role here, Bob and Gabby are sort of deferring to me, still haven't figured out why that keeps happening to me, I need to learn to keep my mouth shut and not be so confident in my language I think.

We met at the school today and met the teachers and staff that we'd be educating over the next 6 weeks. We also met the school director. The facility is actually a pretty nice campus. The students sleep two to a bed on pallets with a really pretty sheet over it. The architecture is attractive, as are many of the older buildings in Hue. I met the interpreter that basically is assigned to me over the next weeks, her name in pronounced "knee" though I have no idea how to spell it. She's got a very fashionable haircut and is really "together". She's very aware of world politics, and seems quite intelligent. Definitely on a different strata from the every day working folks of Vietnam, who are also great people, and intelligent in their areas, but they live day to day without much awareness of the world beyond their borders. Knee is definitely different and she knows it, very self confident. I think we'll work well together, she did a great job today interpreting for me, and made my jokes funny, which is pretty good since I'm sure they don't always translate perfectly, and they probably aren't that funny ;-)

So we met for breakfast, and then went to the school. We really didn't know what to do, and Gabby didn't either. This is where I took the lead, since we were all sort of staring at each other. We met the staff and told them a bit about ourselves and what we do in the states, as well as what we'd like to do for them. Special emphasis on independence and success for blind people in their country. The culture here really respects teachers a lot. Its one of the most noble things a person can do is to be an educator. Part of that respect involves not asking questions of your teacher, its disrespectful. So when I ask for questions everyone just stares at you. In a college class in the states, if I ask for questions I need to be prepared to spend 10 minutes on them. Because of this, my teaching style really is geared with this guided discovery, Socratic method. I feel that if I can guide a student through this questioning process, they can discover the knowledge for themselves and it'll stick better. So, a little behavior modification is in order here :-)

I decided to try that, and told Knee to tell them that whoever asked the first question was my favorite student for the day, and that it didn't have to be about blindness at all, could be about anything. I just wanted to start the culture of questions. So, who asks the first question? The director of the school. What does he ask? Who I think is the most beautiful girl in the room. Wow. Now how does one diplomatically answer a question like that, when they're all definitely interested in the answer? Was pretty crazy. I said something like, its too hard a decision, it would be like picking the most beautiful star from the sky, or some crap like that. It seemed to be satisfactory and we moved along. Whoa...

That was pretty much the end of that adventure. On your left are the people I'll be working with, a combination of both students and teachers, many of them with visual impairments.

Gabby, Bob, and I have met this afternoon to brainstorm, and we're coming back together at 8 for dinner and to regroup for tomorrow. We've been told that its expected of us to host a twice daily tea. That its just expected when you have a training like this, so we have to make time in our already very cramped agenda for tea, which takes about 15 minutes each time, once in the afternoon and once in the morning.

Here's inside one of the dorms. Those are basically just boards under those pretty green blankets. The students sleep two to a bed.

In other news, I had a very tasty lunch. Can't tell you what it was, but I took a pic for you, it was fried rice, shrimp and pork, and was just incredibly good. I loved it, and might get it again tomorrow :-) Just look at that presentation! And it cost a dollar, the whole dinner.

Random pic for you:

This pic was taken by one of the students who is blind, she's not too bad a photographer, and this was probably the first camera she's ever used.

I guess that's enough for today, I'll update again soon. Keep the comments coming, I want to hear from you all!

~Me

I'm in Vietnam!

Well everyone, I made it. There's so much to write about, yet I don't want to overwhelm you, so I'll try to stick with the cliff notes. The tree on the left is a ficus, its styled like a giant bonsai, well I guess it is, technically since bonsai literally means, tree in a pot. It's common here to style trees and hedges like that. You don't see just boxy type hedges, they have style. So anyway, I left on the 20th at 7:30am, and spent something like 27 hours traveling to the other side of the earth. It was crazy, the flight from Chicago to Hong Kong felt so long! I'd try to sleep, wake up, look at the clock and realize I had only dozed for like 20 minutes and still had 13 hours to go. My seat mate didn't speak any English and slept quite deeply. I felt bad waking him to go to the bathroom, he didn't get up ONCE! I had to use the restroom 3 times and felt like a little kid bothering him, but sheesh, 3 times in 15 hours isn't that bad when you think about it. So anyway, went to Hong Kong and stayed there like 4 hours. I tried to sleep in the airport but that lasted about 10 minutes before this entire Vietnamese family DESCENDED complete with yelling across the lobby at each other. I counted 17 in total with all the children. Grr, I was quite grumpy about that, tried the dirty looks, but they didn't seem to register. So I moved down a bit, and then the rest of the family showed up, so I gave up and juggled for them. They ended up being very sweet people, and a couple of the kids spoke very good English. I was called Amazing for my juggling, they all applauded, even people that weren't in the family, that's a new one, and now I can go home happy.



A plane at the Hong Kong airport.

On the plane from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City I sat next to two native Vietnamese guys that were both living in the states and visiting family. One spoke much better English than the other, his name is Phan, and he actually has married a girl here in Vietnam, and had a baby with her. The crazy part is he's having trouble getting her and the baby over to the states, so since 2006 he visits his wife twice a year for about a month at a time. Isn't that nuts! He said his wife is clear to go to the states now, but they have to get the son sorted out next, and then he can bring his family home to Pennsylvania. He ended up sticking with me in the airport and making sure I got through customs and got my bag ok, he was afraid it would be lost and he wanted to help me with the language just in case. Talk about a nice person. I got to meet his family outside, just before I found the guy picking me up. Phan gave me his phone number and told me to call him if I got into any trouble, he'd come help me out. He also might come visit me in Hue, he said he's always wanted to go there, I told him to come to the school for the blind and ask for me and I'd show him around the city :-) I hope he shows up.

The drive to the hotel was crazy! The traffic is incredible here, like as in, amazing. Its no longer any wonder to me why in places like New York you have so many foreign people driving the taxis. They must be the best folks for the job, because if traffic was like it was last night in a city in the US, you'd have total grid lock from car accidents. These people are martial artists on a scooter or mini van. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that New York City probably seems like a school zone in suburbia to a lot of people from other countries. I'll try to get a better traffic pic later, but you of course have the video below which will give you an even better idea.





The room is nice and tiny, but very clean, and has wireless Internet. The people running the place are very kind. Not much to say about the place, its tiny and nice, with a very uncomfortable computer chair, this thing is tortuous. I went out walking this morning after finally going to bed at around 3:30am, waking up at 8 or something. Not too bad, really. I found this nice little place where they made a ham, cheese, and mushroom omelet plus essentially a papaya, banana, and something else, fruit smoothie for a little over 3 dollars. Pretty cheap breakfast, and I have a suspicion it was probably kind of expensive for here, I'll let ya know once I learn the ropes better. The traditional breakfast would have been a chicken with rice, more like what I would think of us lunch. I wanted to try it, but I thought I'd stay safe, as I don't need uncomfortable stomach issues when I plan to be flying and traveling.


Here's the room from standing in the bathroom.


Everywhere you walk you get bothered by people wanting to sell you stuff, its pretty annoying, but they usually leave me be after I say no thanks. There's a bunch of little old ladies carrying stuff all over the place, and the skills the people have with balancing things on scooters just adds to their traffic-fu black belts they seem to be born with.

So after writing this blog, I'll check out of the hotel, take a cab back to the airport and at 4:30 if all the stars properly align, will fly to Hue. After that I truly don't know what the next step is. You'll be surprised I'm sure to learn that Gabby has not told me. I dont' even have an address for the school, or the place I'll be living. I can only hope that she's arranged to have me picked up and just left that detail out. If not, my plan is to get to a hotel, and in the morning work my way to the school for the blind. So i'm not too worried.

Some more random pics for you:
This is down the street from my hotel, not too bad on traffic here.


I'll update you all again soon, next stop Hue! Miss everyone very much.

~Mickey

Almost time to leave

Hey everyone, so I'm getting the final things together for departure. I bought bug repellent, some waterproof gear for Melissa's camera, and a guide book. I'm only planning to take two bags and a carry on. We'll see how that works out. Melissa and I are leaving for Jax tonight, hopefully getting to the airport by 5:30am, since its international. I'll fly to Chicago, then to Hong Kong, and then to Vietnam. I'll stay in Ho Chi Minh City that night, I've just found out that someone will be meeting me at the airport, talk about celebrity status. They'll take me to a hotel, and I guess pick me up the next day, though I don't know that fact yet. At around 4:15ish the following afternoon, I fly on to Hue, and then from there go to the school. I'll finally arrive in Hue on the 22nd. I lose a day crossing the time zones, but will gain it back when coming home.

Melissa is doing pretty well, she's of course been teary, but its crunch time, and in our rush we haven't had much time for too many tears, though I've found a few minutes for my share. You all probably will not hear from me until at least the 23rd, but who knows, maybe the 22nd. So don't worry! I'll contact Melissa and let her know when I'm in HCMC, probably by email, so she'll know that I'm there safely and will hopefully then contact the parental types to let them know. I'll miss everyone very much, I look forward to the adventure, but the departure is definitely bitter sweet. So friends, the next time we talk, I'll be on the other side of the planet, and hopefully with at least a couple pictures to post for you!

~Mickey

A little more of what I'm up against

Ok so we're still set for leaving. It looks like I'll be flying out of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) around 4:15 June 22nd. So I'll have nearly a full day in the city to explore, and hopefully not have to lug around my luggage while I'm doing that. While typing this, FED EX just showed up with my VISA. That's incredibly fast, the company just got this paperwork Thursday morning, and they must have sent it out Friday to have gotten here today. That's fast, considering the Vietnam website said 4-5 business days, and I couldn't get in touch with the embassy for a week. Really impressive. So here's a plug for www.rushmypassport.com for all your traveling to foreign country needs :-)

In other news, Gabby has been more forthcoming today, its weird I've probably emailed her 5 times back and forth this morning already. It looks like I'll be staying in a hotel, and she says it'll have a computer! Hot Dog! I'm guessing with internet, so Melissa and I can more easily stay in contact, that'll be very very good. So what's she's told me this morning is that I won't really be working with students, but with the teachers. She says she can arrange to have students there if I need them, but that it would mostly be teachers. Oh and the teachers "really lack motivation". This is very troubling, I don't feel totally comfortable myself teaching someone to travel in that traffic, yet she's wanting me to teach someone else how to teach a blind kid to travel there? Without students to practice on? And they're "unmotivated"... Sheesh. I told her we'd probably need some students and that I wouldn't feel comfortable essentially signing off on someone to teach until I saw some demonstration of proficiency.

For those that are not in my field and so wouldn't know, doing what they are asking me and Bob to do, it takes for us to learn it, approximately 2 years of course work. To teach O&M usually takes an additional year of training. I'm only there for 5 weeks. I'll be working through an interpreter, and with people that probably would rather I just left them alone, from Gabby's description of them. I feel like I'm always dooming and glooming here, but I really think that Gabby doesn't know what she's asking for. I'll try my best, and hope it all works out. From what I understand, it seems like ANYTHING I bring to the table will be an improvement over current conditions. It sounds like I need to bring some morale to the table as well as some skills, perhaps these people don't realize the potential that people with visual impairments have. Its easy to think that blind people can't do anything, when they are truly quite capable when given the opportunity and people to properly teach them in the way that they learn best. Should be crazy fun, can't wait to keep you updated.

As the challenges mount, it creates even more determination for me to get over there and do my best. At this point, its humorous to think of all the "walls" that are before us, but that in itself, offers a bit of freedom. How can I possibly screw this up, when anything I do is going to be much better than what they have already? Talk about feeling a sense of liberation. Just a few more days and off I go...

~Mickey

Plane tix are in, visa is in the works, hopefully, the comedy continues into its next act

Hi Friends! Ok, so when I last left you it was in a state of disappointment. Now I feel like that passenger in a car right before the vehicle just barely hits the car in front, you know, where you are mashing your foot to the floor wishing you had your own brake pedal? Yeah I'm that guy.

I got my itinerary in, so plane tickets are a definite reality. Here's the rough and dirty schedule. I leave Jacksonville airport at 7:30am on Friday June 20th. I travel to Chicago, then from Chicago to Hong Kong, and from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City, arriving at 10:10pm local time. The total travel duration is something like 27 hours, yummy. I then must find my way from the far south end of Vietnam to the middle of Vietnam, not knowing the first word of Vietnamese. So it should well and truly be an adventure. I've put the map back up so you can see this for yourself. Here's where the comedy of this leg of the trip really comes into play.

May I introduce to you Bob Parker? Bob, is a teacher at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, and is also going to Vietnam, he's a Leo and enjoys long walks on the beach... :-) Just kidding about the last part, I have no idea if he likes beaches.

Anyway, he's going to be in charge of academics, I pity him, that doesn't sound fun at all. He's a really cool guy so far. We've talked on the phone a couple times trying to compare notes and come up with a more complete picture, since we each seem to have different pieces of the puzzle. So Bob also leaves for Vietnam on the 20th, he also leaves from Jacksonville airport. His flight is also approximately the same duration. This folks is where the similarity ends. Bob leaves Jax at 9am, an hour and a half after me, he then flies to Atlanta, from Atlanta to South Korea, and from South Korea to Hanoi, the far north end of Vietnam. I think he arrives like 11:30pm or something. He then has to make his way from the north end of the country to the middle of the country. Now, why they didn't put us on the same flight is totally incomprehensible to me. We're leaving the exact same day! Its like some sort of reality TV show, where they deliberately introduce adversity just to see how the players deal with it. I told him we should race to Hue, see who gets to the school first.

So that's the latest on that front. My visa paperwork was sent off yesterday, all told that will cost me about $300. Expensive, considering I was initially looking at like $25. I'm now having an agency handle it for me as this is the faster way to do it, since its so very last minute. Its costing me an extra $80 but they'll hand deliver the paperwork to the embassy and pick it up as well, dropping it into next day mail for me. I was told that trusting it to the embassy alone can be risky, I believe it since I couldn't get them to answer the phone for a week. So if the Visa miraculously comes through in time, I'm definitely going on this trip.

I found some enrichment for you folks. This first video is called the sights and sounds of Vietnam. Its beautiful. None of it is shot in the city. Both of these were produced by the same guy. For the non-technical in the crowd, the big play button on the bottom left of the video screen, if you click it, the movie should start playing. Send me an email if you have trouble.


Vietnam Sights & Sounds from v!Nc3sl4s on Vimeo.

This next video gives you an idea of traffic in the cities of Vietnam, this one is Hanoi, where our new friend Bob will be arriving. The city I'm landing in is supposed to be the worst. Here's a quote from the blog I pulled this vid from:

"That video was shot late at night when the traffic is light... In HCMC for example about 12K people die each year from motorbike accidents. The moto rental people don't rent to foreigners because they figure its a given they will wreck the bike. It's really hairy driving or even walking in either city... When I come back home to Thailand it's like driving in a ghost town by comparison. Of course it isn't. Vietnam and parts of India are the worst I have ever tried to navigate."

So I'm going to be teaching blind people to travel in this. I will really have to spend some time studying the traffic there before I risk a student in it. A friend of mine mentioned this morning, If I can teach there, I can teach anywhere. Please notice the total absence of any sort of traffic control device. It absolutely amazes me that there aren't any accidents happening in this video. When a light goes out here on a simple four way, people start freaking out. Truly amazing.


Hanoi crazy night traffic from v!Nc3sl4s on Vimeo.

I'll update as more comes available. I'm not sure who all is reading this, I'd love to get comments, they're at the bottom, or even emails. Sorry if its wordy, but I want you to truly share this adventure with me. I can't believe how crazy it is so far, and I've not even left the US yet. Don't forget to subscribe in the box on the right so you can get the updates as I write them. Love you all.

~Mickey