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