Click here for lots of photos from today:
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Hold the Squid...And the Chicken Please
Just returning to my hotel room after a killer game of cards with Julie, Supriya, and Vijay. Hard to believe it: was just last night that I arrived in Tam Ky City. The journey from Hanover to Tam Ky included reindeer dogs at the Alaska airport snack shack; "in-flight entertainment" on a 9-hour flight that consisted of 2 bad movies on a fuzzy screen in the middle of the aisle; five hours hanging out in a smoky Hanoi airport cafe watching Vietnamese pop songs on the tv; and finally a drive from Danang to Tam Ky with 2 strangers who called me Ms. Kelly & spoke almost no English. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the hotel and my room had A/C, a hot shower, and no signs of cockroaches or bedbugs. I was even happier when I heard Julie's familiar voice in the hallway & saw Supriya & Vijay's smiling faces for the first time. Tired as I was, I was hungry too so we hit the "town" for some dinner.
The humidity was oppressive & besides some stray dogs in the streets, there weren't many people around. We settled on the first restaurant we saw. The name outside said Dung. We didn't think this was a great name for a restaurant, but we learned today that it is actually pronounced "yum." We attempted to speak English to our waitress and she literally giggled at us and ran away. I decided I would stay away from the meats, as Julie had recently described the cooked dog (full face & teeth) that she saw sold at the market in Hanoi. I wanted to avoid inadvertently ordering dog dumplings. The entire menu was in Vietnamese & none of us had thought to bring a phrase book. We knew the word for chicken - which I also learned today is very similar for the word for yes, blanket, and something else that is not chicken - so we ordered 3 chickens. Vijay was excited to remember the word for vegetable so he ordered me a vegetable plate. Only when my vegetable plate arrived, it was actually a big plate of squid. Oops. I guess we have more work to do on our Vietnamese.
So this morning, our work at the IDE office began with Ky (one of our IDE contacts) teaching us some Vietnamese vocabulary as we scribbled down what he said & butchered the pronunciation of everything. We learned so much today, from how to order vegetables to how many litters of piglets a sow has each year, to gender roles in pig and rice farming....not to mention all that we learned just over dinner tonight. We went out with a group of IDE staff members, including Ky and the small & enthusiastic Trang, plus others whose limited English meant they couldn't enjoy all the ridiculous things we said. We ate delicious steamed clams & giant prawns in a private dining room big enough to just barely fit our one table. At one point I noticed the chicken on the plate in front of me had many parts I didn't recognize. We made the mistake of inquiring about this only to discover we had not only chicken feet and stomach in front of us, but chicken head, eyeball hole and all. Ky picked up the chicken head and made it squawk at us. I think I'm done with chicken here.
Tomorrow we get up bright & early to move to a new hotel that is closer to the office and then begin another day of drinking excessively sweet Vietnamese coffees while contemplating pork production & rice fertilizer.
The humidity was oppressive & besides some stray dogs in the streets, there weren't many people around. We settled on the first restaurant we saw. The name outside said Dung. We didn't think this was a great name for a restaurant, but we learned today that it is actually pronounced "yum." We attempted to speak English to our waitress and she literally giggled at us and ran away. I decided I would stay away from the meats, as Julie had recently described the cooked dog (full face & teeth) that she saw sold at the market in Hanoi. I wanted to avoid inadvertently ordering dog dumplings. The entire menu was in Vietnamese & none of us had thought to bring a phrase book. We knew the word for chicken - which I also learned today is very similar for the word for yes, blanket, and something else that is not chicken - so we ordered 3 chickens. Vijay was excited to remember the word for vegetable so he ordered me a vegetable plate. Only when my vegetable plate arrived, it was actually a big plate of squid. Oops. I guess we have more work to do on our Vietnamese.
So this morning, our work at the IDE office began with Ky (one of our IDE contacts) teaching us some Vietnamese vocabulary as we scribbled down what he said & butchered the pronunciation of everything. We learned so much today, from how to order vegetables to how many litters of piglets a sow has each year, to gender roles in pig and rice farming....not to mention all that we learned just over dinner tonight. We went out with a group of IDE staff members, including Ky and the small & enthusiastic Trang, plus others whose limited English meant they couldn't enjoy all the ridiculous things we said. We ate delicious steamed clams & giant prawns in a private dining room big enough to just barely fit our one table. At one point I noticed the chicken on the plate in front of me had many parts I didn't recognize. We made the mistake of inquiring about this only to discover we had not only chicken feet and stomach in front of us, but chicken head, eyeball hole and all. Ky picked up the chicken head and made it squawk at us. I think I'm done with chicken here.
Tomorrow we get up bright & early to move to a new hotel that is closer to the office and then begin another day of drinking excessively sweet Vietnamese coffees while contemplating pork production & rice fertilizer.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Hanover - NY - Anchorage - Taipei - Hanoi - Danang - Tam Ky
I leave tonight for Vietnam on an 11:40 flight out of JFK. The journey will be long & unfortunately I won't have any travel companions along for the ride. I started yesterday up in Vermont. Today New York. From there I go to Alaska & then to Taipei in Taiwan & then to Hanoi in Vietnam. Once I arrive in Vietnam & pick up my visa, I get a small plane to Danang City & from there a car for a few hours to Tam Ky, my first destination. Needless to say, I'll be relieved when I arrive.
Once in Tam Ky, I'll be reunited with Julie (see earlier post for info on her) & I will meet Supriya & Vijay for the first time. The four of us will be working as pro-bono consultants for International Development Enterprises, an NGO dedicated to "ending poverty in the developing world by helping farmers invest in their own success." I'll likely be working on a "pork value chain" project with pig farmers in the Quang Nam province. I could also work on a project up north with rice farmers. We'll see when I get there! I just got information on where I'll be staying yesterday - good to know these things at least on day before I leave, right? I expect this adventure to be yet another exercise in dealing with ambiguity & expecting the unexpected.
I've never done a blog, but hey - I love keeping journal entries & taking pictures & sharing them with my loved ones. So here we go...hope you enjoy coming along with me on this adventure. This begins 2 months in SE Asia.
Once in Tam Ky, I'll be reunited with Julie (see earlier post for info on her) & I will meet Supriya & Vijay for the first time. The four of us will be working as pro-bono consultants for International Development Enterprises, an NGO dedicated to "ending poverty in the developing world by helping farmers invest in their own success." I'll likely be working on a "pork value chain" project with pig farmers in the Quang Nam province. I could also work on a project up north with rice farmers. We'll see when I get there! I just got information on where I'll be staying yesterday - good to know these things at least on day before I leave, right? I expect this adventure to be yet another exercise in dealing with ambiguity & expecting the unexpected.
I've never done a blog, but hey - I love keeping journal entries & taking pictures & sharing them with my loved ones. So here we go...hope you enjoy coming along with me on this adventure. This begins 2 months in SE Asia.
Library Man makes his way to SE Asia
This is Paul, the love of my life. Those of you who knew me 13 years ago know Paul as Library Man, because he worked at the BU Library & I had a mad crush on him as a freshman at BU. That was back in our Goth days (yes, you can laugh at this) & we both went dancing at ManRay in Cambridge regularly. One night at ManRay, Library Man came over & talked to me. I was so ecstatic that I skipped the entire way over the Mass Ave. bridge back to Baystate Road that night. We dated briefly around that time. Things didn't work out then, but we remained friends over many years. Eventually, we realized we were in lo
ve with each other & we've been together ever since - must be 8 or 9 years now. Paul has been my travel companion on many adventures, including the grand one we had to India this past winter. All these photos are from our time in India. I'm so sad to say goodbye to Paul for now, but he'll be joining me in Cambodia in September. Keep him company between now & then.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
From Chai to Vietnamese Coffee
Julie & I met while on exchange at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Julie has a great laugh & joyful spirit. We were neighbors in the H block at ISB and share a love for cutting things up on the dance floor, stuffing ourselves silly with biryani, and slurping down chais made by roadside baristas. Here we are doing 
just that in Chandigarh. Yum. (Note the child barista in the background.) Coincidentally, both Julie & I will be working at L.E.K. Consulting in different cities in the States. When we discovered that our start dates for work were moved to December, the seeds for this recent adventure were planted. Julie said, "hey, want to go work with pig farmers in Vietnam with me?" and I mean, of course, who wouldn't just jump at an opportunity like that...So I guess we'll be trading biryani for noodle soup & chai for Vietnamese coffee.
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