The good news, the good news and the good news...

Firstly the best news of all is that we have new tickets home which leave here on the 10th (Monday). I offer huge and humble thanks to both Lindy in Whanganui and Myk in Nelson who both leapt to our rescue. I can't put into words how grateful we are for your pratical support, love and beams of white light. The humour went a long way to helping me keep my chin up too. Thank you both!

The next good news is that I made it to the NZ Embassy this morning wearing the best green shirt I could find, and yes, I got there on time and cast my vote. At dinner this evening I received news that all of the New Zealanders votes from Hanoi were already on their merry way to NZ for counting as special votes.

After voting Sky and I went out for lunch in the old quater overlooking Lake Hoan Kiem. We had to access the elevator through a shop that had floor to ceiling windows and glass doors. On the way out I reached for the door handle at the very same minute that Sky walked straight into the (very clean and therefore invisible) glass window. The look on her face was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time and once she had figured out what had hit her (or rather what she hit) we both fell about laughing the poor shop staff didn't know what to make of us. We seriously walked nearly two blocks both doubled over hardly able to breath for laughing so much. Once we recovered sky's first comment was 'well they have clean glass don't they!' which set us off on another fit of laughter. The good news is that aside from a small bump on her head she is fine and in good humour.

The next good news is that we have just been at KOTO (Know One Teach One) restaurant with the NZ ambassodor, his wife and a whole crew of interesting New Zealanders working in Hanoi. KOTO is a project that has been running for nearly 10 years which houses, cares for, trains and provides jobs for young people that have been living on the street. It was fantastic, the food was delicious, the trainees and staff were great and the company was awesome. I got offered a job in an english speaking kindergarten (which I have to confess I am tempted by - I do miss working with little people) and we made great contacts to help establish education, aid and trade relationships between NZ and and minority groups that SPERI (Social Policy and Ecology Research Institute) are supporting. The ambassador and a manager of a local engineering company also gave me some good tips for making sure we get on our plane this monday.

I believe everything happens for a reason and I think that the day we had today and the contacts we made this evening are a good reason (although an expensive one) to still be in Vietnam. Not to mention the giggle I get whenever I recall Sky walking into the window!

The Bad news and the good news

For reasons that I will explain in full when I have bent my own head around it...Sky and I were not allowed on our flight home yesturday. After a manic 24 hours and much support from my loved ones back home and the very supportive SPERI staff, we are now in debt to said beloved (both here and in NZ) but do have new tickets home leaving Hanoi on the 10th. So we will be home a week later than first thought.

Although today (not to mention last night) has been very stressful I did get to see Hanoi off the back of a motorbike, which I decided is the best way! I would not trust myself driving in these conditions (Catba was no where near as busy) but I felt safe in the rear of Duan who did a supurb job of weaving, tooting and breaking in a hurry to get us across town to buy our tickets. I am definately going to invest in a wee bike when I get home. Sky and I had a giggle about what the populace of Whanganui would do if we loaded our bike up with our family and groceries and everything else we could strap on and drove around town tooting like we were in Hanoi. Just what would you think?

Juxaposed against the western tradition of driving around huge empty vehicles, in the face of energy descent, heavily laden mopeds and even better bicycles make alot of sense. Maybe we can start a new transportation craze in the (much longed for) land of the long white cloud!

In desparation when I could not contact anyone at home, I emailed the NZ Embassy in Hanoi to see if they could help. The bad news is that they could not help with our predicament but the good news is that they invited us to a dinner for New Zealanders in Hanoi tomorrow night. The other good news is that I can cast my vote at the embassy tomorrow, hopefully we will have some preliminary election results to talk about by then.

I had an idea for a culture jam that I was disappointed not to have time for, and the silver lining of our predicament gives me the time to do....
We are going to spend a day picking up rubbish and classifing it as we go. We are going to gift the valuable items we collect to the unsung heroes in Hanoi who make their living 'waste picking' - collecting recyclable materials for sale to depots.
We will compost the organic matter and then take what is left to the two wheeled bins on the corner for landfilling (our aim is to have as little of this possible).

I think that we may raise some eyebrows but hopefully we will be successful in raising this important issue in a positve and constructive way. Currently 90% of Hanois waste ends up in landfill.

Hanoi Tsunami 31/10/08

It rained all night last night and I woke to find Duan at the end of my bed plugging plastic bags under our door (to the balcony) to block off the rain which was pouring in under the door and had flooded the house! Luckily nothing was damaged although some items that had been on the floor were now a bit wet!

Over breakfast Duan thought that maybe Hanoi would be a bit flooded as the drainage system was not designed to cope with such high levels of rain. I set off to pick up my laundry from the office to discover that Hanoi was indeed in flood. The streets were aflow with water overflowing from the manky lake and some of the scenes were so unreal that I had to dash home to get my camera.

It was bizarre with people continuing on with their day like nothing was happening. The influx of motorbikes on the footpath which wasn’t as deep as the road made being a pedestrian in Hanoi even more dangerous and I was hit by side mirrors, baskets and boxes etc several times. Apparently Hanoi floods like this about 10 times a year so the locals were taking it in their stride.

When I ventured out again to check on Craig who was sick in the guesthouse down the road and get a pizza for dinner (sky’s request) I was wading through water that was over my knees. The pizza place had a white board managed by a staff member in an attempt to stop the water washing into the restaurant whenever a bus or large car actually managed to drive past creating what Craig aptly named the Hanoi Tsunami. I ordered an ice coffee (it is still hot despite the rain) to enjoy while I waited for our dinner and was entertained by the goings on outside and the staff sweeping water out from under my feet. It was quite surreal.

It hasn’t stopped raining all evening and I am not sure how high the water will be in the morning but we are hoping to wade out of here to catch a bus to Halong Bay to be tourists on Cat Ba Island for a couple of days before we board our flight home on the 5th. Wish us fair weather!

Thundering Hanoi 30/10/08

Hanoi has treated us to some more enormous thunder storms and there has been much rain. In between showers we managed to visit Ho Chi Minh Mueseum which was interesting although a little obscure. We were really keen to visit the Ho Chi Mausoleum but Ho Chi Minh has been sent to Russia for maintenance so the Mausoleum was closed for two months. I am kind of glad about this as it was a bit gruesome and I found out later that his request was for a quiet cremation. I think peoples wishes should be respected. It is a bit of a controversy here with many people thinking the same and also not being happy about the amount of money being spent to maintain both the Mausoleum and also Ho Chi Minh himself. Viet Nam is not a rich country and it does look and seem quite extravagant….

We got a bit sick of being haranged by every cyclo and taxi driver to take us places, one even reversed down the whole st shouting at us to get in. Also every shop keeper and stall holder would try their best to get us inside. I am sure there is some sort of tourist fatigue and I think we had it. We decided to walk away as quick as we could and after a fair distance, not being able to find any street signs we flagged down a cyclo driver and asked him to ride us back to the lake where we are staying. This was a hairraising experience with nothing between us and the traffic of midday Hanoi.

We made like locals and had a rest in the middle of the day before venturing out into the old quarter to find some silky gifts. After spending about an hour looking into every shop on Huang Gai (Silk St) we decided to avoid any shops that had doors as these were all very expensive. The doorless shops were much cheaper and also friendlier and we had a great time hunting out many beautiful silky treats for people.

Fond Farewells 29/10/08

Yesterday was a busy day indeed! Being my last day we had to work hard to fit in everything that we had planned to do but hadn’t quite managed yet….

We started with a waste audit in the morning and took the opportunity to send everyone off in different directions to pick up any inorganic rubbish they could find. We had 45 minutes to find as much rubbish as possible. Not much was found in the HEPA grounds but much was gathered from the banks of the river and also the public roadway which cuts though HEPA property. Many people use both the road and the river as an access for harvesting things from the rainforest. These people leave a lot of litter behind them.

When the groups came back to base outside the kitchen, we classified their findings into different types of waste and discussed why things were classified this way and what could be done with the materials. We found quite a few batteries that were in various forms of decomposition. There is nothing available to deal with these in Vietnam so we had no choice but to send them to the dump along with everything else (that couldn’t be reused or recycled, we wrapped them up as best as we could to at least contain the damage.

While we were looking at the waste from around Miriam and Craig’s house we found….. a baby snake! I was very excited to see a snake on my last day and even though it was a baby it was a deadly variety which was expertly handled and thrown off into the nearby bush (again glad it is my last day..) by Duan who is very experienced with such things.

In the afternoon we had planned to make a mini worm farm for Amalee to take care of so I could demonstrate how you could provide everything worms needed with recycled material. It really was a mini farm as we used a very small (500ml) ice cream container left over from Sky’s treat when we went into Vinh City earlier in the week.

Duan had been thinking ahead since my designing a worm farm session earlier in the week and had gathered some materials in readiness. So after an exciting time finding many compost worms in the kitchen banana circle (in the pouring tropical rain) we built this one together too. This is a practice model to learn about how to manage them effectively before moving onto a bigger scale system to cater for the needs of the whole HEPA property. The mini farm is under house 3 being cared for by Amalee and Rebecca and the larger model is under house 2 being cared for by the students with help from Robert. I will be offering advise from the other side of the world when they need it. Hopefully I have done my job well enough now that they won’t need my help, at least about wormfarming anyway.

Waste Audit and Worm farms complete, I was free to pack my bag and clean up our living space for the last three and a half weeks. I had to say goodbye to Rebecca and Amalee at dinner as the idea of us leaving had sent Amalee over the edge and Rebecca had to take her home before she got anymore upset. This was really hard and we all had a good cry. After dinner we all set off to house 2 where a farewell surprise had been prepared. I wasn’t sure what to expect but the staff had prepared a hilarious slide show containing many highlights of our time at HEPA. Someone cheeky had spliced in some similar pictures of animals in the same poses so it made me laugh and cry at the same time.

Vin lead a speech on behalf of the students which really made me cry and then they presented me with my very own ‘chopper’ a beautiful hand made tool for making mulch by hand. It is made by the mong people in Simacai in the far north of Vietnam and is such good quality that it will last me a life time. Joe would have loved it and I can’t wait to show it to everyone and use it at the community garden. I must remember not to leave it in my hand luggage though! I was so moved by this that before I knew it I was singing (at the front, by myself and in front of everyone!) Utai nga mai, nga waka…..Aue!

Then it was hugs all around and a quick dash to the car in the rain. Tu Kien is accompanying us to Hanoi, Huan was driving and Lauchy came along for the ride. I cried all the way to the next town. I am such a sook when it comes to saying goodbye.

We had time to spare after checking that the bus had room for us so Sky shouted us all a drink at a local café. We got back just in time to throw our luggage in the bottom and jump aboard. It was a sleeper bus with an interesting arrangement of ‘beds’ that were actually very comfortable and for $13 each it was a great deal for a trip to Hanoi (8 hours) and also a bed for the night. It was super clean and we even had to take our shoes off before boarding. Sky was most impressed with the sit down toilet! That was quite a treat for her…..

Halong Bay.... the long way around!

Well we are in Halong City at an expensive restaurant drinking lots of coffee to make use of their free internet. We can see the gorgeous islands of Halong Bay but alas we are stuck here for the night unless we feel like stumping up with US$100 (not likely) for a private boat. We missed the ferry due to a series of unfortunate (and in retrospect comical) events.

We farewelled Duan and Tu Kien from their house this morning as they were off to visit Duan's family for the weekend. We were undecided whether to brave the horrendous weather (see previous posts that I will load when I get access to a computer that will let me insert my flash drive) and risk a trip to Halong or stay home (in hanoi)and just relax and be cosy out of the rain.

We decided to risk it and head off into the rain to find a taxi. Luggage in tow we managed to find roads that were not past our knees flooded to cross and when it started to pour again we flagged down a taxi. This is the first event. We are now soaked to the skin, with wet luggage in tow. I thought I had managed to communicate via my vietnamese phrasebook and our map that we wanted to go to My Dinh bus station. Apparently we hadn't as he dropped us off in a place with no buses and pointed to the right further down the road. He wouldn't go any further as the flood water was too high.

Righto, I thought in my bravest Kiwi style. Let's go Sky. (Sky had stayed in doors all of yesturday watching a Simpsons Halloween Marathon instead of getting soaked with her mad mother out in the pouring rain taking photos) so the flood was new and exciting for her. She rolled up her pants, I hitched up my dress and off we set. I don't mind getting wet, I don't even mind getting wet in dirty water but it gets a bit treacherous when you are negotiating your way along third world, pot holed roads and paths when you can't see where you are putting your feet! We had a few close calls but managed to keep our luggage above water most of the time. After carrying on like this for a couple of Kilometers and still not finding any sign of a bus stop, we flagged down a taxi that was going in the opposite direction.

We were a bit bedraggled by this point and absolutely dripping wet but the taxi driver didn't mind as he already had about 10cm of water sloshing about on the floor of his car. Turns out he spoke good english and was an expert flood water driver so the ride was really fun and lightened our mood immensely. He delivered us to the bus stop and we only had to wade across one road to start hunting for our bus.

We couldn't find the entrance so made like locals and climbed through a spot where the bars had been stretched a little apart. I'm not sure I would have fitted through 7 weeks ago!

Anyway we were spotted by a local who asked us where we were going and ushered us to a bus that didn't have the corresponding signs I was looking for. They assured me it was going to halong and that it would cost 8 fingers held up - I took this to mean 80,000 and said no and went to walk away. Someone quickly whipped out a ticket and showed me 65,000 which is what I had been told. I double checked that it was going to ha long and then we climbed aboard. I checked with the driver that it was indeed 65,000 to which he hastily agreed, making a great joke about it with the locals although I couldn't tell what he was saying. It was only when we stopped half way and I spotted the very swish bus that we were supposed to be on that I figured that the 8 fingers meant 8,000 dong and I had insisted upon paying 65,000! Duh! Actually, despite it being a bit cramped it was a bargain for 80c and not a bad way to travel at all. At least I now know which bus to catch back to hanoi!

We didn't even get taken right to the city, we had to catch a further taxi and got accosted as soon as we arrived by someone who could give us a bed and book our boat and .....

We were totally skeptical and fatigued so I got rid of him by taking his card and telling him that we needed a look around first. It turns out that he is recommended by the few people I have asked so we may just go and spend the night there. I was keen for a beach sleep but the look on skys face was a definate "NO WAY IN HELL!" so beds indoors with air conditioning it is.....

Reflections on a powerful journey

We are leaving here on the overnight sleeper bus from Vinh city to Hanoi on the 29th which is only a few days away. I am in two minds about how I feel about this. While I am yearning to get back to Farrell, my own bed, my own garden and also the community one, my friends and family and also my work which I love; I am at the same time realising that I have just adjusted to life here. I can pick up and use chop sticks without having to think about it. I can converse better with the students between their new English and my new Vietnamese. I am into the daily rhythm although we still quite often miss breakfast (grin!) and also I have made many new friends who I will be sad to leave.

The PRI team consisting of myself (and Sky), Rebecca (and Amalee), Robert (Sink) has happily turned out to be a dynamic and highly skilled and effective and complimentary team with Lauchy, Craig (and Miriam and Kade) also contributing much to the success of our work here. I am going to miss them all greatly.

As I enter into the last few days of our stay at HEPA, I want to share some of the most powerful learnings I have had here.

1) I used to think that I lived a very modest, low carbon lifestyle (by western standards I do) but here I have been shown just how much of a 'consumer' I really am.
I am committed to implementing the lessons I have learnt here and applying them as best I can within the context of my home community. Hopefully inspiring others along the way. It is not about 'doing without' but rather about being creative and resourceful in building an abundant lifestyle that does not exploit either the planet or its inhabitants. Permaculture provides us with abundant tools for this purpose.

2) I used to think that I was part of an integrated and cohesive community (thinking on a city level) here I realise that my lifestyle is actually quite isolated and while I do enjoy my own company, having experienced a complete lack of it for the last 7 weeks, I realise how little I actually share with my wider community at home and also how little privacy I actually need. While I am craving some quite down time when I get home to assimilate and integrate the journey I have traveled (physically, mentally and spiritually) I have learnt alot about myself, my boundaries and how I relate with people and I am committed to upping my level of community living on every level.

3)Society is an incredibly interesting topic and here, eating, sleeping, working and playing together every moment of the day is a given. It actually is the most efficient use of resources, especially when it comes to cooking. I have always thought it is a bit crazy to have 14,000 individual households (based in Whanganui)each using energy to prepare meals at the same time and eating them alone. What better way to build community than to share food together more often? I work long hours at home and when I come home I don't have alot of spare energy to prepare food for our small family. I would however take an afternoon off to prepare with joy a feast for many families to take my turn at feeding people and in turn share meals prepared by other families. I am lucky to live in a community that does share a meal every week but even this requires each of us to prepare individual plates of food to share. HEPA has a full time cook who feeds everybody. This frees everybody up to work more hours in the garden or doing other work around the farm. Students take turns to help prepare food and also clean up after the meal. Everything is shared. Everything. I think Bill Mollison once said something like "It is only by what we share that we are able to access what we need to live sustainably." or something like that - I'll look it up for you later.

4) Sharing is another interesting thing. I like to share and I share alot but have been challenged here by how I think about what is 'mine'.
Everything here belongs to everybody and I have had very powerful reflections about how I relate to things I use with some sense of ownership. "My bed, my blanket, my mangoes in fridge,my ...." What exactly is ownership? What rights does it give me over anybody else? Why should my needs be greater than anybody elses? The other side of this has been sharing the little resources we have brough here - balsamic vinegar, Milk, olives etc - I share these willingly. Even more so after experiencing hardship and hunger (Sky more than me).

Overall I have had many powerful reflections about western living practises and attitudes. There is so little physical resource here, pretty harsh living conditions and yet there is such an abundance of community, culture and joy for life that is truly inspiring. I am deeply moved by the kindness and love of all of the vietnamese people that I have met and been living with. In light of the very difficult history of this small south east asian country, this is even more humbling.

It is true what they say 'Attitude changes everything' and we really do have the power to transform our world. As geoff says "You can solve all of the problems of the world in a garden." but only if you share it!