Tuesday's Report - Part 1 (but today is Wednesday!)

I was just about to give up posting anything today when Vietnam's totally unpredictable internet communication system let me on-line, so here I am!

Although it's Wednesday evening, I want to provide an update on Tuesday first. Tuesday was without question my most amazing day in Vietnam thus far.

I knew the day was off on the right foot when they had fried eggs on the menu for breakfast.....finally, some protein for me!!! (Don't get me wrong, there's been plenty of protein on the table at every meal....just not the kind I'm adventurous enough to eat. Again, squid is not in any of my four food groups.)

After breakfast, the medical team headed to the garbage dump in Kien Giang. This was actually the "old dump". The old dump got full, so the government had to open a new one several miles away. Most families who lived in the dump moved right along with it -- after all, there's no new garbage being added to the dump, so there's nothing to to scavenge. Approximately 30 families stayed behind though, in part because the old dump is closer to the school that Catalyst built. (My understanding is that the new dump is a couple of hours away by foot.) We visited the old dump because it's closer to the school, which is where we had been doing our medical work in Kien Giang.

Please, if you're reading this post, promise that you'll take the time to check back in after I've returned from Vietnam and posted photos from the dump. I can't possibly do what I saw justice in a quick blog before dinner -- you need to see the photos.

The dump is absolutely huge. I couldn't have imagined there was so much trash in all of Vietnam, much less in this one place. It stretches as far as the eye can see, with hills and valleys of garbage. You have to enter the dump by foot....parking a couple of hundred meters away. As you walk into the dump, you pass houses along the edge of path. Before you know it, you're in the dump. There are people -- children, adults, grandparents -- living, walking, sitting, right there amongst the trash. Their homes -- wooden lean-tos in some instances, shacks in others -- are built on top of and between piles of trash.

I took many photos as I walked through the trash, but I didn't take a photo of anyone without asking first. It just didn't feel right. I somehow wanted to believe they knew that I wasn't taking the photos because they were "novelties" or to cheapen them in any way like that, but because I want to remember what I saw in Vietnam and because I want to share the photos with others, hoping they will make any effort they choose to support efforts to help these people improve their lives.

Around one corner, I ran into three little boys that I remembered quite clearly from the clinic the day before. I took their photo and was absolutely thrilled when I realized that I had taken a photo of them together the day before at the clinic. It somehow made our work here very concrete for me -- to see the boys both at the clinic and then again surrounded by the garbage dump that is their home.

As we left, we walked along a small body of water in the dump. I looked up and saw a truck backed up to the water. The truck was literally emptying its tank of raw sewage.....pumping the sewage directly into the water that is these children's front yard.....the water that undoubtedly leads right to the water from which they drink and in which they bathe. It was horribly sad....but also incredibly important to see.

Tuesday afternoon at the clinic was absolutely wonderful. I can't talk about it now though.....I'm covered in bug spray and sunscreen after a day at the clinic today, and am scheduled to be at dinner in less than a half-hour.

More tomorrow.....if the internet connections here cooperate!