What you see above is pretty much my view of Vietnam. For six intensive days, a squad of around 25 students and five teachers revamped classrooms for Vietnamese students in Tra Vinh, one of the poorest areas of the country.
Under the watchful eye of Uncle Ho, whose picture was in every classroom, we ripped up old tiles, dug out dirt, laid rock, covered it with cement and tile, scrapped the rooms, and repainted the walls and the shutters. Pretty glamorous, right?
But the cool thing? The students worked like the best team ever. There were no issues. They worked hard even though they drenched themselves constantly in the humidity of tropical Southeast Asia. They were tired, but they tolerated roaches, geckos, giant spiders, and all these things to do good in the world.
I’d like to show you a picture of the finished rooms, but unfortunately the ones I’ve downloaded are security locked. As is the glamorous picture of me in my mask, scraping paint.
But it wasn’t all work. I did get to do a little sightseeing. The picture below is from Cai Ba floating market.
But, for the most part, what we did was make the world a better place, which is an awesome reason to travel around the world, and is what being a citizen of the world is all about. And I’m still trying to digest that in different ways, and help the students digest that.
I’m sure good fiction will come out of this. Eventually.
This is so cool! (Not literally.) Sometimes hard work is cleansing ;o)
(My neice is currently doing a two month stint in Thailand, but all we ever see is the pictures of her when she’s having fun. Never working….)