yesterday was disaster relief day here

trying to upload photos of the wedding, the internet was going up down / slow ... so gave up in frustration ....

It's Tuesday lunchtime now, nearly everyone has gone out for a while to eat, get something to eat, go home, and then come back here and bunk down on the floor and have the daily nanna nap .... Think I will just stay in and do this and then make a couple of vegemite and RyVita biscuits for my lunch. Supplies are getting very low now ... will be out of all aussie food by tomorrow ... then may need another trip back up to Danang to visit Metro and find supplies of the western kind. Tried to share my lunch with the girls and boys here yesterday, but they no like the vegemite at all.... guess it's the same with me trying some of their lunch ... There are some things that are great, and other things, well, my stomach (and it's a pretty strong one) starts turning with the first whiff of "nasty" food.

Yesterday was a great day when we finally got out the supplies to our CHIA families that needed help. Many of them are / were housed in bamboo houses, and they are gone, and many of the brick ones are damaged. Clothing and food was lost ... lots of it .. so we had boxes and boxes of noodles and heaps and heaps of clothing to distribute. Spend the morning sorting through and bagging up clothing, and then started the stacking on the footpath for the trip to the districts for distribution. Loc (lop) out it guy couldn't get a car from down the street, so .... no problem ... the guys and girls just grabbed their motor bikes and started stacking bags and boxes in front and behind them, then they took off down the street to go to the ferry (not like aussie ferries I tell ya) .... and then back again ... like little ants for an hour or so just getting everything to the ferry.

BM has the task of minding everything that is roadside to ensure that the locals didn't come along and steal it all ..... and I'm sure that if I wasn't there ... the roadside would have been cleared in a couple of minutes .... You gotta be quick in the country sometimes ...

When it was all taken to the ferry ... the rest of the (Vietnamese) staff spend the afternoon ... getting to the other side, and them to the communities for the distribution..... BM did not get to go - a new westerner would have caused some embarassment at their situations. But I was just glad to have helped from the home office.

We have another couple of ausies Garry and Sandra who are big beneficiaries to CHIA here at the moment ... they are working hard out in the field ... Garry is a builder, and sandra his off-sider ... busy restoring some roofs, and securing
shaky roofs (there are more big storms coming) .... adding doors and windows to some of the homes (that didn't even have any before) ... and replacing some that were lost by Katsana's winds and rain. Many homes here don't have windows or doors .... just walls and roof ... fly screens are way out of the question ...

We've done some prep work at the office for a disaster management plan for the staff / their families / and the office for the future. But honestly, i think it's us westerners who get concerned about what MIGHT happen in the future, the local natives just take it as it comes, and clean up after, then wait for the next thing to happen ... think that somewhere in the middle might be healthiest for all, but that's not going to happen.

Not much else to tell at the moment - work is going great, the people are so good, what they do is amazing for what little resources are available. All the money that everyone back home entrusted me with has now been spent. And spent wisely, We have some children who now have one year of education, books, food, support, uniforms etc .... we have rebuilt the home of a family of one of the young children who has just had heart surgery .... we have provided the protein for all the children at the orphanage to supplement their meals for three months .... we have bought a motor bike (so cheap - like $40 AUD) for another family so they can take their child to school, which allows the child to live at home ... and the bike can also transport their farm produce to the market. So all in all, we have made a difference to the lives of quite a few people, and i know that it has been 100% spent on the people