Picture Links AE2008 Vietnam

We have had many pictures from all participants of the trip added to the Internet:
Here are the links

Kien Giang:
http://catalystvietnam.smugmug.com/gallery/4571568_jCuZo#269455688_nesjA

Dong Thap:
http://catalystvietnam.smugmug.com/gallery/4611888_rexGn#272021823_eEdGu

Dong Thap - Saigon bike ride (I was the official photographer for this trip)
http://catalystvietnam.smugmug.com/gallery/4635386_X9nUJ#273604966_jHDgW

Final Numbers:

This post is copied from our fearless leader - Caroline


Our expedition is over - most of us are home now and going through some culture shock and of course dealing with jet lag. For such a huge group, we were an amazing team that worked hard with an exhausting schedule in just 8 short days. We want to thank all those that have followed our blogs, donated money, toys, stickers, hats, t-shirts and everything else. Your generosity is amazing and so much appreciated.

Here are our final numbers:

over $53,000 raised and priceless in-kind donations

350 children & 40 chaperones went to camp (including transportation, lodging, meals & clothes) to see the ocean and have fun! (they traveled by bus up to 14 hours to get to camp!)

250 bikes given to every child in our scholarship program in 5 different towns

10 kg. of rice, 10 kg. of dried beans, 5 kg. of sugar, 1 box of instant noodles and some candy :) to 280 families (that's enough to feed a family of 4-6 people for a month!)

700+ "fun bags" given to school children in 5 different villages - the fun bags were 100% made with donations of toys, clothes, stickers and drawings (mostly from school children in the U.S.)

350 "fun bags" given to all the children that attended camp.

2 new houses started in Rach Gia (Kien Giang)

2 houses renovated in Tan Hoi Trung (Dong Thap)

1 new house started in Tan Hoi Trung

1 house renovated in My Hiep (Dong Thap)

1 new house started in My Hiep

2 houses renovated in Sa Dec (Dong Thap)....all in 5 days*

we also funded the construction of 2 new houses (1 in My Hiep and 1 in Sa Dec)

for medical check ups:

in Rach Gia (Kien Giang - day 1 - 82, day 2 - 275, day 3 - 182, total= 539

47% were treated for parasites, 100% of the patients work and live in the garbage dump

in Tan Hoi Trung (Dong Thap) day 4 - 277 total (192 under age 18, 2 needed follow up)

in My Hiep (Dong Thap) day 5 - 313 (203 under age 18, 5 needed follow up)

in Sa Dec (Dong Thap) day 6 - 231 and 7 kids at our orphanage...

a grand total of 1367 patients in 6 days

after flying thousands of miles to get to vietnam we then traveled:
120 miles via plane to Rach Gia (Kien Giang)

70 miles from Rach Gia to Cao Lanh (Dong Thap) by bus and two ferries - 6 hours

10 miles from Cao Lanh to Tan Hoi Trung (Dong Thap) by bus and tuk tuk - 1 hour

15 miles from Cao Lanh to My Hiep (Dong Thap) by bus - 45 minutes

25 miles from Cao Lanh to Sa Dec (Dong Thap) by bus and one ferry - 1 hour

85 miles from Sa Dec to Saigon/HCMC by bus - 4 hours

15 miles from edge of Saigon to our hotel by bus - 1 hour

75 miles from Saigon to Long Hai (for camp) by bus - 3 hours

80 miles from Long Hai back to Saigon by bus - 3 1/2 hours

*our bike team traveled 100 miles from Cao Lanh to Saigon in 12 hours and survived!We're already looking forward to the next expedition (I think!)...thanks again for all your support! More pictures will be posted soon!THANK YOU for being the Catalyst for positive change for the children of Vietnam!

Saigon & Taun

What a surprise we had arriving in Saigon, to the area I had spent most of my time in during my four previous stays in Vietnam. So much has grown, been built, and the people in the area appear much more prosperous. The sidewalks were even, not the previous hazard that they presented 8 years ago. It is actually looking like a combination of Times Square and 5th Avenue. Signs of poverty still exists, such as a man I watched with flip flops on his hands dragging himself across the street, unable to walk and no wheelchair available to him. Even the "chachkeeze" in the shops are a bit higher end.

My first "mission" was to find my friend Taun, who was an 8 year old boy I met and fell in love with on my first visit to Vietnam. He worked the streets by the tourist hotels selling post cards to support himself, his two younger siblings and his Mom. I would take him to dinner and lecture him to learn English and work in the tourist industry. I had kept in touch with him for a few years by sending his picture and money with families going to Vietnam to adopt. I would ask them to just show his picture to anybody near the hotels and ask them to find him...believe it or not, it never failed. I would send a picture of myself and him so he knew who was sending him the money.

Sadly, adoptions from Vietnam stopped for a few years so my sources ran dry and we lost touch. I arrived with an 8 year old photo of Taun. I showed it to a woman on the street who did not understand, however a man near by came over and asked what I was looking for. I showed him the picture and explained it was 8 years old and Taun would be 18 now. He studied the picture and said "I know him". I gave him a few bucks and 20 minutes later a woman came running off a scooter crying and hugging me at the hotel. It was Taun's mother! I was given his phone number and called him. Hearing his voice, realizing that he is now a man and not the young boy I knew was a shock, not to mention that he had a cell phone. He promised to arrive the next day at 6:00pm.

The next night at 6:00pm sharp "my" Taun walked through the doors of the hotel. I can't put into words how happy I was to see him. he looks fantastic and best of all, his English is amazing and he works at a tourist resort in Phu Quoc island....He is doing very well, has overcome the poverty he was raised with and still helps support his family. He traveled 9 hours to come to see us! I have worried for years about what ever happened to him and can finally sleep well now knowing his is fine.

When I asked him where he would like to have dinner, he replied "let's go to Lemon grass, the first restaurant you ever took me too". That was the first restaurant we went to however nine years ago as we walked in, the management pushed him out and told us he was not welcome to eat there. We explained he was our guest and just took him right in. Today, the staff held the door open to us and him alike! The other boy in this picture is a very special friend of Long's (Noah) and us as well named Phat!

Please note the women off to the left of the picture. We have named her "Gladys kravit's" after the nosey neighbor from the show Bewitched. She stared at us throughout the entire meal as it was obvious that we all knew each other well and she just could not stand knowing how we all fit together. As we left, she finally asked if we were all an adoptive family and I told her "yes, I suppose that you can say that". What a great night this was.

Lots of stuff and pictures

Well, the expedition has ended and we are back in Saigon for the last few days. I have not been up to par on my blogging as in past trips and I apologize. The schedule we kept was amazingly busy and by the time we returned from work, and had dinner, our heads would hit the pillow and that was the end.

It was a successful expedition, ending with all 350 catalyst sponsored kids from three provinces all coming with us to a 1 day 2 night "camp" at the beach. We had to give all of the kids Dramamine as they have never ridden in a vehicle before and the two hour ride to the beach made most of them sick. Not to mention that they had never been to a hotel or seen the ocean. The "garbage dump kids", (how I wish we had a different name for them) wanted nothing more than to stay in their rooms and take showers as they have never had a shower before. Our minds really can not wrap around what these kids were going through.

We had stations set up for the kids. I had the fun job of taking a Polaroid picture of each child, again many have never had a photo of themselves. Then they went to the frame station where they made a frame for their picture. We had a twister station, a mask making station, a nail station, and many more.

We made a "rope" out of people to section off part of the water and everyone went for a swim and of course these kids did not know how to swim so our nerves were shot fairly quickly but the smiles and squeals made it all worth while. The kids were wonderful and I finally have learned some Vietnamese that can be understood. The girls had a great time figuring out what I was trying to say, having a Hugh laugh, corrected me and then got so happy when I finally said it right. Now I am speaking a bit on the street and people understand.....

I am fairly certain that our family will be back for AE2008 and welcome anybody to join us. If you have ever considered any type of humanitarian efforts, this is a fantastic opportunity. We did end with a day yesterday just for the workers at a hot spring resort where we treated ourselves to $ 8.00/hour massages, foot rubs, Chinese herbal foot treatments, and much more. We had our farewell dinner and an auction. The catalyst sponsored kids each entered artwork into a contest which prizes of scholarships were awarded. The winning pictures were auctioned off and with emotions being so high, they had big price tags. the auction netted $5,000.00 from the volunteers which is to be used for 200 school scholarships for the boys who are now facing trafficking into Cambodia as the girls were in the past. The work never ends, but great progress is being made. We purchased a picture that Jesse wanted however unfortunately the picture Noah wanted went for $1,100.00....way out of our price range.

For more information and stuff that happened, you can check out other volunteers blogs. Click on my link to the catalyst blog and anybody who blogged on this trip has a link to their blog, I promise you will enjoy the reading.

The picture feature is not working so will add more later. I have about 350 pictures uploaded to Kodak gallery and if you would like to view them, E-mail me and I will send you the link.

Kids distribution team and today's stuff

I have not posted much about the kids so far as I am not with them during the day. Martha who is with the kids team was kind enough to give me her camera chip so I can post kid pictures. They have been working hard, very hard. Noah was pulled today form distribution to packaging as they needed heavy stuff done and he is a work horse. Jesse appears to be having a ball during the day with her new friends but when she is exhausted at night she says she wants to come home. I suspect she is having fun but would not be disappointed to leave tomorrow. Here are kids sorting and delivering bikes to the catalyst sponsorship kids.The kids have distributed 250 bicycles to girls in the catalyst sponsorship program along with a months worth of food to hundreds of families.

The building team has almost completed two houses in Kien Giang, and have completed three homes in the Dong Thap province in 1.5.days....go builders. The families who the homes are for are working right along with the team.
Caroline is briefing the kids distribution team.

The medical team I don't have a full count, but today alone we completed 313 medical exams. It was a brutal day, the crowds became ugly as people begged to be seen, stole tickets that had been handed out to those who had been chosen to be seen and numerous other ploys to get in. it is so sad to turn people away however there are only so many of us and so much time. I had a women begging me to get her 5 year old in who looked about 2-3 years old. She put my hand on her head to show me she had a fever. I admit I found myself calculation how to sneak medication out of our pharmacy, but really we just can't as the needs go on and on and we must stop somewhere. It is just so heart breaking. I was on crowd control today and ended up doing comic relief for the waiting masses....the Vietnamese think i am REALLY funny, or they were just laughing at me. Either way, I had a ball, made some adorable little friends who followed me all day. Two girls actually rode home and changed into their best clothing and came back just for me to get a picture. I took their address and hope to get the pictures printed in Saigon and mail them the pictures.

I am eating so much, a big difference from my previous four trips, I figured I was sick on every trip as careful as I was so why starve and get sick anyway. I must say I have had some of the most delicious meals and have no had one stomach issue. many on our trip have not been so lucky. Last night, we were served rabbit, okay, I draw the line and the waiter did not know what to do as I went running off screaming with Jesse screaming at my side. Jesse and I have moved to the vegetarian table permanantly. Above is our kids visiting a school and playing duck duck goose with the kids from the school.

Tuk Tuks and pork chops

We got on the buses this morning, drove a short distance and pulled up to a line of Tuk-Tuks. The buses could not make it into the area we were working in so we had to take the Tuk-Tucks. We crammed ourselves and supplies into and on top of them and off we went, over wood planked bridges that we watched the planks jump up after we crossed. It was really a highlight. Our Tuk-tuck group laughed the entire ride over yesterday when the kids returned from the beach. Jesse has not eaten anything except white rice since we arrived. Martha happily told me that Jesse really enjoyed lunch and ate very well. My first thought was, "wow, they must have found pasta". Wrong, they found PORK CHOPS!
I am not sure what part of the last name Connelly- COHEN Martha seemed to have missed. Once my heart stopped pounding out of my chest, and I realized the lightening bolts were not stiking, we had a good laugh, which continued onto the Tuk Tucks this morning. Possibly next time Martha could add a bit of shredded cheese to them and add a milkshake on the side!


Once we arrived, we took a medical team photo and then we set up our stations and saw another 300 or so people. One woman was waiting for the nurse and was spitting up blood. We raced her to the front of the line to the doctor in a panic. Turns out, many people here chew Betel nuts, sort of our equivalent of chewing tobacco. They chew it and spit it out but it looks like blood....not to mention how it turns their teeth black.

Our next unexpected event was the arrival of five men who were building another charity house and the roof collapsed in on them. This was the one day that due to bus confusion, Katherine did not have out main "for the team" medical bag that contained sutures. After much searching, a suture was found, lidocane was gotten from the dentist and out neuro-surgeon sutured up the gashed head wound. The other guys were badly bruised.


This is the hospital we were working out of. The FDA would shut us down if they saw us counting pills out of plastic grocery bags sitting around on dirty tables....








Went for a walk around after lunch and decided to try my hand at rice picking, the field workers laughed at me, go figure.

This house had dinner ready and waiting which has a different meaning here. Hey, this solves the lack of refrigeration problem....falling asleep now, will be back tomorrow.

Lastly, this is Gina, also from CT., who appears to be "switching teams". Sorry jean, I am only the messenger....

By the way, these are the only facilities available to us and it is awful! I had to put the photo up, one slip in that place and I would need a bullet to my head.

This is a bank of homes in Dong Thap where we are working.

The road to Dong Thap

We wrapped up our work in Kien Giang, packed our numerous bags of supplies, loaded the bus and headed out for the province of Dong Thap on Tuesday March 25th (I think). We left at 4:00pm and 5 hours and two ferry rides later we arrived.

The kids were enjoying the ride, being silly, singing songs until it got late and we had to get off the bus two times, walk through crowded markets and onto the ferry, cross, walk and re board the bus. It got tiresome. The sights along the way were fascinating. Life revolves around the Mekong delta, the homes are built on stilts hanging over the river. All aspects of life get done in the river. Food and water come from the river and human waste is deposited into the river, and bathing is done in the river - yes people, the SAME river. AND, the Mississippi is clean compared to this water!

Ooops, don't know how this got in but this is a group waiting to be seen by our medical team.

The kids had a day off of work today and were taken to a beach. Evidently, it is a rare sight for people in this area to see 8 white adults with 25 predominately Vietnamese kids spending a day at the beach. From the moment the group arrived, they were followed by locals who watched their every move, the watched them eat, watched them swim and watched them play and of course in true Vietnamese style the laughed at everything. A good time was had by all, well all on that team anyway, the rest of us were busy at work!