A Month Since Sapa

At least a month has gone by since I left the wonderful kids and life at Sapa O'Chau, and I've been very lazy with keeping my blog up-to-date, so potentially nobody will be reading this, except me, and possibly my folks!

Anyhow, The trip to Hanoi with all 26 children from Sapa was a great success; HCM Mausoleum, the Worker's Theatre for anti-trafficking exhibitions and interactive theatre and then to finish off VIP seats to see Simple Plan and other well-known bands at the MTV Exit concert. The loved it and were jumping around in their seats for the whole 2 1/2 hours, along with 40 000 other people. I think it was pretty mind blowing for them.

More pictures of the Hanoi trip can be seen here

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED SAPA O'CHAU IN MAKING THIS HAPPEN.

We raised enough money to fund another trip for the non-residential students, who unfortunately couldn't come on the Hanoi trip.

Some new pictures

I've uploaded quite a few new pictures on my Picassa webpage. Here is the link for those who don't have it:

MY PHOTOS

And here is Jenna and I in complete Hmong dress last Friday. I couldn't believe how hot I was in the layers of dark hemp - and that's without hiking up a large mountain carrying large amounts of vegetables or chickens on my back...

HANOI HERE WE COME!!

With just 5 full days to go, we have raised over $700 which is enough to take all the residential students to Hanoi, and the remainder will go towards another school trip for the day students. 
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED. The children at the school are very very excited, as are we!


After Hanoi, the students will return to Sapa. Simple Plan - one of the main bands playing at the concert on Saturday - will then visit Sapa O'Chau and spend two days with the children. Here, they will learn more about human trafficking and play a part in a music documentary (of human trafficking), compiled by MTV Exit. Unfortunately I won't be in Sapa for this recording but I can tell you they are learning the songs well and enthusiastically play them over and over again on their phones. 

School Trip to Hanoi 26/05

As some of you already know, Sapa O'Chau is trying to raise $500 to take the residential students of the school on a trip of a lifetime to Hanoi, to:

1. Raise the students’ awareness of human trafficking

(a big problem in Sapa) 

2. Go to the MTV Exit’s Anti-Trafficking concert

3. Visit important Vietnamese cultural sites 

4. Give them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience Hanoi

Most of our students have never even been out of the Sapa, or Lao Cai district so going to Hanoi is something they've only ever dreamed of!

 Please visit our website if you'd like to donatewww.sapaochau.org.

In Hanoi we will take the students to the MTV Anti-Human Trafficking concert http://mtvexit.org/vietnam/ where there will be bands from Canada, Korea, Australia and Vietnam performing. 

Visit Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Ethnology Museum  http://www.vme.org.vn/aboutus_history.asp

I am teaching them the lyrics of some of Simple Plan's (Pop group from Canada) songs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSxmPoe_fCM, which they have all now downloaded onto their phones and play incessantly. 

For the Hmong and Vietnamese (especially the Hmong) singing and dancing is a bit part of their culture, so it feels good to be teaching them English through a medium which they enjoy and can easily relate to. 

It's amazing to see how quickly they learn new words through song, and I don't know why we don't do more singing in secondary schools back home. Probably because the teenagers there wouldn't be seen dead joining in the community spirit of a group sing-song!

So, I'm excited about Hanoi, but also looking forward to the day where I don't wake up with Simple Plan's Summer Paradise running round and round in my head like a mouse on an exercise wheel! It reminds me a little Joe Simpson's description in Touching the Void with the tune Brown Girl in the Ring stuck in his head. Obviously I am not on the brink of death, struggling to find base camp in the Andes mountain range, but I certainly would not want to die with a cheesy pop ballard about love and summer paradise as an ear worm. Perhaps I am now in a good position to climb Fansipan (4100m), and should do so before Summer Paradise is replaced with something else!

Thunderstorms in Sapa

After an unusually dry start to the month of May, the rains have finally come, water is back at the school and so are the students, oh and the teachers.  June and July are apparently the wettest months in North Vietnam, but there is a terrifyingly big and close thunderstorm most nights here now - great crashes in the middle of the night that wake me up and draw me to the window to see the fork lightning overhead.

Last night was the best fork lighting I have ever seen! It traveled the entire distance across the sky, sometimes hitting the mountains behind Sapa and illuminating the entire ridge but mainly littering the night sky with giant forks. I didn't take any pictures of videos but it looked a bit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2o8tCGui_s

One of the other volunteers is here as part of her Geography Masters research trip and is spending her time interviewing mainly the Hill Tribes. This is to find out how much the local weather conditions have changed over the last few years, and how this has impacted on their crop production - especially the staple rice.  I don't know what her findings are yet, but when I find out I will post more information! I do know that Vietnam is one of the countries at high risk from climate change, with her long coastline, low-lying areas and dependence on agriculture nationwide. I found this report on the WorldBank website, and have only read the summary as the rest looks dense and long http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/documents/Vietnam-EACC-Social.pdf

But, now we have some rain:

• The rice paddies are full of light green tender shoot
• The corn in the school garden is 2 feet high
• And, my pumpkin, cucumber and bean sprouts have shot up to10cm in just 2 days!

Me on my balcony

What a view!!

School's out for 2 days!!

Sapa is heaving with Vietnamese holiday-ers as every body has 2 days off work and school to celebration the liberation of Vietnam - the end of the Vietnam War when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon (now Ho Chi Min City). There are an extra 10 000 tourists in Sapa for 4 days, with drinking, games, music, dancing and more drinking. It has a fantastic buzz about it but crossing the road is now a daily challenge, as is walking somewhere without being asked to buy an embroidered purse or skirt...

Yesterday (Monday) afternoon the few kids, who were hanging around at school, took us to the local village of Cat Cat where the river runs full and clear. We all swam, braved cliff jumps and splashed about in the water. Most of the kids could just fashion a doggy paddle, I suppose having taught themselves how to swim in the river. So, it was no surprise that they were tentative about jumping into the deep and dark pool.

Tom and Ngoc Chau, Jenna and Makayla

The, Kai, Cau, Chin and See swimming in river at Cat Cat 

The boys playing their bamboo flutes!

Most days are now hot, sunny and very clear and today I feel lethargic because of it. The rest of Vietnam is apparently at around 40-45 degrees so I should count my lucky stars that I'm not dissolving in a pool of my own sweat!