The Mekong Delta has been a real adventure. We did so much while we were there, from listening to typical music, to biking around an island, rode in sampans with little cone hats, hiked, and helped cook food in the kitchen. We loved our hosts, our beds with mosquito netting above and the basic bathrooms. Most of all, we loved the joyful spirits everyone shared together, along with our cooking instructors and our guide Hau. It was fantastic being on the water and stopping to see how coconut candy, puffed rice, sesame bars are made, how salt is gleaned from the ocean, how honey is collected and how fish sauce and snake wine is prepared. We saw so many people who lived and worked on their boats and along the water.
Now we are at our posh hotel, after walking through the night market and having a plentiful French-Vietnamese dinner. Ice cream at Fanny's was great as well as the Water Puppet Theater. Our new guide is Long. We look forward to some of the historical sites tomorrow along with our introduction to the Friendship Village.
March 22, 2011
March 11, 2011
Emma Willard School Group Unaffected by Japan's Earthquake / Tsunami
We just spoke with the guide in the Mekong Delta traveling with the Emma Willard school group. All are safe and unaffected by the earthquake and tsunami originating in Japan. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), Vietnam's coastal areas, including the Mekong Delta appears to remain unaffected by the earthquake/ tsunami originating off Japan's coast. The Emma Willard group will arrive in Hanoi this weekend. They will post another blog update of their traveling adventures once they access internet access in the city.
March 10, 2011
Emma Willard Girls Vietnam Trip Continues
Vietnam is still beautiful, intriguing and fascinating! After a late night and a few troubles, we woke to ANOTHER amazing breakfast (did I tell you there's someone to make eggs for you too?) and took off for China town. They toured a Temple and learned about making wishes for the dead and alive, then we went to the unification palace where we really learned about the history of the place through several presidents. My what amazing photos, rooms, basement, etc.! Our guide really knows his stuff! We had lunch in a buffet and tried the common hotpot soup along with tons of other delicious foods. The afternoon once again was spent with our friends at the Little Rose Shelter. Sara Berry presented them with money that they said they would use toward ingredients for their food. They are only allowed one outfit a year and often don't have flavoring for their foods. We learned about the history of the center and their needs and schedule, and took a tour. Then girls taught them dances like the cotton-eyed joe and a line dance and such before they engaged us in a game of monkey in the middle. A heart felt goodbye sent us back home. We await the bus soon that will take us to a restaurant on the river. ON the river, where we will float. We'll get in later than usual tonight ( I hope they are packed) and we'll depart much earlier than usual. A wake up call is in order at 5AM.
Emma Willard Girls in Vietnam go to War Remnants and Little Rose
After another lovely breakfast, we toured around town in our fancy bus and ended up at the War Remnants Museum (formerly the American Atrocities Museum). The girls had a chance to hear from our tour guide about the American War (our Vietnam war) from the side of a Vietnamese person. His father fought for South Vietnam, and he was a soldier for the unified Vietnam in Cambodia against Pol Pot. Father and son reunited in philosophy after the son regained the family home after it was confiscated after the American war. The museum was full of photographs and items from the wars, as well as a model of a tiger cage where they kept prisoners of war. Captured US tanks, helicopter, and various field artillery pieces were on display.
The girls really wanted to plan their play with the girls at the Little Rose Shelter, so they bought lots of beads and string and a soccer ball at the market after lunch, and so we ended up playing games (musical chairs, duck duck goose, hand/floor slapping and other games), learning more about each other and communicating in other ways as we made beaded bracelets for each other. It was the favorite part of the day for many. One said that she thought it was astounding how close she feels to these girls without the commonality of language. Of course Ngoc helped a lot too, but encouraged us to make our own connection without her being the go-between.
After returning to the hotel, we had an hour to get ready for dinner. We all took a side trip to the dress shop down the street. Dinner was fun with typical food. Another 4-5 course meal with seafood, pho noodles, fruit and more. We had plenty! Now the girls are tired and ready to settle down.
Tomorrow, the reunification palace and return for our last day with the Little Rose Girls.
The girls really wanted to plan their play with the girls at the Little Rose Shelter, so they bought lots of beads and string and a soccer ball at the market after lunch, and so we ended up playing games (musical chairs, duck duck goose, hand/floor slapping and other games), learning more about each other and communicating in other ways as we made beaded bracelets for each other. It was the favorite part of the day for many. One said that she thought it was astounding how close she feels to these girls without the commonality of language. Of course Ngoc helped a lot too, but encouraged us to make our own connection without her being the go-between.
After returning to the hotel, we had an hour to get ready for dinner. We all took a side trip to the dress shop down the street. Dinner was fun with typical food. Another 4-5 course meal with seafood, pho noodles, fruit and more. We had plenty! Now the girls are tired and ready to settle down.
Tomorrow, the reunification palace and return for our last day with the Little Rose Girls.
Emma Willard School Girls Arrive in Vietnam
We made it last night around 2AM to our hotel after a long visa processing adventure. Sara Rahimi passed the immigration officer at the last minute of her birthday 12AM, with about 15 seconds to spare!
Girls were a little excited last night but finally fell asleep. We got up and had a delicious breakfast: dumplings, yogurt, sausage, pancakes, fried noodles, dragonfruit, watermelon, and much much more.
Les Baird made signs for each of their water spigots to help them keep from using the tap water to brush teeth and all were on the road for a little tour of Saigon. We saw the French architecture of the post office and city hall, a beautiful statue of "Uncle Ho" (Chi Minh), the old US consulate building and the hotel where war journalists stayed. We drank coconut water from the seed itself, ate pho where Bill Clinton ate pho (noodle soup) called Pho 2000. We stopped to see a rehearsal of a fashion show, complete with dancers. The biggest surprise was sticking our heads into the entrance way of Ngoc's middle school!
Everyone seemed to enjoy the market. Some were proud of their bargaining skills, others showed off their new clothing and other stuff. We enjoyed watching girls try on wigs and shoes, and eat their lunches from round metal containers.
Speaking of Ngoc, she saved the day by initiating our connection with the girls at the Little Rose Shelter by translating all we needed to know. The afternoon was improvised and all the girls rose to the occasion by offering up and playing various games. We learned to count to 10, how to say each others' names, and the words for I, you, left and right. It was a spirited afternoon with lots of smiles. We gave them lots of VHS movies for kids, but alas they didn't have a machine, but promised to give them to someone who could appreciate them.
After a short break (swimming in the pool, nap and organizing), we went out for dinner at the Chateau. Dinner had little animals made of fruit that escorted in our courses: coconut soup, fish (whole fish), morning glory, meat dish with pork and fruit for dessert.
As we returned all voted to sleep until tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow the highlights are visiting the war remnants museum and return to the Little Rose Shelter. We hope to get to know those girls even more now that the ice is broken.
Cam on and bye bye.
Girls were a little excited last night but finally fell asleep. We got up and had a delicious breakfast: dumplings, yogurt, sausage, pancakes, fried noodles, dragonfruit, watermelon, and much much more.
Les Baird made signs for each of their water spigots to help them keep from using the tap water to brush teeth and all were on the road for a little tour of Saigon. We saw the French architecture of the post office and city hall, a beautiful statue of "Uncle Ho" (Chi Minh), the old US consulate building and the hotel where war journalists stayed. We drank coconut water from the seed itself, ate pho where Bill Clinton ate pho (noodle soup) called Pho 2000. We stopped to see a rehearsal of a fashion show, complete with dancers. The biggest surprise was sticking our heads into the entrance way of Ngoc's middle school!
Everyone seemed to enjoy the market. Some were proud of their bargaining skills, others showed off their new clothing and other stuff. We enjoyed watching girls try on wigs and shoes, and eat their lunches from round metal containers.
Speaking of Ngoc, she saved the day by initiating our connection with the girls at the Little Rose Shelter by translating all we needed to know. The afternoon was improvised and all the girls rose to the occasion by offering up and playing various games. We learned to count to 10, how to say each others' names, and the words for I, you, left and right. It was a spirited afternoon with lots of smiles. We gave them lots of VHS movies for kids, but alas they didn't have a machine, but promised to give them to someone who could appreciate them.
After a short break (swimming in the pool, nap and organizing), we went out for dinner at the Chateau. Dinner had little animals made of fruit that escorted in our courses: coconut soup, fish (whole fish), morning glory, meat dish with pork and fruit for dessert.
As we returned all voted to sleep until tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow the highlights are visiting the war remnants museum and return to the Little Rose Shelter. We hope to get to know those girls even more now that the ice is broken.
Cam on and bye bye.
January 19, 2011
Michelle Obama Urges Students to Study Abroad
While President Obama met with Chinese leader Hu Jintao at the White House, first lady Michelle Obama used Hu's visit to encourage students to become part of the global community. "Studying in countries like China isn't only about your prospects in the global marketplace. It's not just about whether you can compete with your peers in other countries to make America stronger," Obama said. "It's also about whether you can come together and work together with them to make our world stronger. Its about the friendships you make, the bonds of trust you establish and the image of America that you project to the rest of the world."get out of their comfort zones and help to "develop that habit of cooperation."
Click here for the full story via The Washington Post: At Howard U., Michelle Obama urges students to study abroad, form bonds outside U.S.
Click here for the full story via The Washington Post: At Howard U., Michelle Obama urges students to study abroad, form bonds outside U.S.
December 3, 2010
Seeing Global and Thinking Peace
I first traveled with Friendship Tours World Travel when I was a junior in high school. I had been interested in travel from a young age, likely instilled by my parents’ stories of their youthful adventures: traveling to Europe by cargo ship, diving in Bolivia, trekking through the vast planes of the Serengeti. I wanted to see the world of their stories. I wanted to understand the connection between all of us, experience different cultures, taste unfamiliar foods, appreciate the complexity and beauty of the world. When I heard my school was offering a trip to Vietnam (another landscape of family legend as both my mother and father lost friends and relatives in the war), I knew I had to go. I signed up for Ms. Tyner’s Vietnam War Seminar and eagerly anticipated and fantasized about my forthcoming travels.
My time in Vietnam with Friendship Tours World Travel far outstripped anything I could have imagined. I embraced each unfamiliar taste, smell, sound, word. I was entranced by it all. This was the concrete space I had heard of from my dad and learned about in the classroom. This was Vietnam, the once-threat to democracy, the distant land of a bloody war, the infamous “quagmire” of US foreign policy. And we were here. From our work at the Vietnam Friendship Village to our haunting float through Halong Bay; from a disorienting crawl through the Cu Chi Tunnels to the everyday of meeting new people and tasting new dishes—each piece fell together to create a dynamic understanding not just of Vietnam and its people, but also of the US’s relation to it and more simply, our own connection to the place.
My trip to Vietnam was the catalyst to many an adventure from Brazil to West Africa and most recently, again re-united with Friendship Tours World Travel, to Burma (Myanmar). Vietnam, opened for me a new passion and approach to learning—allowing me to see the world outside the cut and dried pages of a text book and in its vibrant, breathing and complex vivacity. The world is more globally connected than it ever has been. Despite political delineations, each country and each person is linked to one another, from economic policy and development theory to the latest hit song playing worldwide: we are a global community. I look at my travels as a way of better understanding this community and establishing cross-cultural connections. So when Alethea first approached me about working with Friendship Tours World Travel and traveling with her to Burma, I was more than thrilled.
Our trip to Burma, exemplified for me the importance of travel and the mission of Friendship Tours World Travel. Burma, which just last month played host to its first elections in twenty years, is best known for its corrupt military government and civil rights abuses. Since the early 90s, Burma (re-named by the military junta as “Myanmar”) has been cut off from the Western World by economic sanctions and travel boycotts. Before our departure, we had little knowledge of the place, besides the violence expressed through news reels. I spent the week leading up to our trip imagining grimacing military cronies conducting extensive searches of all my belongings and interviewing me for hours before arresting me and finally sending me home after somehow unearthing my high school work with Amnesty International.
In this case especially, the reality of Burma differed greatly from my paranoid imaginings. Never have I been to a place as beautiful and enchanting, not to mention filled with such fascinating and friendly people. We had no problem getting into the country and while the austerity of the military government can certainly be felt, it was not nearly as Orwellian as I had imagined. The junta, propped by Chinese money and interests have been little affected by western isolation policy. Instead it was the local people whose voices had been shut off from the rest of the world. Not to say that climbing 800 year old temples in Bagan or boating through the floating gardens of Inle Lake wasn’t absolutely spectacular, but again it was the people thatwe met that made the strongest impression. Everyone we ran into was eager to share with us their life stories and to learn about our country and background. Only through travel were we able to see the everyday of Burma, to meet the people, largely quantified and forgotten in news reels and foreign policy and open up positive cross-cultural exchange.
Now, back in the United States, I am eagerly looking forward to our next adventure, this time to Cuba in 2011, where we hope to further our goal of peace by spreading awareness and global citizenship.
My time in Vietnam with Friendship Tours World Travel far outstripped anything I could have imagined. I embraced each unfamiliar taste, smell, sound, word. I was entranced by it all. This was the concrete space I had heard of from my dad and learned about in the classroom. This was Vietnam, the once-threat to democracy, the distant land of a bloody war, the infamous “quagmire” of US foreign policy. And we were here. From our work at the Vietnam Friendship Village to our haunting float through Halong Bay; from a disorienting crawl through the Cu Chi Tunnels to the everyday of meeting new people and tasting new dishes—each piece fell together to create a dynamic understanding not just of Vietnam and its people, but also of the US’s relation to it and more simply, our own connection to the place.
My trip to Vietnam was the catalyst to many an adventure from Brazil to West Africa and most recently, again re-united with Friendship Tours World Travel, to Burma (Myanmar). Vietnam, opened for me a new passion and approach to learning—allowing me to see the world outside the cut and dried pages of a text book and in its vibrant, breathing and complex vivacity. The world is more globally connected than it ever has been. Despite political delineations, each country and each person is linked to one another, from economic policy and development theory to the latest hit song playing worldwide: we are a global community. I look at my travels as a way of better understanding this community and establishing cross-cultural connections. So when Alethea first approached me about working with Friendship Tours World Travel and traveling with her to Burma, I was more than thrilled.
Our trip to Burma, exemplified for me the importance of travel and the mission of Friendship Tours World Travel. Burma, which just last month played host to its first elections in twenty years, is best known for its corrupt military government and civil rights abuses. Since the early 90s, Burma (re-named by the military junta as “Myanmar”) has been cut off from the Western World by economic sanctions and travel boycotts. Before our departure, we had little knowledge of the place, besides the violence expressed through news reels. I spent the week leading up to our trip imagining grimacing military cronies conducting extensive searches of all my belongings and interviewing me for hours before arresting me and finally sending me home after somehow unearthing my high school work with Amnesty International.
In this case especially, the reality of Burma differed greatly from my paranoid imaginings. Never have I been to a place as beautiful and enchanting, not to mention filled with such fascinating and friendly people. We had no problem getting into the country and while the austerity of the military government can certainly be felt, it was not nearly as Orwellian as I had imagined. The junta, propped by Chinese money and interests have been little affected by western isolation policy. Instead it was the local people whose voices had been shut off from the rest of the world. Not to say that climbing 800 year old temples in Bagan or boating through the floating gardens of Inle Lake wasn’t absolutely spectacular, but again it was the people thatwe met that made the strongest impression. Everyone we ran into was eager to share with us their life stories and to learn about our country and background. Only through travel were we able to see the everyday of Burma, to meet the people, largely quantified and forgotten in news reels and foreign policy and open up positive cross-cultural exchange.
Now, back in the United States, I am eagerly looking forward to our next adventure, this time to Cuba in 2011, where we hope to further our goal of peace by spreading awareness and global citizenship.
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