Last Two Days in the Mekong Delta

After spending a week in Hoa An, my class traveled to Long Xuyen located in the An Giang Province. Upon arrival, we had a discussion with the Pacific Link Organization about human trafficking. The office we went to was run by an all women staff. The organization was set up eight years ago to help educate young girls and women about trafficking and to provide safe shelters for victims of human trafficking. 

 Most of the trafficking takes place along the Vietnam-Cambodia border and Vietnam's border with China.  We were told the story of one girl who was thirteen when she, her two sisters, and her mother were taken into China.  She was sold to a Chinese man to become his wife. (The one child policy in China has created an uneven gender distribution in the Chinese population since a majority of families prefer to have sons to carry on their lineage and name.  Now, there are not enough women for them to all have wives.  One way some men try to get wives is through human trafficking).  After two months she was able to escape with one of her sisters and came back to Vietnam.  Eventually, her mother and her other sister also escaped and made it to Vietnam.  The girl went to a safe house set up by Pacific Link and was able to begin attending school again. Pacific Link tries to provide students with scholarships so they are able to graduate from high school. The safe houses also offer vocational training and job placement programs including mat weaving, childcare, and culinary/ hospitality training.  

Before attending the lecture, my knowledge of human trafficking mostly came from watching the movie Taken. In Vietnam, the people who are at risk of becoming victims of human trafficking are not normally tourists, but rather the young girls and women in rural regions of Vietnam that are poor and uneducated. Some are tricked into thinking they are going to have a high paying job in China, then end up being sold to become someone's wife.  The organization is empowering women and trying to give them more opportunities to continue their education, but changing the mindset and economic status of the people who engage in human trafficking is a whole different issue. To learn more about the organization you can go to www.pacificlinks.org.

After the discussion with Pacific Links we had the afternoon and night free.  We explored the small city and decided to have dinner at a little restaurant that was on a street recommended by our hotel. It didn't look like much from the outside, just one room with tables and chairs with a meat stand positioned outside the open storefront, but my meal was one of the best that I've had in Vietnam.  I ordered noodles with BBQ meat, not really knowing what to expect.  A few minutes later a woman brought me a bowl filled with crispy pork skin, pork belly, fresh herbs, cucumbers, carrots, roasted peanuts, rice noodles, and a bowl of fish sauce that I generously poured over everything.  The ingredients were simple, but combinations like the sweet fish sauce with the crispy, salty pork were delicious.

One of the best meals so far...

The meat stand outside of the restaurant.

 On Thursday, September 27 we took a long bus ride to visit the Tra Su Bird Sanctuary and the Hang Pagoda near the town of Chau Doc.  To reach the bird sanctuary, we piled into two long motor boats and were driven through a mangrove forest.  Then we switched into smaller row boats to reach the center of the forest where hundreds of birds have their nests.  During the Vietnam War all of the trees had been bombed so it was pretty amazing to see that the forest had been replanted and had regrown in about 35 years.

Boating in the mangrove forest.

On the top of a watch tower looking across the mangrove forest.

 We had lunch at the bird sanctuary then got on the bus again to go to the Hang Pagoda.  The pagoda was built into a mountain and the view from the top was beautiful.  We could look across the town and see the border with Cambodia, mountains covered with clouds in the distance, and rice paddies far below.  There are monks and nuns who live at the pagoda and sometimes villagers come to learn about meditation.  We talked to one monk who said he had become a monk eight years ago, when he was 28 years old.  He said the monks and nuns meditate up to 10 hours each day!

Hang Pagoda

The tree line in the distance is the border between Vietnam and Cambodia.

One of the many Buddhist shrines inside of the pagoda.  People leave fruit as an offering and burn incense.

The view from the Hang Pagoda.

Hang Pagoda

After our excursion to the Mekong Delta, we returned to Ho Chi Minh City on Friday afternoon.  We have today (Saturday) free and it's the first day we've had on our own since the program began one month ago.  Tomorrow, Sunday, September 30 we will each move in with our host families who live in various districts in Ho Chi Minh City.  We had the opportunity to meet them in early September so we kind of know where we will be living and the family we are staying with.  During that visit, I met my host mom and host brother who is in eleventh grade in high school.  I will also have a host dad and a host sister (she just recently graduated from university), but I haven't met them yet. At the first meeting, I also met my host mother's sister and her extended family.  My host mom is a nurse, but she also makes mooncakes to sell to friends and family during the lunar festivals.  This Sunday is the Mid-Autumn festival so most families will have large family gatherings with lots of food and of course, tons of mooncakes.  People who live close to water also release lanterns with burning candles.  My host family lives in District 1 so I will be close to the Economic University where we will have Vietnamese class and lectures during these next three weeks. I'm really excited to live with a family, but it will be strange not seeing my classmates all the time.