Sam's Blog
Last Sunday Lan and I took the morning flight down to Saigon, had lunch with a friend and caught the flight to Phu Cat airport in Binh Dinh province. We arrived at 15:30 in a large valley surrounded by hills on three sides and the ocean. The People's Committee drove us to Quy Nhon port where we spend the night. Along the way we noticed extensive flood damage throughout the valley. This year they've had the worst flooding in recorded history.
The hotel was simple but clean and the seafood great. I love the sea air and I slept like a baby. In the morning we left at 7:00 for an hour drive east up into the mountains to Vinh Hao village. The scenery was beautiful here but the people are extremely poor. The Ba Na ethnic hill tribe live in this area. We saw washed out bridges and flood damage along the whole way up to the village. Fortunately the locals decided to build the school on high ground where the old People's Committee use to be.
The school was amazing. The attention to detail extraordinary. Definitely the best finishing work we've every seen. The school was super clean too. No paint drops on the tiled floor or roof tiles. No paint smears on the glass windows or frames.
The yard was leveled and the buildings on each side will be donated by the People's Committee and refurbished to house boarding students from the surrounding mountains.
Although the toilets were not finished they were quite large. There were new desks and chairs in every classroom.
After the brief meeting at the school with the school director, various People's Committee departments in charge of the construction and the contractor we headed off to lunch at a “restaurant” in the little village of Vinh Hao. Everybody was very friendly and the lunch turned into a celebration as we were joined by the foremen and worker team leaders.
With all the goodbyes said and done we drove back to Quy Nhon port and our hotel by the sea. We picked up our bags, checked out of the hotel and rushed off to the airport. We arrived in Saigon that evening and checked into a small family hotel near the market. After freshening up a bit we met up with our friend and had a wonderful meal.
It had been a long day full of smiles and satisfying moments so we turned in early. As I drifted off to sleep I thought about all the pleasant people I had met and what a superb job they did on their school. Truly a wonderful experience.
At 6:00 we got up and hurried off to the airport to catch the early flight back to Hanoi.
Cheers, Sam