While in Ho Chi Minh I wanted to take a day or so to check out some other projects – specifically something really different to working in an orphanage... House Building!
It took about an hour and a half with Nick to head form Ho Chi Minh to My Tho City (in the Mekong) where the building project is based. You can see the difference immediately! My Tho City is a lot more green, lush, rustic and there were ladies riding bicycles in the sunshine in traditional straw Vietnamese hats, so nothing like having thousands of motorbikes headed for you! The air was certainly cleaner here!

We headed straight to the building project and there were nine volunteers hard at work helping the Vietnamese foreman “bob” the builder. Bob seems to be the highlight of so many of my past clients so I was eager to meet him, and I could see what a great relationship he had with his current group already. He is very cheeky and I think he is a great asset to the project because when I talked to all the others, he was hands down “best on!”

We had a ceremony for the house to be handed over to the family it had been built for, including a Vietnamese television crew. Basically the family waits on the waiting list sometimes years until they climb to the top and they are eligible to receive a house to accommodate them all from the government. The ceremony included lots of speeches in Vietnamese and then in English for the volunteers benefit. All of it was filmed and tea and fruit were served. It was apparent to me that the family and the government were equally appreciative of the energy and effort spent by our volunteers to help them, as without it it would be a far slower process and fewer families would benefit.

The ba noi (grandma) toured me through the makeshift house they lived in for the five weeks it took for everyone to finish building the new house. It was basically a blanket over a wire for the three of them, I knew now while they were so happy!! They had a little boy and he was so cute and cheeky. His English had really improved by hanging out with the volunteers all day and constantly learning though sticking his fist out to me and screaming “pound it, like the hulk!!” is possibly not the best example ha-ha.
After I’d spent time with the family receiving the house (all with constant grins) I decided to head to the volunteer house to see what it’s all about. I was really pleasantly surprised, it’s super clean (there’s even a house keeper) and private, as it’s only for i-to-i volunteers and you can even pay to have your washing done for you!!I don’t even have it that good at home! We went to a café across the road for a Vietnamese iced coffee (think lots of ice, lots of bitter coffee and very refreshing!) and I had a chat to all the volunteers that had been there over the last eight weeks, all of whom love love loved it, and all swore to come back.

I’m beginning to know how they feel…

• Vietnam
• building
• asia