New loos take away the blues in ‘Nam

I spent 45 minutes last night attempting to remove all the cement from my main work shirt – with a smile on my face. You see I’ve recently returned from a 10 day adventure in Vietnam that focused on building new toilets for two visually impaired families.  A team of 9 Aussies dug holes, mixed cement, passed buckets, rendered walls and laid bricks at two separate homes in Nam Dinh, a city 90km south of Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. One of the beneficiaries, Miss Mai, lives with her 87 year old mother and couldn’t afford to upgrade her existing toilet on the $25/month social allowance she receives. The other beneficiary, Mr Ho, has been blind all of his 68 years of life, and like Miss Mai, had to walk a fair distance around the back of his house to find the squat (drop) toilet. The team had a great time interacting with Miss Mai, Mr Ho and their families (thanks to the local ADRA staff’s translation!). We also loved bonding with the neighbours who provided the brains and direction for the building projects. My main images of Vietnamese people I saw growing up were the mean faces portrayed in the American made ‘Nam war movies, so I was stoked to experience a fun, humble and caring nature of these beautiful people.I wasn’t sure we were going to raise our $4000 fundraising total in time to resource the project materials. However, thanks to four months of creative attempts, generous donors and prayer – we made it.

Living in a busy, consumeristic Western world, I’d been keen to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate. After some searching, the Submerge crew came across this ADRA Connections opportunity, which aims to assist the lives of some of the 750,000+ visually impaired people in Vietnam. In spite of this great cause, many on the team still wondered whether it was better to fundraise and make a donation to the project instead of going on the trip ourselves. After all – we realised our main input was $ – we weren’t skilled in building at all (OK we had one sparkie on the team but the voltage and wires in ‘Nam are dangerous!). It wasn’t really until our last day in Nam Dinh that we realised the impact we had made. Though we’d got the chance to go and visit beautiful Halong Bay on the weekend, everyone on the team agreed that their highlight was working and interacting with the families and co-workers on the project. Some claimed it was a far better trip than any holiday they’d been on. Our final visit to the Provincial Blind Association confirmed that the projects would not have gone ahead had we not come in person. We learnt that whilst the funding we provided was needed, more important was the motivation we gave, which built a stronger sense of community. We realised we were not just ambassadors for ADRA but for Australia. This made a great trip a worthwhile, impacting trip – and donating $ from the couch at home can’t compare with that.

So when I consider going on another Connections trip in the future, it is the friendships and loving interactions with the locals which will be on my mind. And when I look at my cement-stained work shirt, I pray it’ll give me the courage to give time and make similar connections with needy Aussies in my own neighbourhood.