New staff member

Duyen who has done the book keeping for CEF for the last few years has now passed it over to Hieu. It's good to have Hieu start with the new year; it's considered auspicious here. Welcome Hieu!

A New Year has started

It's the end of one year and a new one has just started today here in Vietnam; it's officially spring now.

Everywhere looks so lovely, colorful and spring-like in the leadup to Tet and during Tet. The pavements of several streets in Hoi An are covered with pot plants for sale that are to brighten up a home and bring good luck. Most of blooms are shades of yellow. The golds represent coins and if you have a golden-coloured plant you should be prosperity over the following year. No matter how poor someone is they will buy a golden-yellow flowering plant.

The busiest day is the day before Tet when many have got some time off. It's hard to move through the traffic with the hundreds purchasing plants on this day. But also many just go to see the beautiful flowers and bushes and not to purchase. It's a pleasurable evening activity leading up to Tet. By late evening of new years eve all the plants have been sold or cleared away the pavements scubbed down.

Day one of New Year or Tet is the day you spend with close family, so today the town and streets were almost abandoned as most people were at home with relatives.

As today is the day to be with close family, that includes their nearest and dearest deceased relatives. Everyone who can manage it goes to their graves to take flowers and food for them and to talk to them about the year just passed; they tell the good news and the bad news. One friend told me she is never too sure whether to give the good news or the bad news first and her decision varies from year to year.

Day two is the day you visit friends mainly, but also relatives who live further afield. On this day there are many accidents as there is much drinking and merriment. As motorbikes are the main form of transport everyone is driving from one friend or relative to another and mainly in an intoxicated state. It is the males who drink and the males who drive the motorbikes on this day. This is a day to avoid being on the streets!

I am doing Tet in reverse. I can do that as I am a westerner. I had a lovely day visited my close western friends. It was quiet and safe on the roads and tomorrow I will be home while it is busy and dangerous on the roads.

Today wasa good start to the year; the weather was good, the plants in the courtyards and on front door steps looked so bright and chearful, and it was special to see many good friends in one day, and one at a time.

Chuc mung nam moi! (Happy new year)

Ao Mua is what they call all rain coats here

Here are five of the children who received 'ao mua' this Tet in their food parcel. Miriam our volunteer social worker asked her friend Andrew of Platinum Global if he had any spare 'ao mua'. He didn't have any, but made CEF 50 'ao mua' this Tet for the children. This is a fantastic present. When you live here you know why. Children get chills and colds through the rainy season due to getting wet on the way to school and staying wet through the school day. This Tet gift will help keep them healthier in wet weather.

Tet food parcels

Thank you so much everyone who donated to the fund for Tet food parcels for the poorest of the families we help. To us it seems such a little money for each of them, but for them it makes a big difference this Tet and for some time afterwards.

We met with the children and a family member or with a nun from a pagoda that helps us with the children. We met at three locations; at the CEF office, at Bao Thang pagoda and at the ferry port of the boat that goes to the Hoa Van community.





















Our original plan for the food parcels made an unmanageable parcel. We had to change plans on the goodies, so it wasn't too heavy and could be carried. In the end staff made the decisions based on what they know is needed the most and would be appreciated. We gave to the poorest families mainly basics and a few treats. They received a small sack of rice, cooking oil, soy sauce, salt, sugar, mushroom seasoning, seaweed, crystalized ginger and some Tet candies. A high quality water proof was donated by Platinum Global and added to the parcel.

Some funds were received too late for this batch of pre-Tet food parcels, and these funds will also be used for food parcels, just post Tet. This gift will still be very needed and will help more families cover the last of the period of the year when they are poorest.

In the next few months the weather will be improving, they will have more work and income. In the meantime the food parcels will help them through this period.

Some New Year thoughts

It's the western new year at present and Tet, the Vietnamese one, is in about three weeks. Whether in a western country or in an Asian country New Year has some meanings in common.

It is considered a time of renewal. It's a chance to start again, to do the things we need to do for our well being, lives and the world, that we didn't do over the last year.

It's a time of inspiration; it's at this time of year many feel inspired to take on the challenges of change that are meaningful to you, whether to exercise more, eat a better diet, to meditate on a daily basis, to go to university and become more qualified or to volunteer regularly.

It's also a time when we think about how we can be a better person, how we can contribute to the world, how we can make the world a better place.

But for this all to happen on an ongoing basis, the challenge is to stay inspired each and every day, not just on New Year's day and for the week afterwards. Inspiration can displace personal doubt and cynicism which hold us back in achieving what is important to us.

Wishing you all an inspired life so that you can be the best person you can and contribute to the world in a meaningful way to make our world a better place each day!

Linda

Some thoughts on why poverty continues for some

Lien shared her thoughts on why poverty continues for many families. This is based on what she sees around her and what she has done to get of poverty.

She felt to get out of poverty:
1. They have to have good health
If they have poor health then they can't work hard or consistently earn a regular income
If they are poor they have to spend money on medical bills and medicine on an ongoing basis

2. If they have children they need to be healthy
If they have poor health they have ongoing medical bills and medicines to purchase
If they are unwell one parent may need to stay home and look after them often which would make the parent might lose their job or they will have a reduced income

3. They have to be willing to work hard
Laziness means they will lose jobs and also gives them a bad reputation and lack of future employment
Hard work means if you have spare time you look to see how you can earn money in it and take on another job as well

4. They need to be careful with money
Don't waste money on things that aren't needed
Preferably only have the occasional alcohol on special occasions
Although drinking is cheap, if it happens often it is no longer cheap
Heavy drinking brings about poor health and laziness
Heavy drinking brings about fights at work and unemployment

5. If in a relationship it needs to be healthy
If there are verbal fights one has less energy
If there are physical fights there are injuries

6. Patience and time is needed
As it takes many years of working hard to have saved enough to build a home and have some savings

One of my most favourite little people in Vietnam

We are helping Ngan to receive an education, plus giving a daily food allowance as dad can't work much as the little boy is often ill as he has asthma. Ngan's sponsor has helped with food supplies, family medical bills, and provided books on infant feeding and infant care.

Ngan's little brother was three months old when their mother died. Her father is absolutely devoted to the children, which is not the norm in Vietnam. Normally within a matter of months or a year, most men in his situation would have remarried and abandoned the children or found a relative to leave them with or an orphanage to take them to. He has kind neighbors who help by lending him money to buy food and necessities when he runs out of funds and then when he can work he pays them back.

I admire him greatly for his committment to his children. I admire Ngan for taking over the domestic chores as well as continuing to maintain a very good standard at school. I adore the little chap as he is so curious and always so happy considering everything.

When it rains Binh's home leaks

One of the children in our education sponsorship program lives with an aunt as the father first left home and then the mother; she took Binh to an aunt to be cared for. The aunt earns very little and lives in a small rented home, but it leaks terribly every rainy season. She is trying to catch the water inside by hanging plastic sheeting over the leaking areas of the metal roof and then she drains the rainwater out of the plastic sheeting when it gets full and takes the collected rainwater outside.

Home visits in the rain yesterday

It's bleak traveling around in winter in the rain doing home visits. The rice hasn't been planted, the fields are muddy, the lanes are muddy. My assistant even said how ugly every thing looked. I got wet and cold and sick, they just got cold and wet.

We had the best deal yesterday really.It stopped raining every so often and so we had periods when we were moderately dry. Some of the parents were out preparing the fields in the rain. The fields need tending to even though it is a cold and wet day, as they have to plant the root vegetables to feed themselves and their pigs.

Some of the homes we visited had flooding of a meter inside a few weeks back and some of them hadn't bothered to clean the meter of mould off the outside walls, but the inside of all the homes had been scrubbed down immaculately. Some didn't flood but had many leaks, with the rain coming through holes in the roof where the metal sheeting had worn thin and some had chipped or cracked tiles. Buckets and bowls sat around collecting the rain. Some had plastic sheeting collecting the rain as it came through. Some homes were cold and damp and even the kittens had trouble finding somewhere warm. The firewood in many homes was wet and they only had a little kindling to boil water by for tea to try and stay warm.

What's it like living in a flooded home for a couple of days or in a home that leaks every time it rains, and it rains for about 60 days out of 80 in the rainy season?

I had hot running water to come home to and a hot bath, and a tumble drier to dry all my wet clothes that won't dry in the cold, wet air. I had some hot food to eat soon after returning home too. I know I am very fortunate but just felt sad and bleak in the bleak, cold, wet weather after visiting so many who are suffering even more than usual.

The cost of a coffee a day will feed a child a day

My Hang has just been diagnosed with malnutrition. Just the cost of one coffee a day from a coffee shop is enough to stop her suffering from malnutrition.