Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/15/11, P. Jim Munter

Date: March 15, 2011 8:56:46 AM MDT

Subject: Good morning

It is cold! SaPa is almost getting snow. I saw a few flakes in the air, but it has been raining most of the afternoon. Thankfully the clinic was inside class rooms so we were dry but had only body heat to warm the rooms! My job was to get the kids from one place to the other. Not too hard, but by the time the three hundred and twentieth kid was seen all of us were ready to head back to the hotel for some hot tea and good food. However, before heading back to the hotel all three hundred and some kids sang some songs for us. They really sang with gusto, and they never missed a note. Can you imagine what three hundred kids voices sounds like in a relatively small meeting room? We in turn gave each of them a blanket which had been made by women from a church in Denver.

Speaking of food: it has been very good. For example, tonight we were served Boiled vegetables; Kohlrabi bulbs with beef salad (very good); Sweet and sour fish (marvelous); Fried pork in iron plate (sizzling); Stir fried Sapa vegetables with garlic; Mushroom with mince broth; Steamed rice; Fruit; and Green tea. It's what I call "suffering for the children"...

Of course we eat everything with chopsticks (except the broth and tea) and have only a small bowl and a tiny saucer from which to eat. It takes a bit of "chopstick skill" to get the food from the serving trays into the little bowl or saucer, then dip it in the right sauce (without loosing it in one of the three or four sauce choices) and at last deposit it preferably in your mouth and not on your shirt!

Speaking of shirts: I had my laundry done today, two shirts and three pair of undies for only 56,000 Dong. It's fun to be a multimillionaire!

Tomorrow we go to a mountain village where we have not previously had a clinic. This means we will have about three hundred people from age one year to ninety. Few of them will have ever seen a doctor or a dentist let alone treated by one. I think our nursing students may be in for a real education. If I survive I will let you know how it went.

I think I will sleep well tonight.

Jim