Vietnam- the rest of it

So due to the complete and total lack of internet and also being really busy I have been unable to update in awhile (the following post was written on June 14th- I just didn't get to post it that day). We are talking SLOW internet here- the worst I have ever seen, it takes about 40 minutes just to load a site that is incomplete. This has been fine since I’ve been crazy with work finishing up in Vietnam. I did the math and worked 70 hour weeks for the 2 weeks that we were here- I’ve done nothing but nap ever since.

Back to where I left off- last Sunday I had a medcap (medical civilian assistance program) and it was really amazing! I had to get up at 0400 in order to eat breakfast and get on the banana boat by 0510. Then it was a 40 minute boat ride to get to land and the pier. Then it was through customs, onto a bus, after which we drove 40 minutes to get to the school where we would be set up for the day. I ended up working with the pediatrician and one of the family nurse practitioners and acted as their mini-triage and general traffic control agent. It was really amazing to get to see all of the people that we were able to help (almost 600 that day). At first I would get really annoyed at all of the women who would try to butt to the head of the line and didn’t want to wait their turn. But then it occurred to me that they were trying to get their child in to see a doctor- possibly for the first and maybe only time in their lives. After that I was able to be a little more patient with them. We also had amazing translators who were invaluable that day. We didn’t get back on board until about 2000 that night so it was a long day. I also got to experience the joys of the military MRE (portable food packs that have NO expiry date) it was surprisingly not disgusting but I’ve had some abnormal gastric rumblings ever since so I don’t think it agreed with me very well.

I also had the opportunity to go on liberty in Vietnam. This was totally unexpected and a great reward for all of the hard work that we were doing. I ended up going with a bunch of the Navy and Air Force people that I work with on pediatrics and we had a blast. First it was down a very scary moving stair case to get to our boat that was 5 stories below us (later that day someone broke their foot after the stair case rolled over it). Onto the little boat and into shore. We had a bus that dropped us off at a hotel and then we took cabs from there. It was really fun- the hotel had an elevator that we were all a little bit too excited to ride on after all the stairs we have on board. We ate some really amazing food, strolled through the fruit market, the knock off market (Louis Vuitton for $40- I did not buy any) and got chased by little old ladies selling trinkets. (Really she chased us all over town on a scooter.) The best part though was the ride home- the Vietnamese who provided our transport bus decided that we needed entertaining and so it was a disco style bus complete with flashing lights, music videos and Vietnamese singers singing American pop songs that are well over a decade old- it was great!

All in all Vietnam was an amazing experience- we were able to do a lot of good especially given some of the restrictions put on things overall. It was a good trial run for Cambodia and the coming sites.