Vietnam Thursday March 10

I cannot believe it is already Thursday night in Vietnam, only two more days until we get back to America. We have done so many things here. We visited the Friendship village, the Peace village, and Hoa Phuong Village from Monday to Wednesday. This morning we visited Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. It is so touching to learn about his humble life. He was a man with a vision to free his country from any oppression. It took him a whole life to do it. But he was successful. Later we visited the Temple of Literature- the oldest university in Vietnam. It was built in the 11th century. I kept teasing my American friends on how old things are here in Vietnam, compared to things in the U.S. We enjoyed the traditional music show at Van Mieu. After the show, Chaplain and Eric decided to buy "dan bau" - one string instrument, an instrument that is present only in Vietnam. Others also bought a bunch of CDs, and other souvenirs.

We had lunch at KOTO, Know One Teach One, a non profit organization helping street children. KOTO teach them how to cook, and to run a restaurant. KOTO features a wide variety of cuisines. The food was good and the staff was excellent. We were in a hurry for a press conference and they were very quick in getting food ready.

Yes, we did have a press conference today. We really sparked interest among the people and the press here. Not olny did we do a press conference with Tien Phong online today, our team has been invited by the national radio station "Voice of Vietnam" to do an interview tomorrow. Tien Phong, or Pioneer Newspaper is the leading and a respected newspaper in Vietnam. We were given a warm welcome and divided into small groups. Each group had a computer and we were so busy answering questions pouring from all over the places. Our team loved it. We were given an opportunity to share our thoughts with hundreds of readers from across the country as well as Vietnamese overseas. I know most of the readers for this blog can't read Vietnamese but here are some links Tien Phong Online has about us
http://www.tienphongonline.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=3786&ChannelID=4
http://www.tienphongonline.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=3884&ChannelID=4
http://www.tienphongonline.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=3906&ChannelID=4

Tomorrow we will visit the Hanoi University of Education for further discussion about Agent Orange and just to learn about the student life here in general.