#sealnet

Dear friends, Since June, I have been taking part in SEALNet Project Vietnam 2020 Lam Dong: Food Safety and Organic Farming (PV20LD) a project under Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network (SEALNet), as one of the project mentees. The project was created in order to address the problem of unsustainable farming and poor food health in Vietnam. 

PV20LD focuses on empowering ethnic minority youths in Lam Dong, Vietnam to engage in clean and efficient farming production through cultivating an informed and courageous cross-cultural community of servant leaders. It is a nonprofit project and we are looking for supports both monetary donations or non-monetary (Such as helping promote the project, introduce us to potential sponsors). 

For donation, you can donate online at https://gogetfunding.com/pv20ld/ (When you donate, write "PV20LD-PUTRI" in the comment sector). Your contribution will go into the farming logistics for the on-ground phase, as well as equipping farmers with materials for their farming projects.

I promise I will try my best with the project, make it impactful and sustainable, and will let you know how your contributions help with the project. Your help would be much appreciated ❤️

Tell us something about Leyte’s project last year that makes you proud of.

Carmela: I was lucky to be one of the mentors for a great group of students - the Mosquitheroes - whose project included raising awareness about mosquito-borne diseases. This involved going to the local communities, knocking on doors one by one, and inviting people to go to the community service day. I tagged along, and was so proud to see them immersing themselves in the local community - the shy FK and Marc being courageous enough to speak, Kim and Sam choreographing the Mosquito dance, Diane being a silent and responsible leader in collecting the surveys, and Alvek connecting with the kids. I see them being intelligent scientists and community servants at the same time, and somehow I just feel like the world is in good hands with youth like these.

In your perspective, what is the biggest challenge that you/our team is facing right now?

Carmela: Right now, it would be scheduling. There have been many times where scheduling conflicts with the school’s academic calendar have popped up unexpectedly, and they haven’t been easy to fix. This could greatly affect the willingness of the students to participate, as well as the effectiveness of the leadership program.

If there’s one thing you could change about the Philippines, what is it? And why?

Carmela: Choosing one thing is incredibly difficult; to be completely honest, what I would like to be change is not directly tied to the country’s economic progress. I would like Filipinos in general to be more accepting of different people. In my opinion, Filipinos tend to see others in black and white: for example, I’m rich and you’re poor or vice versa, I’m educated and you’re not, I’m a “pure” Filipino and you’re Chinese, I’m from the province and you’re from Manila, etc. I think that in order to move forward as a nation, we first need to achieve unity and treat each other not as a rich person or poor person, but as Filipinos.

3 words that best described PP Leyte 13, what are they?

For me, fun day started when my alarm rang in the room and I woke up to ready myself for the drive. I'd slept early the night before because instead of paying a driver to take us around Leyte island, I would be driving our whole team to fun day at Kuting Reef in Southern Leyte.

We managed to leave at around 8:30 for a "2 hour drive" to Sogud, Leyte to meet Francis's parents and grandmother for breakfast. Admittedly, I started off driving slowly, but at a few points, I did hit ~80-90 kph (50-55 mph), this despite a mixture of multicabs, jeeepneys, pedestrians, tricycles, bikes, people, animals, and trucks all over the road. Needless to say from the title of this post, the "2 hour drive" took us about three-and-a-half. Breakfast was great and we were all really happy to have some vegetables to eat after so long with only meat, rice, and fried chicken.

Driving in the Philippines was interesting, a lot like driving in Mexico but with significantly more traffic. I have to say that I would do it again, but next time, it would be great to be able to wander a little bit more, stop at places along the way, and spend time in smaller towns.

Along the drive, we passed through small villages, across flat coastal areas with rice fields,  winding hills, and across the tallest bridge in the Philippines, the Agas-Agas Bridge.

After breakfast with Francis's family, we all returned Tian at the bus station in Sogud to send her back to Boston via Tacloban, Manila, Singapore, and London. When we finally arrived at Kuting Reef, we were excited to find a beach, an infinity pool, and a palm-tree covered grassy area. We hit the pool almost before the van had stopped and hung out there until dinner. After dinner, we held spotlight on and then had a sharing activity where everyone shared personal stories and thoughts that helped us all understand how they came to be where they are today.

I'm asking all of you to help me spread the love this Valentine's / "Single's Awareness" day. Please donate to SEALNet (Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network), a non-profit for which I serve on the Board of Directors and which has made my life even more wonderful for the past 6 years.

Ho Chi Minh is a fun place to be.  There's really nothing like it -- crossing the street is a dance with death, a tense tengo with the thousands of motorcycles that take the place of public transportation.  I stayed at my friend Tu's place, which has a gorgeous view of her neighborhood. And there's a market right outside where she lives!  So cool.  Stepping foot out of her house, you have no choice -- life just bursts forth in front of you.  I love it. 

Tu had to go to work in the morning, so her work friend was kind enough to show me where the Notre Dame Cathedral was.  From there, I spent the day wandering in the area, appreciating the pretty French-ness of the Post Office and the city hall courtyard.  I also bought a fabric painting from a streetside vendor off an impulse; it reminded me of the video for M. Ward's Chinese Translation, a song that brings me much joy.  Stepping back, it was all a bit strange, going from SEALNet mode to lonely tourist mode in less than 24 hours.  But while it was a bit lonely walking through foreign streets, such feelings were tempered by good ol' fashioned curiosity in what Ho Chi Minh had in its warm wings.

Later I met up with Tu again to have lunch near the Ben Thanh market, where we caught up a bit on each other's lives and SEALNet.  Once we finished lunch she dropped me off at the War Remnants Museum, which is dedicated to the Vietnam War and its aftermath.  It was a really moving experience just walking through the Agent Orange (AO) exhibits; it's hard to believe that a single toxin can do such terrible things to human beings. After the museum I took whatever energy I had left and moseyed on over to the Reunification Palace, where I'm told the president used to live during the American occupation.  It's pretty well-preserved --  a slice of 60's American tastes and tendencies smack-dab in the thick of Ho Chi Minh.  But by the time I got there I was pretty exhausted from the day's wanderings, so I took a quick peek around and had a siesta in a nearby cafe. 

I had to get up sometime though, so I decided to head back to the Ben Thanh market just to say I had walked through it.  No lie -- this place has everything:  veggies, meat, clothes, ceramics, all the gifts/potential souveneirs you can think of.  Alas, I didn't have space in my luggage for some take-homes, so I decided to jet and wander around the surrounding area.

With the help of a kind (or pitying, dunno which) Vietnamese lady, I managed to cross the turnaround of death twice (!!) and did my fair share of people-watching.  The nice thing about Ho Chi Minh is that there are lots of open spaces (parks, courtyards, etc.) to break up the craziness of the urban landscape.  So for every couple of hundred motorcycles, there's a bunch of people dancing it up in a park.

But by then it was getting kind of dark, so I caught a taxi back to Tu's workplace.  Unfortunately it was a private company (my hypothesis), so I was ripped off major -- the fare was about VND 880,000, but I managed to only pay VND 500-600k.  Still, that left me virtually broke.  With my tail between my legs I holed up in a nearby yogurt place till Tu came to fetch me.  We then went over to a classy joint called Serendra, where we listened to 80's Vietnamese ballads.  It reminded me of the cheesy but uber-romantic Original Pilipino Music (OPM) ballads that I grew up with.  Afterwards we took a taxi to find some Vietnamese sandwiches (neither of us had had dinner at that point) and then headed back to her place to get some rest.  In the morning Tu took me around a few coffee shops before seeing me off to the airport for my flight to Hanoi. 

I really enjoyed my brief time as a tourist in Ho Chi Minh.  While I had to learn a few lessons the hard way, it was fun proving to myself that I could make it through a day in Vietnam alone (beyond that, who knows :P  )  I miss Ho Chi Minh already and hope to be able to come back someday; perhaps SEALNet will allow me that chance in the future...