Into the Community

Last week I had the privilege of giving the closing remarks at an IDU (Injecting drug user) PE (peer education) training. These guys will go into their communities and teach their peers about HIV, the dangers of injecting drugs, and the services that are available to them. Injecting drugs is a social evil and one can be put in prison if he/she is caught. Also right now the services that are available to IDUs is generally methadone maintenance treatment, which is a synthetic opiate replacement that doesn't have the effects of heroin but satisfies the cravings. It helps IDUs stop injecting and live normal lives. The jury is still out on how effective it really is. Additionally, the USG (United States Govern't) will not support needle exchange (this was a Pres. Clinton thing). So other donors such as the World Bank and the Global Fund are slowly starting to support these activities. Again, it is a small effort and it is hard to guage how effective it will be.

Anyway I gave the beginning greeting in Vietnamese! It was exciting to see their faces light up and they gave me a huge round of applause. The 3 hours a week of Vietnamese lessons might be paying off a little!!


The picture is a little blurry on purpose but you get the idea!

CDC Retreat in Nha Trang

I find myself extremely fortunate to be able to go on a work retreat to a beautiful beach 37 minutes away flying!! Nha Trang is a gorgeous beach and not very far away from an historic US military base. The sand is beautiful and the water was a perfect refreshing temperature.







We stayed a super nice hotel for the retreat. Most of the time was spent in the conference room but we did get out one afternoon to experience the boat trip to snorkel around. I found it really helpful to get to know staff outside of the working environment!!


Dr. Son and Dr. Thai are pretty much two of my favorite people ever!! They have both put in over 20 years of service to the VN gov't before working for CDC! They are the smartest, coolest people I could ever wish to work with!




Kate and I stayed for the weekend to fully take advantage of the beach. The entire time we were inside for the meetings the sun was shinning without hesitation. I promise that the minute that Kate and I had smeared ourselves with SPF 50 and gotten out to the beach the sky clouded up and it proceeded to be mostly cloudy and kinda rainy on Sat?!?! What is up with that? Anyway instead of frying myself like a rotisery chicken I joined the others on a Indiana Jones adventure!! We went looking for the Cham towers with a driver who didn't fully know where he was going. It was fun hiking up to these ancient ruins that were left behind by a past kingdom of the Cham people.But Sunday was gorgeous. I went out to the beach early and watched the sun rise over the water. This was after an amazing typical Vietnamese hotel breakfast. They don't mess around with breakfast here. The rest of the morning was spent playing in the ocean and getting thoroughly sunned. I love the feeling of the sun on a beach.

The end of the story I thought would end on a plane back to HCMC Sunday night but nope... While waiting for my flight I heard over the loud speaker something in Vietnamese and everyone started scrambling which drowned out the English translation. I finally figured out that our flight was canceled and they were shutting down the airport. As anyone who has ever been to Asia, there are no lines so I joined the mob to get a hotel voucher and try to figure out how I was going to get back to Nha Trang (about 45 minutes away). About 30 minutes later I was on my way back to Nha Trang. The hotel was sufficient but I'll be honest going from a 5 star hotel to a 4 star hotel and now a 3 star...I had been spoiled. But the next morning bright and early I was on a very empty flight back to Ho Chi Minh City!! Apparently the cancellation had messed up a lot of international travelers so they had taken a 6-7 hour bus back to the city the night before. Note to self: don't cut it that close!!