Today was Ho Chi Minh's 121st Birthday. When I first heard about this holiday, I thought what great timing, we will get to share in the experience of a Vietnamese holiday. However, such was not the case as no one seemed to bring it up or do anything special. In fact it was more like a "did you know" kind of thing. However today was special to me for so many other reasons ....
Today we were picked up by Hao, a delightful woman who works with Nike. We drove to the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh ... it took us about an hour and thirty minutes. There was a lot of greenery which was surprising. We arrived in Cu Chi to meet with the womens union. They help distribute loans to women in the city. They talked a little bit about their responsibilities. They have a lot on their plate yet they didn't seem to mind, because after all they were aiding in the alleviation of poverty. Although they currently vet more loans than we do ... and do it with eight employees ... they seem to be really interested in our micro loan program and what our experiences were. As we talked more and more it seemed as though experiences were similar. For example they have had instances where a borrower was approved but never claimed the loan money. GLOBE shares in this experience. Right after out meeting we went to the house of one of the borrowers. There seems to follow the Grameen model, where the borrowers are in groups within their communities. The borrower we met made 1000 rice paper for about three dollars a day. She even let us try to make it. While attempting to make the rice paper in the scorching heat, I realized just how difficult the working conditions were for this woman. Yet she never broke a sweat and a smile never escaped her face ... even though we sufficiently slowed down her production and probably wasted some materials on some poorly made and sometimes horrendous looking rice paper. Apparently our attempt at making rice paper was amusing especially to the children, who came out to see what was going on. It was difficult to walk away from seeing her work conditions into an air conditioned car. As I was walking away I kept wishing I had something to give these kids. I quickly remembered that I had a pack of Juicy Fruit in my bag. I gave the gum to the children who were so excited. The smiles on their faces made my day. Who knew ... Juicy Fruit could make such a difference.
It was such an eventful day especially since we did so much walking and saw a lot of the area near our hotel.It is funny how an hour away theres a world with dirt roads and kids walking without shoes and near us there are Chanel, Burberry, Gucci, etc. stores. Really puts things into perspective. We also received some reassurance from the Womens Union, who shared with us that 6000 plus borrowers from their program have risen out of poverty. It's a pretty staggering statistic for an organization that has only existed since 1998 and has given out loans since then in the amount of 840,000 Dollars. That's a lot less than I could have imagined.
So it really just goes to show that it doesn't take a lot to do a little. Sometimes it can even be a pack of gum.
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