We did it!

These past few days have made this trip a success. As everyone knows, the reason for our trip to Vietnam was to try and open relations here, and to hopefully come back with some applications. Well, we did it!

We have been in Da Lat the past 3 days, which is why we have not posted in a while. While there, we met with daughters of charity at the Domaine de Marie. Also with us was a lovely lady of charity, who acted as our interpreter. The daughters of charity spoke very good english, but the lady of charity helped to explain all the fine details of GLOBE. From the start of our conversations, the daughters seemed very interested and were asking very good questions. They understood our operations and even understood our interest rate structure! Before long they were asking how many applications they can send us. What great news! All we need to do now is to wait for the lady of charity to translate the application into Vietnamese and the daughters will get to work. It is such a great feeling that this trip is a success. We had a mission prior to leaving for Vietnam, and we will be coming back knowing it was a success!

Prior to leaving for Da Lat, we went to a home for single mothers. We met with daughters of charity here in Ho Chi Minh City and a volunteer who is from California. On the way to the home, we learned that there were more documented abortions than live births in Vietnam recently. This was startling to me. This number does not include the abortions that occurred outside of hospitals either. It is very sad. The women living at this house were basically ostracized from the family, and looked down upon. These are ladies who were abandoned by everyone once they learned they were pregnant. Luckily, the daughters of charity were here to help. While at the home, we saw that the women living here sew different items during the day, which were all for sale at the home. Another amazing opportunity for GLOBE to make a presence in Vietnam. Once these women safely give birth and they are ready to have their families let them back home, we can provide them a loan to continue the trade they learned so well.

I can't stop reminding everyone of the success our trip to Vietnam has brought. We have met a numerous amount of great people who bend over backwards for us here. A memorable trip, and a successful one at that. It is exciting that future GLOBE managers are going to have new applications to vet from the work that myself, Alina and Dr. Sama did here. The trip is not over though, and we have one more meeting tomorrow with another daughter of charity. Hopefully she likes what we have to say and we will have even more applications coming back to the States.

Marco, out.