We finished our work on Friday at the HCMC Pediatric Hospital #1 with a morning lecture from Stacy about kinesiotaping and afternoon consultation for a child with autism, including discussion with his grandmother, who is his main caregiver (usually the norm for young kids in Vietnam). Here are some photos from our last day workin' for a living:
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| Yes, little guy, we're talking about you- |
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Discussing the staff's ongoing conundrum-- why do kids with autism
want to make a break for it? |
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| Stacy's lecture |
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My job as lecture assistant is to be a goofball and
try to keep the child entertained, or at least not crying... |
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The great material and equipment hand-off: casting and splinting materials,
developmentally-appropriate toys, projector... |
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| Pediatric therapy staff showing off new materials- |
Our goodbyes this year brought home to me how much we enjoy working together, and how quickly we get back into the groove of working well as a group as soon as we get back together. It was a tearful goodbye for all of us!
We pulled ourselves together to meet up with some Can Tho group members in the Ben Thanh Market area before they headed back to the US. The surgeons ended up performing 37 surgeries-- for more info about that part of the picture, as well as some photos of surgery, check the project blog:
http://www.extremityproject.blogspot.com/ .
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| dinner |
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| not my dinner |
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Every flavor of sweet sticky rices for dessert. I also followed it up
with a fresh baby coconut!
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Let our travel time begin! As the host at the hotel summed it up, "No more boxes. No more lectures. Good job."
Stacy and I spent the day on Saturday marching around District 1, the main tourist area-- Ben Thanh market, big hotels like the Rex and the Caravalle, home to continually growing Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Gucci mega stores (in heavy competition with the knockoffs in the the Ben Thanh market...). My favorite part of the big market is the food section-- caution: photos of crazy animal body parts ahead!
No photos of other HCMC tourist sites-- we didn't really get back to any of them in our one free day-- if you'd like to see some of those, I can dig up some photos from past trips here... OK, on to the market:
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They use long strips of canvas to hold these
giant crabs down! |
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| brains |
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| stomachs |
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| feet! |
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| dried fruits, nuts, and sweets |
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| ingenious way to keep these pomelos from bruising! |
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| stacks of crabs |
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loading ice into the shredder-- those are
blocks of ice in the back |
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| huge fish! |
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| grubs |
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| I am coveting the butcher's cutting boards |
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| all things dau fu (tofu) |
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I think these are capers, they didn't taste like berries
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In the afternoon, we did my ultimate vacation-time activity: going to the movies-- Harry Potter, yay! I was quite proud that I navigated us to the movie theatre-- many streets in Vietnam use a building numbering system that makes it easy to figure out the block for a specific address, but not the actual building on the block. Sometimes the block extends to the length of many city blocks... as was the case with the Galaxy Theatre. Great movie, great air-conditioning. Snacks + ticket-- under 5 dollars. And covered scooter parking. Don't even get me started.
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Holiday greetings with the movie theatre
make-up demonstration lady-- I liked her pink outfit. |
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My movie snacks-- dried jackfruit (tasted like plantain chips) and
sweet/salty popcorn |
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another perfectly-sized street dog waiting for the
movie to start |
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The theatre was cavernous!
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We managed to get back into our neighborhood after the movie before the skies opened up for some serious rain. The hotel owner, Natasha, surprised us with a generous proposal-- she was very touched by the work we had been doing "for the children in Vietnam", and she offered us a facial and "3-part" hair wash (??) at a home-based salon around the corner. So nice! Hairwashing was multi-part, to be sure, with lots of head slapping, scalp massaging, and vigorous rubbing. Long strips of shaved frozen (realllllly frozen!) cucumber for a facial, followed by more face slapping. It felt great! Those of you that have read my accounts from previous trips know that I have, in the past, ended up in some potentially-odd situations as I try to beat both the heat in the south as well the physical damage inflicted by the box springs that comprise the beds-- including a nightime lie-down-on-the-sidewalk for a bruising massage. This facial and hairwashing was positively luxurious in comparison to anything else I've tried so far.
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where the magic happens
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Tomorrow we're on to Hue in the central highlands region, a 1 1/2 hour flight from HCMC. I'm looking forward to some potentially-cooler weather to check out the imperial tombs and settlements, as well as some different pagoda styles. And of course, the food-- Hue cuisine is supposedly influenced by the former emperor (in place through the early 1900s)'s insistence on never eating the same dish twice, and is thought of as having a very distinct style. We'll be there for a few days, and then head to Hanoi for our last stop before heading home.
Some final shots of Ho Chi Minh City:
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my view from my hotel room--
it was great to stay outside of the tourist district this time |
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| artificial flowers at Ben Thanh market |
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it's getting harder to find really blatantly strange turns-of-phrase in English,
but I liked this one: "Doublestrike: It looks like it's going to be a wordeful weekend." |
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I spend a lot of time looking at what people figure
out to carry on their scooters here. |
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| paint and calligraphy brushes |
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this was a Laurel and Hardy routine in the making-
a ladder with just rungs, no other "leg" for support. |
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| silk shops on Dong Khoi |
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4-person family on one scooter. A scooter the size of mine, on which
Robert and I can't seem to comfortably sit on together! How does this happen? |
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| or just two people and a suitcase. |
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I haven't seen as many women wearing ao dais (pronounced "ow yai")
in HCMC this year-- we'll see what it looks like in Hanoi, which is still
a bit more traditional. In other news, helmets are now required, and most
people wear face masks while driving because of pollution and construction dust.
Women also often wear stretchy, elbow-length gloves to protect from the sun while scootering. |
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