A Day in the Life of CPI's Duc and Chi

Chi and Duc work in our office in Vietnam and work with beneficiaries in their homes. We call these visits "field trips" and sometimes the travel can be quite far. Chi has filed this report.

After one and a half weeks of being tied up with important office work, by Friday afternoon, our field trip plan was filled up with due activities that can�t be delayed any further: We got reports of six new accidents came in and one House Hold Grant need to implement in 7 different communes of three provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri. This would usually mean a lot of mileage to travel.

Thus, our first thing on Monday morning of August 2nd, 2005 was getting the preparation work done for a two-day field trip: Phone calls to working partners and families were made; obtain all necessary forms related; check/charge camera�s batteries and top up our truck, a 4x4WD Nissan Patrol.

I got up at 4:30 am on Tuesday morning, and Duc arrived at 4:50 to pick me up. The air in the early morning was so fresh and clear. The photo you see is of the sunrise.
We joined the traffic on highway 1, heading north. Our first destination of the day is Ky Anh district of Ha Tinh province, which is 200km away. Highway 1 is in good condition, however, we usually name it as the �low speed-highway� since the speed limits are very low (maximum 35km/hour when in town and 60km/hour when out town). If you exceed more than 20% of the limits then you would end up with a 1,500,000VND fine (equal US$ 100.00) and a hole is punched into your driving license (When you get three holes in the license, you are not a driver of some sort anymore for you have to go back to driving school and start learning from the beginning)� Anyway, we got to the first destination after almost 4 hours drive, passed by several speed-control points on the way without any trouble.
Case # 1: Vo Dinh Thao; born: 1991. Accident Date: July 18, 2005. Injury: Lost left hand, Knee injured.

With good and quick coordination from the district and commune officials, we parked out truck in a shade and followed the commune guide to the first home in Tan Thang village, Ky Tan commune when the clock showed 09:05. The first impression we got was the sound of a Vietnamese pop music song playing loudly from a tiny dirt house. Photo: Vo Dinh Thao 02. Luckily, the boy was at home, alone, listening to the music came out from a VCD (the only valuable asset in the house). His name is Vo Dinh Thao, born in 1991. He stood up to receive us and the white bandage on his left stump caught our eyes. The accident happened to him at 15:00 on July 18, 2005 when he was out in the field getting fresh grass to feed the family�s cow. While he was digging up the grass, his hoe blade hit something subsurface, which immediately responded in a loud explosion. The powerful blast cut off three fingers on his left hand and badly crushed the other fingers. Fragment also penetrated into his left knee. Locals nearby heard the explosion rushed out and immediately took him to the commune aid station and then forwarded him to the district hospital in the same afternoon. After 12 days of treatment, Thao was released from the hospital on July 29, 2005. The doctors had already removed all the fragments in his knee; however, they had also amputated his hand by the wrist joint. Thao said that he doesn�t feel hurt anymore at the wounds, but it would take him more time for the knee skin to heal before he can fold his knee.
While we were talking, Thao mother, Nguyen Thi Minh, came home. She is a short, middle aged woman. Look at her face, one can tell that she is not in good health and had been through a difficult life. With the participation of the mother, the family story is revealed clearer. Mrs. Minh has been living with her two sons and Thao is the youngest. A work accident happened to her in 1979 when she was a worker at a rock quarry. She and other workers stood at the bottom of the quarry, manually exploit and move small rocks when a large rock from up above suddenly felt down on her. Minh�s small body was all buried under it. She was rescued and transported to the hospital. The woman survived from the accident with a long scar on her head behind the ear, the left thigh bone and toe bone were broken. She was entitled for an early retirement with a monthly compensation of 300,000VND (equivalent to US$ 20.00). Since then, she was unable to do anything other than some light house work. There has been no presence of a father in the small family. The mother had struggled a lot to raise her two sons. Two months ago, her first son (Thao�s older brother) returned home after two years away in the south for a living. He gave his mother 5 million VND (US$ 320.00) asked her to buy a cow and took the rest of his saving down town and brought home a set of VCD and speakers. After the family reunion, life resumed its usual pace. Daily, the two brothers took turn to take care of the cow and some farm work while the mother would cook meals and raise three small piglets at home. Mrs. Minh said that she goes to the market every other day and would spend all together about 10,000VND (US$ 0.6) for food for the three of them. (Apparently, her monthly compensation of 300,000VND is the only stable income for the family). On the day of the accident, she had 250,000VND, still not enough for emergency treatment. Thus she had to apply for an emergency loan of 1 million VND with an interest rate of 1.5%/month. The total medical costs were almost US$ 100.00.
After reimburse the medical cost for the family, we said goodbye to the family and walked back to the truck, still, our thoughts were with the family and their living circumstance.
Case # 2: Duong Van Sy; Born: 1976. Accident Date: Jan 18, 2005. Injury: Died on the way to hospital.

Our next destination was Ky Lam commune. We arrived at the commune�s people committee at 10:45. With a previous introduction phone call from our district partner, the commune leaders and police received us at their office with a brief on UXO accidents in the area. Until then, we realized that there had been two UXO related accidents happened here in 2005. One back in January, the second was just three days ago, on July 29th. We decided to visit both families.
The commune policeman first took us to the home of Duong Van Sy�s parent-in-law. We met Sy�s wife with her two small sons and Sy�s mother-in-law, who slowly told us what happened on the day back in January�
It was January 18th, 2005; and everyone was busy preparing for the wedding party for their second daughter that supposed to be held at home on the next day. Duong Van Sy and his brother-in-law, Pham Huu Nam were assigned to set up a temporary rain shelter in the front yard. Photo: Duong Van Sy 2: Sy�s parent-in-law�s, the accident site In the morning, the two brothers had brought home enough bamboos and other materials for the work; and now, in the afternoon, they would put up the palm leaf roof. At 5p.m., all the palm leaves were already in place, the only thing left was to tie the leaves to the bamboo frame. Sy went inside the home and brought out a bunch of small size steel wire while Nam went into the kitchen for a large knife. They sat on the ground, put the wires on a wood junk and used the large knife to chop them into short pieces. The small wires stuck into the soft wood instead of breaking into pieces. Sy told Nam go look for a metal junk as an anvil. The boy went to the back yard and took out an 82mm mortar that he found in the morning when go cutting bamboo. At this time there was nobody around except the two of them; and neither Sy nor Nam would think of anything else other than chopping those wires into short pieces. The explosion came shortly after that, turning the small and quiet village into chaos. Both men were found seriously injured but Sy was worse. He died on the way to the district hospital. Nam�s major injuries were in his eyes.
The wedding was cancelled. The temporary shelter was then quickly finished with help from other men in the village to serve as a place for funeral ceremony. The families were divided: some went to the district hospital taking care of the injured one while others would take care of the funeral and burial ceremonies at the village. The family had to sell 2 buffaloes and borrowed another 12 million dongs from the neighbors for the ceremonies and medical treatments.
Sy�s two sons are all small. The first one is 4 years old; the second is only two. His wife, Pham Thi Van is 23 years old. In the above photo Chi is granting the family financial support to help with the children's schooling as well as funeral expenses for their father.
Case # 3: Pham Van Kien; Born: 1988. Accident Date: July 29th, 2005. Injury: Abdomen, colostomy.

Kien�s family has a cassava farm in a hill about 2 km from the village. On July 29th, 2005, he left home at 7 to do some weeding for the cassava. He was alone at the farm, but down the hill foot there were 4 kids herding their cows. At 9, Kien�s mother returned home from the local market, and just as she entered the house, she heard an explosion. She thought somebody were digging a well and use explosive to break the hard layer of rock. 15 minutes later, a lady rushed into her house with the bad news that her son was seriously injured on the farm. Kien�s older brother immediately run up to the farm and saw 3 kids were trying to get his brother down the slope; blood was springing out from his abdomen. Kien was taken to the commune aid station and forwarded to the district hospital.
We met Kien�s mother and brother at the house. The father and a sister had already gone and stayed at the hospital to look after Kien. Kien�s mother told us the accident happenings. Tiredness and anxiety was written on her face.
We said goodbye to the mother and the brother after assuring them that CPI would help cover all the treatment expenses. We arrived at the Ky Anh district hospital at 12:05. There we met the father, the sister and an aunt. Kien was awake. He wore a colostomy bag. The father said that a piece of fragment penetrated into his abdomen and punched 4 holes in Kien�s intestine and that the surgery lasted 2 and a half hours.
Kien family owns a poverty card; an official certificate that verifies that the family�s monthly income is below the poverty line.
Case # 4: Phan Duy Bay; Born: 1978. Accident Date: June 6th, 2005. Injury: Killed on spot.
We left Ky Anh district, Ha Tinh province to driving south to Quang Trach district, Quang Binh province. Duc and I didn�t talk much to each other as our thoughts still with those families we�ve just visited. The beautiful green color of the rice paddies on our way to Quang Luu commune helped reduce a little bit of our pitiful feelings.
We arrived at Phan Duy Bay�s home at 16:27. Received us was Bay�s mother, holding her youngest grand son in her arms. The wife was still some where on the field.
Bay is the youngest sibling in his family; and according to the local tradition, the youngest child is to live with and take care of the parents. He got married in 1999, and his wife, Nguyen Thi Nga became a new member in the family. Their first son came out the next year, and the second was born in 2003. Being the major bread winner of the family, Bay had been struggled for a living. He sold his labor to different jobs for the exchange of any kind of profit. His wife is helping him with the farm work, raising the two small children and taking care of her mother-in-law.
One day Bay met a man in the next village, who told him of a new way to earn a living. The new job requires frequent travel. Bay usually leaves home at 5a.m. and won�t returned until 7 p.m. The average income is 30,000VND/day (equivalent to US$ 2.00); sometimes is 50,000VND/day. The more he works, the further he has to travel, as the scrap metal would run out after a while.
It was June 9th, 2005 and Bay left home a bit earlier than usual. He couldn�t earn much during the last three days, thus today he decided to go further� The afternoon of the day was dragged in pain for Bay�s mother and wife. The bad news reached home at 2 p.m but Bay�s body was not taken home until 9 p.m.
Bay�s wife returned home from work, and as soon as we introduced ourselves, I saw tears in her eyes as she grasped her youngest child into her lap.
Case # 5: Pham Van Dao; Born: 1983. Accident Date: January, 2004. Injury: Lost 90% of eye sight.

Our next beneficiary is Pham Van Dao. This is not a new accident case as it happened back in January of 2004. We already responded to the accident, supported the family with all medial treatment for his eyes. Then the family�s living condition was assessed and we decided to help the family purchase a cow for them to generate their income. It is also a suitable work for Dao to take the cow out for grass. Mr. Pham Van Tuyen, Dao�s father had spent 4 days in the neighboring villages and he finally located a 5 year-old-female cow in a village 8 km away.
We �escorted� Mr. Tuyen to the cow�s owner to accomplish some required paper work and pay our assistance (66,6% of the total value in cash). It was getting dark as we drove to the place. The cow�s owner is a 78 years old woman, with very nice characters. She currently owns two cows and wants to sell one to get money spending on other things. The agreed price was 4.5 million VND (equivalent to US$ 290.00) and to our own assessment, the cow would worth more than that as she was in her pregnancy and would deliver a calf in three months time.
At 7:30, we said goodbye to the kind lady to take Mr. Tuyen back to his home. We still have another 50km to drive on the �low-speed highway� to get to a place to rest.

Case # 6: Nguyen Van Cuong; Born: 1968. Accident Date: July 19th, 2005. Injury: Killed on spot.
We started the second day of our field trip with 40km drive. The work we did yesterday was assessed as �productive�, though full of sorrow. This morning we head west of Quang Binh province, take the new Ho Chi Minh highway to Phuc Trach commune.
After short greeting and introduction at the commune people�s committee, an official took us to the victim�s home of Nguyen Van Cuong. A small, wooden house located next to a big catholic church. Like other homes we visited yesterday, there was nothing in the house that worth more than 100,000VND (US$ 6.00). The couples (Cuong and his wife) lived here with their two children. Their son is three years old and their daughter is nearly three months old. For a living, Cuong used to follow his buddies go to the forest to collect firewood; he also trades his labor for any kind of work. But for the last three months he had to stay or work near his home for his wife had just has a baby.
On July 19th, 2005; Cuong got up and cook breakfast for his wife. He didn�t leave his home till 8 o�clock. He intended to work through lunch as the work place is 5 km from home and it would take him one hour just to get there. His work didn�t last long since at 10 o�clock, his hoe blade hit something and an explosion occurred. When locals arrived at the scene, Cuong was found dead.
Though we had tried our best to stay calm during the visit, the grieving wife and the image of their three months old daughter made a deep impression in our souls.