Visiting with Survivors, Kids First Village, and the Cam Lo Blind Association

Our initial beneficiary contact yesterday came with arriving at the Clear Path offices first thing in the morning. Ok, actually our first activity was having banh mi om let pho ma ~ Vina for scrambled eggs with cheese on a mini-baguette ~ and a shot of jet fuel. Jet fuel is "caphe sua": remarkably strong drip coffee that forms a black half inch atop the viscous white layer of condensed milk in the bottom of our ubiquitous poka-dotted juice glasses.

With a Vietnamese caffeine sparkle in our eyes we encountered Lang, who is a double below elbow double amputee. He lost his hands and wrists in 1975 while helping his mother picking up bundles of cut grass. Ignorant of the explosive device that to lay hidden on the ground under the grass, he gathered it as well. The simple contact of his innocent hands set off the device. Since that time, he has found a passion for swimming and is now a multi-gold medal winner and has won top honors at the Asian Paralympic Games. Lang's quiet strength emanated like a force of nature. Beyond swimming, his grace with pensmanship would totally put to shame my own best, careful attempts, and his comfort bicycling (ironically including using "hand" brakes) would set an example for any able bodied individual.

From the office, we bounced over a few awash backroads to the Kids First Village. This sprawling compound is an expression of a grand vision in helping disabled children -and "disabled" may include socio-economic disablement. The plan is for a number of NGO's to operate semi-independently under the umbrella of Kids First.

Lean and tall, craggily weathered, long term Dong Ha resident John Ward, directs the Village. His plan is to fill these brand new spacious buildings with a hospitality industry and culinary arts training school, a mobility clinic for children with physical challenges, a wheel chair production facility, and a medical clinic for impoverished. To call it a big project would be dangerously understating the challenges ahead, but without a strong vision, without a dream big enough this facility might not attract the attention, enthusiasm and financial support that these children deserve and desperately need.

The idea of "contrast" as a theme for the day became exquisitely clear with the comparison to our next stop: the Cam Lo Blind Association. This organization operates out of a thiry year old set of decrepit buildings -- in places the ceilings are collapsing into the few rooms of their aged building. Several support pillars have completely lost their cement -- they have eroded down to dangerously bare rebar. Floors are cratered and heavily puddled. They train local blind individuals to make natural fiber brooms, toothpicks (and no meal table in Vietnam is without a container of toothpicks), and incense for temples and homes. The Association has strong connections with in the community ~ they cannot make enough brooms for the demand. The local temples are committed to supporting them through the purchase of their incense. These people have done their research and carry out a wonderfully simple, humble, grass roots program that is succeeding strongly.

Clear Path has a poignant personal connection to the Cam Lo Blind Association because two of its beneficiaries ~Thien, 34y/o and Huyen,22y/o~ are both land mine survivors. She lost total vision in one eye and 70% in the other, Thien is totally blinded and lost all the fingers on his left hand. The surgeons were able to reconstruct the remaining palm structure by splitting it down the middle to enable some degree of manual opposition and manipulation.

Thien possess the most arresting eyes of any being i've ever met. Like a magnet, the undimmed brilliance of his heart and soul unexpectedly and irresistably command eye contact. His stellar ('star-like' in that he emits infinitely more light than he consumes) quality is perfectly and beautifully matched by the careful, tenderness that Huyen effortlessy wraps around him. Any of life's sharp edges that manage to find their way through her powerful layer of loving protection, find his seamless, selfless smile of wonder. We went with the two of them to the small, damp room they share in his parents' very modest home. Thien offered to demonstrate his broom making skill while his mother harvested a mammoth jack fruit from one of their trees.

Thien's equipment: one bamboo staff, one bundle of stiff bristle fiber, and a length of tough nylon monofilament. He squatted down comfortably and his limbs began to dance; all four moving, bracing, tying, spreading,. His mouth stepped in whenever the missing fingers were needed -- pulling things tight with teeth as he steadied with his hands, or holding a loop while his hands tied another knot. We were silent in our awe. Communally, we realized that not one of us, with all digits and both eyes could even come close to making such a durable, beautiful product.

Again and again those of us on this trip are given so much more than we can ever return. Thank you Lang,Thien and Huyen.