By Farah Zulkefly
My day began with Lochna’s phone alarm ringing non-stop. Over. And over. Again. “Ish ish ish Mak Cik ni!” Unfortunately, Lo sleeps like a log so I knew it was time to haul myself out of bed and throw myself in the shower. We left our motel at 7.45 am and reached Chuong Trinh AIDS at 8.24 am. We were received by Dr Yeoh’s old friend Mr. Pham Thanh Van who led his group in song to welcome us all. Cyren then held a brief ice-breaking session where everyone had to say their names accompanied with a unique action. We stood in a circle. Cyren went first and introduced himself, then performed an elaborate stage bow. We reciprocated by saying “Hello Cyren” and imitated his bow. This went on until everyone in the circle had been introduced. Mr Pham then conducted a brief info-session on the work they do with the Vietnamese people.
Chuong Trinh AIDS works with the country’s poor community, focusing on those living on the edge of poverty. The organization also recently introduced a programme for domestic violence. They aim to empower women and educate them about their rights. An estimated two thirds of poor Vietnamese women suffer from domestic violence.
The session broke up into four groups, each led by a representative of Chuong Trinh AIDS. Our group, led by Mr Hoang went to ‘Ghost Village’, named as such because it was built on top of a cemetery. Ghost Village is situated in District 12 and is home to many of Saigon’s poor. Mr Hoang himself lives there. He invited us to his home for lunch. We were a bit reluctant at first as we did not want to impose upon him and his family, especially if it might be costly for them. We eventually agreed and contributed 20,000 Vietnamese dong each for ingredients. Bats and I also put in our share, but explained that we would not be eating for religious reasons (“tak boleh makan babi la kan”). While Mr Hoang’s wife prepared our meal, he took us to explore the village.
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An idea of how small the streets are |
Many children were running about, playing with their neighbours. The curious ones walked along with us and even gamely posed for pictures. The villagers live in relative comfort. The quality of life under ‘poverty’ status showcases a bright side of communism. To be quite frank, it is not as dire as poverty in Malaysia and Indonesia. Ghost Village is made up of extremely narrow buildings. Most people do not have electricity and some of the smaller houses are slightly over a meter in width. All houses are two storeys high but not all buildings are on a one family basis. More than one family may live in a single house or on a single floor. We met a lady who earns only 30,000 Vietnamese dong a day and has to spend 20,000 Vietnamese dong on her daily rent.
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| Some Curious Kids |
Mr Hoang also took us to visit a woman living with HIV. She has a son aged eleven years old and he is HIV negative. He helps her with her daily chores at home because her hands are slightly deformed, making it difficult for her to do simple tasks. Her husband passed away several years ago. She does not know where she contracted HIV as she does not know if her husband was HIV positive. Her theory is that she might have been pierced with a stray hypodermic needle while she was at work chopping trees. She gets medical support from the government and is also the head of a HIV support group. She told us that it makes her happy to be with other HIV sufferers, to educate and share her experience with them.
We continued walking through the village and stopped for a discussion and some jasmine tea at a small square somewhere in the bowels of Ghost Village. We sat down with Mr Hoang and two other ladies, (whose names I regretfully did not catch) and had a little Q&A session about the state of the village and other questions that sprang to mind. I am also “syiok sendiri” (proud) to announce that Mr Hoang liked our group very much saying that we were “friendly” and “cute”. Go team! Once we were done we followed Mr Hoang down a series of alleyways and suddenly we were back at his house. His wife was in the middle of preparing our meal. They were cooking halal food because of Bats’ and my ‘special food conditions’. We were very touched that they went out of their way to accommodate our needs. Hoang’s wife even made sure she used vegetable oil and not lard. How could we say no after that yo? She fried tofu with garlic and lemon leaves and made a traditional Vietnamese soup out of tamarind, fish, yam leaf stalks and bamboo shoots. We sat on the floor of Mr Hoang’s house in a circle. He served the rice in little bowls and we ate with chopsticks. It was THE best meal I had in Saigon so far and my Ghost Village teammates agreed with me. Nothing beats home-cooked food y’all! Mr Hoang told us that we were all eating as a family, and that really projected the community vibe of the village and showcased some true Vietnamese hospitality.
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Mr Hoang helping his wife prepare our meals |
We were officially done with our session after lunch, but we decided to go the extra mile and do a bit of exploring. We had asked Mr Hoang earlier if there were any places of worship within the village grounds and he told us that there were a few pagodas a few kilometers outside the village. We went to the Ty Quong pagoda, a Buddhist temple that like many others incorporates borrowed figures from other religions in order to encourage Vietnamese people to convert to Buddhism. The Pagoda had a huge gate with dragons, flanked by some Taoist-looking gods on the left and a scary looking demon on the right. They were gigantic and had red light bulbs for eyes. We entered the temple through the side entrance which had a stone arch adorned with statues. The temple walls and courtyard were suffused with a smattering of statues big and small here and there. Savvy?
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Farah Zulkefly majoring in Journalism and Communications, is an omnivorous being who loves spending time in the depths of the ocean where humans can't talk with turtles and other reef inhabitants. She has a closet love for architecture and interiors but cannot draw to save her life.
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