Travel to Vinh Long Province to Assess Flood Damage

The year 2011 has seen excessive rains all over Asia.  In September and October the rains devastated Cambodia and Thailand.  Viet Nam is at the end of the Mekong River so the flooding began to destroy the crops in the Mekong Delta area at the end of October into November. 

 We were asked to travel down to Vinh Long Province to see if there was anything the Church could do to bring relief aid to help the farmers that lost their crops due to the massive flooding.  We had to wait until the river levels dropped so we could get to the area.  On 7 November 2011 we went down and toured the area with Mr. Nam from the Vinh Long Union of Friendship and assessed the damage and what our options were for relief aid.



 To arrive at our destination - village and commune farmers - we traveled in many ways...

 over verrrry scary and rickety bridges....

..by motor bike...see Felix on the back of the first bike?...

 ...by river in a canoe....












 ...and by a slippery, muddy foot path. 

I met this ground - personally!  I had the misfortune of slipping and falling face first into the mud.  Fortunately my camera was fine...after I cleaned all the mud from it!  As you can see, the path was mostly washed away.

 The people in this commune dredged mud up along side the pathway to help stop eroding along the water way.  This was done to both sides of the pathway.

The rain began to fall - again.  We were really hurrying to finish the tour before we got stranded..cut off from civilization (no 'normal' toilet)!


This picture shows the different types of houses in the region.

Dead sweet potato crops - flooded just two weeks before harvest time!   A very sad sight and an economic disaster for the farmer and his family.

Vinh Long produces watermelon, cucumbers, french beans, small spring onions, cabbages, rice, sweet potatoes, tuberoses, gourds, etc. for cash crops.  Mekong Delta region is the 'bread basket' of Viet Nam!  They grow crops year-round.

Anyway, besides the unexpected 'mud bath' the trip was informative and we expect to put together a relief aid project soon.