The 5th day in Quang Tri province

Friday, June 21st, the fifth day in Quang Tri, our group left the hotel at 8.00, being ready for another amazing day. In the morning, we visited the mushroom producing center, named MWM (Mushroom with a mission), another project belonging to RENEW Project. RENEW has three main operating fields: education about landmines for local people; UXO clearance (with one field site that we visited on Monday); and victim assistance. The victim assistance field includes medical training for local medical staffs, microcredit projects for women of UXO victim families; and MWM. At the MWM, we have chance to experience the mushroom producing chain. At the center, the materials are processed carefully until the mushroom seeds are planted to bags of dirt from rubber trees and afterwards sent to UXO victim families that cooperate with the project.  The staff there are so happy working with the new and modern machine system sponsored by the Japanese Embassy two weeks before. And we suddenly think about how hard the work was for the workers without the support of those machines before. Anyway, we are so happy knowing from a staff of the center that this project has helped improve those families' income significantly.

Leaving the mushroom center quite early, around 10.30 am, we come to a family with a woman who is one of the beneficiaries of RENEW's microcredit project to help poor women who are suffered from the war and UXO to improve their living condition. The name of the woman that we visit is Le Thi Quyen. She lives with her only son who is 16 years old and following a vocational school in the downtown of Quang Tri. Actually, the income that the woman can earn from this microcredit project is not very much, just about 1 million VND per year (about 50US$), but at least she has an additional amount of income that can partly support her son's studying. The woman grew up with her leg injured in the Vietnam war/American war by a bomb or something that even her can not remember when she was very little. She still talked about how harsh the war was, how destructive the US bombings caused to her neighborhood. But now, she and her son are living in a compassion house sponsored by American Red Cross. For me, the war belongs to the past, we don't feel happy about that but we can not change what has happened. The more important thing is now the two countries have been friends, helping each other to fix the consequences of the war, directing to new missions together. And for me, that is peace!

Now, I'm sitting here, sharing my thoughts about the trip, beside my American friends. We have become very good friends, freely talk with each other, happily laugh with each other, without any barrier (except for the language barrier sometimes). And for me, that is peace!

I love you all, my beloved GIEU friends!
Phung Chu Thuy Linh