BIG Changes! And a trip to Can Gio

Saigon River, view from the river!

Hello, faithful followers and curious onlookers!  We've had some big changes since my last post; hang on for the wild ride to come!  That makes it sound exciting, doesn't it?

We've had a busy couple of weeks at school.  We've had two "VOSH Ambassadors" come for a visit; VOSH=Volunteer Optometric Service to Humanity, an organization we have volunteered through before in the US.  VOSH has grown to make connections internationally as well, for example, with the Brien Holden Vision Institute.  Dr. Neelam Patel came from the Chicago area and the following week Dr. Thuyanh Le came from the Boston area, to meet our students and provide a lecture to them about eye care topics. They also brought some equipment donated by VOSH so that our students can improve their skills by using much-needed new equipment.

Dr. Neelam was able to assist in a procedures lab for our 3rd year students.

While Dr. Neelam was here, one of Dr. Lori's friends had a baby shower for her at a beautiful rooftop venue.  Dr. Neelam is also one of her friends and former associates from her optometry career in the US.  I was proud of the cute Tshirt I found as part of the baby gift; people in the US probably don't get the second part of the "keep calm" saying, but lucky money or "li xi" (pronounced lee see) in Vietnamese is what people here give and get for Tet.  Instead of buying toys for your child as we do for Christmas, here children get excited over the li xi that is in the red envelope.  The "Sheep!" part of the shirt is just random, ha ha.  I couldn't buy a cute pink or blue outfit because the baby's gender is to be a surprise!  April 11 is the due date, coming quickly.

Keep Calm!  Sheep!

Dr. Lori with a delicious-looking "diaper cake"--cute but inedible.

Dr. Thuyanh handing over donated equipment from VOSH to our headmaster Mr. Long (and us) after her lecture

Last weekend we played tourist for a day to get away from thinking about work.  We booked a tour to Can Gio that Lori and her husband recommended. Can Gio is the district furthest away from the city center of HCMC, 50 km from downtown.  It is home to many varieties of wildlife including monkeys, crocodiles, bats, and birds in a UNESCO protected mangrove forest.  We took this great fast boat along the river to get there.  After leaving the city, it reminded us of Florida because of the mangroves along the banks.

Juxtaposition between modern, high-rise buildings in the back and "shanty" or stilt houses in the foreground, which are gradually disappearing with government clean-up efforts in HCMC.

Bat swamp: we could see a lot of bats hanging in the trees on a small boat ride.

A small puffer fish our guide pulled out of a small pond to show us the amazing bright green color.

Monkeys!!  We had to stay in the tram because they can get aggressive.  But there was an "elderly" female monkey who was gentle and reportedly bullied by the other monkeys we were allowed to feed (next photo).

Bob handing the gentle monkey an egg to eat.

Feeding crocodiles in the crocodile reserve

The tour was a nice getaway from the big city for a day as well as staying off our computers for a break.  We have had a pretty big change at our university; 2 weeks ago our headmaster Mr. Long informed us that due to personal reasons he had resigned from his position and his last day was to be March 1.  We were shocked and saddened by this news since he has been involved with bringing optometry to Vietnam since the beginning and he has been our primary liasion between the optometry department and the Vietnamese-speaking university personnel.  Upon receiving his announcement we contacted BHVI and 2 urgent meetings were scheduled the following week.  At the meeting with the university rector and other officials involved with the program, we were happy to hear that a replacement had been named already, putting to rest our fears that the process might take weeks or months.  Dr. Chau is our new headmistress, and although she is an ophthalmologist, she seems eager to lead our sub-department and to understand optometry's role as an independent profession working in tandem with ophthalmology to improve vision and eye health.  She has asked our former colleagues (two Vietnamese lecturers) from our first 2 years of teaching back to help our department, and we have another Vietnamese optometrist, trained in France, on board to teach some refraction classes.  In May we expect to welcome another US lecturer to take over Dr. Lori's teaching duties as she will be on maternity leave in addition to preparing to move to Indonesia with her husband's job transfer with Adidas.  Never a dull moment with this job!

One last teaching picture:  our second year students are just learning the skill of looking into the back of the eye using hand instruments (direct ophthalmoscopes).  We were able to bring back a fundus camera (old technology but still working) from the VOSH workday we attended in January, and the students think it's the coolest thing to see the back of their own eye using the camera!  You can see how intently they look on as our teaching assistant Sang demonstrates the use of the instrument.

What a retina looks like through the pupil, so cool!

Time to wrap this up and get to bed.  TGIF tomorrow for us; Bob has morning Academic Vision Clinic with the seniors and I have this same lab in the above picture with the second half of the class.  Thanks for reading about our life in Vietnam!