Day 1 @ Work

Our day started with running to get some delicious cold filter coffee, miming (this was all Meagan) and successfully getting either butter or condensed milk with bread, meeting at the hotel lobby and heading out to work. We met with our faculty adviser Dean Current, who just got in this morning. We are working with Consultative and Research Center on Natural Resource Management (CORENARM) and Dung Ngo, who is one of the Founders, has been our main contact. He introduced us to other staff in the organization and gave us an introduction of the three main tracks they work on: natural resource management, sustainable forestry, and disaster management and climate change. He was telling how a group of graduate students got together and had the idea and passion to found CORENARM.

All the literature we got today!

We also talked briefly about the different projects we could work on: one being Community Forestry Management in Thua Thien-Hue, another being possibly evaluating PES in a different province (this is a maybe), and finally a supply chain or Non Timber Forest Product evaluation. We are going to talk more about this in the week to come, attend presentations at local universities and figure out a plan of action. For us to be here, CORENARM has to inform the local authorities and the same rule applies for anywhere else we may want to go. CORENARM said they have a lot we can work on, and we said we would like to work on whatever they would benefit from the most. I think our role is somewhat of a 'freelance development consultants' and I do hope that we end up doing something that is useful not just for us but also for them.

We then walked back to the hotel (we got lost and meandered a lot) and then went back to the CORENARM office. Dung drove all of us to the WWF office, where we met with project head for the Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia region, the head for Vietnam and another project officer. They gave us details about the sustainable rattan project that they are working on and how it is expanded to other products such as bamboo. They also then gave us each a copy of a recently published book and now we all have reading assignments!

The cold coffee here is the
closest to my mom's :)

I was thinking about the work I have done with non-profits in India and what I saw is similar and different. I almost can't help but adopt a compare and contrast approach in my head, and then top it up with whatever little I have learned in Minnesota. One of the things I remembered first was the organizations being housed in residential structures. There were other interesting things to that I will list out in greater detail another day.

This was an amazing bookstore.

We made a trip to the Coop Market (Meagan found out that the word for supermarket is Sheuti :) or similar sounding) to get some groceries and essentials and I also finally found a phone exactly like what everyone in the team has, but only red. Now all I need is a sim card. We then wandered into a bookstore and it was lovely and full of fresh-smelling books, people sitting and reading, and amazing posters (movies, TV series and whatnot). We are meeting early tomorrow morning to sit with our faculty adviser and before that we meet tonight. I have pages and pages of notes from our meetings and different brochures and whatnot and am hoping to transfer them online soon.