Submitted by Deniz Hatiboglu on the 2019 winter session program in Vietnam and Cambodia sponsored by the Department of Finance…
Since landing in Ha Noi, things have been different, and I can’t say, I wasn’t prepared for that. The one thing, I wasn’t prepared for, was the life in a small village sleeping under a mosquito net and waking at midnight to roosters crowing. The second day of my program, I found out there was a change in the itinerary, and we would be going to the homestay service project the following day. We left at 9:00 am the next morning, for a four hour bus ride to a remote village called Mai Chau. My palms started to sweat as a smile crept across my face. We were going to be able to help people, and experience a way of life that I, for one, had never seen before. Looking back, I had no idea how this experience would change me for the better. From the second, we turned those steep, misty mountain roads, the world around me shifted. I saw the farm stands and small, family owned shops. The generations of women helping to run a single fruit stand and their chickens that grazed in the grassy patches next to them and along the busy road whirring with motorbikes and army buses.
