Dong Ha Howdy!

We spent Friday visiting some of PeaceTrees' other local projects, several of which were in the rural farmlands and all of which are geared toward helping individuals or areas impacted by landmines and UXO.

We got our daily adorable-kid fix at another PeaceTrees kindergarten, this one in the countryside 25 minutes' drive from Dong Ha. As with the other schools we'd brought boxes of presents to share. Balloons and soap bubbles were the biggest hits with the kids; Madame Sam, president of the Quang Tri Women's Union, was partial to the balsa wood airplane. She, by the way, is fabulous. Her organization's goal is to bring social and economic development to women and families in the province. She represents a membership of 90,000 women; they partner with PeaceTrees to identify prospective projects. She's the one who recommended A Xing for the Warner Kindergarten.

After the kid fix we went further into the Dong Ha Boon Docks to meet some beneficiaries of PeaceTrees' microcredit lending program. It felt like we were walking into a Heifer Project catalog. PeaceTrees makes loans of about $170 -- more than many peoples' annual income -- to help the extreme poor to become economially self-sufficient. The recipients pay back the loan with minimal interest; the monies go back into the lending fund. The program has been extremely successful, and it's awe-inspiring to see what such a small amount of seed money can do.

The first family we visited was raising water buffalo. The buffalo are very valuable as "tractors" in the watery rice paddies. The family breeds them and sells the calves; they earn additional income through farming their own crops and through a rent-a-buffalo business.

Pigs are sold for meat. The pig owner is a 76-year-old former surgeon who lost fingers to a UXO explosion while serving as a soldier. He explained that their family's two sows each have two litters of about a dozen piglets per year. The piglets sell for roughly a dollar per kilo, enough for a reasonable income. By contrast one of the local women let us lift the two baskets of sweet potato leaves she was carrying to market two kilometers' walk away - the baskets hanging from a stick over her shoulder weighed 70 pounds and will sell for 45 cents. Not an easy living. She laughed as even the men in our group winced and huffed a little trying to lift and carry the load.

While we saw the loan recipients, neighbors poured out of their houses to see us. They don't get many -- any -- tourists. We had a great time visiting. It's amazing what one can do with charades and a digital camera.

Friday afternoon we visited two more PeaceTrees projects: the blind school (serving 37 kids who have lost their sight in UXO explosions or other events) and Compassion House, which is a center for homeless and profoundly disabled children. Agent Orange poisoning is still a reality here, and continues to cause birth defects.

We wrapped up the day with dinner and karaoke. We practiced a group number in the bus that seemed very fitting number after our countryside adventure: the John Denver hit "Take Me Home, Quang Tri Roads."