Agent Orange visits

From Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, this entry will bring up to date our tour of Vietnam to visit Agent Orange victims and support. HCMC is the last location of five. Our reception has been full of gratitude and appreciation. In Danang, we have been given a certificate and marble plaques, along with ginger. This was very emotional. We donate US dollars at each place, solely a token amount. We represent only ourselves, no NGO, no government program. I feel hesitant even to ask for the opportunity to meet with VAVA leaders. Yet we have met with them in Ha Noi, Hue, Danang, and will meet them today in Ho Chi Minh City. We offer a few things, our efforts to tell the story back in the US and to seek some help. We even want to approach Dow Chemical Company to enter the caring community. And, we share our resistance to the use of Agent Orange by the US in 1969 by our citizen's action and imprisonment.

The need is great. 3,000,000 victims of Agent Orange. Add to that the families and friends who try to care for them. Our visits have taken us to a rehabilitation center, The Friendship Village, a day shelter, and to several homes of victims and their families. These are very modest places. They expose only a few views into the complexity of the millions. The physical effects range from total deformity and incapacity to inability to walk, to a modicum of normal functioning. The mental effects can cover the same range, total mental disability to moderate mental presence. Some have both physical and mental issues. We find sisters and brothers caring for their adult siblings who at times lay in bed 24/7 and at times roam the neighborhood returning when they find their way home. The families we visited live in the most basic of homes. Our three day visit in the Hue/Danang area was in continuous rain with flooding conditions. (The sun shines on our first morning in HCMC.)

The spirit and dedication of the families and volunteers is very heartening. They have been in for the long haul, and will continue. They want and need our help. They need and want the US help. And the chemical company's support. They want us to return.

Why do the people have such good feelings for us from the United States? Why do they continue with such care? At least part of the reason is indicated in the observation of a monk we visited two days ago in this Buddhist country: "The past is no longer real, the future is not yet, the present is now."