It was 5am when the sun arose and shone right into our bedroom. Thai was already prancing around the room by then. When I opened my eyes an hour later, he was back in bed, complaining about the light bulb that had fused in our bathroom. We both showered in the dark (NOT at the same time obviously) and he slipped and hit the toilet bowl while I didn’t. I suppose that encounter is sort of symbolic of how we came together as a group. Some of us weren’t quite used to the amenities (or lack thereof) in Vietnam, whereas others grew up in this environment. Some of us came prepared, whilst some others had to grope somewhat in the dark to find their way through the various aspects of this project. But no matter what had brought us to Danang, we were all here together (OK save for a few of our team members, but they’re graduating so let’s give them the break they deserve) and are going forward with this project at the forefront of our minds for the next two weeks. The morning and afternoon of the first day consisted of getting people from the airport to the hotel. Some of us then shopped around for snacks. We had passed many bakeries (some looked quite fancy) yesterday, but somehow when we really needed to stop by a bakery to get some cakes and bread we couldn’t find very many. After walking about in circles (for which I sincerely apologise — we walked out of our hotel, then along the river, then turned back to where we started out from) we found two small bakeries with the help of the local vendors we approached. As we didn’t know what was in the most of the cake stuff we saw, we ended up buying one item of each unknown delicacy to sample what it tasted like. Our greatest find was a green slimy looking thing (which we have now christened “the green slimy cake”) which actually turned out to be the most delicious of the lot. Just before we reached the hotel, we found roadside stalls which tempted us with lychees, dragonfruit and sugarcane pieces — to all of which we happily succumbed. Lunch was a joyful affair at Co Sang’s house. Co Sang is one of our local contacts at Cam Ne village. I probably should retell the story of that village. Her aunt lives alone and had very generously offered the use of her own living room/dining room for conversion into a computer lab for the village. No one in the village had ever touched a computer mouse before and when we visited her the night before she expressed gratitude that we could just read from her eyes, without the need to understand the Vietnamese she was speaking. Co Sang lives in Danang and very kindly offered to prepare lunch for all of us. It was a generous spread and we left her home happily full and fully happy. In the afternoon, a group of us went off to run some errands, like activating our sim cards for use in Vietnam. But we managed to chow down on some banh beo. We also had another version of banh laop(??), which Brooke very cheerfully nicknamed “the fossil thing” because the shrimp embedded in the rice flour paste really seemed like a fossil. Dinner was another cheerful affair (hey I hope everything can be done as cheerfully as they have been today) with some high school mentees joining us. At night we had our first session together as a group, with Leng, Hung, Viet and Nancy leading the icebreakers, sharing of the vision/history of SEALNet/SALI. It was very enriching and eye-opening to hear about the various burdens elsewhere which were splitting our attention and minds–worries about the future, our loved ones etc–as well as what we all would like to bring home with us from PV2006. We were certainly off to a good start. Hopefully everyone will get over their jet-lag and regain their voices as we embark on this journey to change others’ lives, and our own. Let’s all take a deep breath as we await the next day’s adventures. Over to you, tomorrow.

- Kenneth Wong