Lessons Learned - Vietnam Learning On The Street
Just Say YES\nWe were walking out of a successful 1-hour meeting with Shaw TV. We were pitching a documentary idea about the charity's upcoming mission to Vietnam. They loved it! We are in. That's when Laverne turns to me and asks, "Do you want to come along and be our videographer?" It really is true. If an opportunity presents itself to you, something that you are passionate about, Just Say Yes. Don't waste a second thinking about it. The dots will connect. It will all come together. And so did my first trip as a volunteer videographer to Vietnam in March 2014. You can read the detailed story here Volunteer Videographer for a Children's Mission in Vietnam\nArrival\nWe land at Saigon airport, after 3 legs of a 23-hour flight. Our taxi pulls up to our downtown hotel around 3 am. But there is still partying outside as if it were Mardi Gras. By the time we each get our room assignments and keys, I turn in around 4 am.\nDon't Bolt\nI awake several hours later at 7 am. I hitch up with Laverne, who has been here several times. She is my tour guide and we are going for coffee. It is Sat at 8 am and I am confounded with the rain and shower of motorbikes flooding the street haphazardly without any uniformity as we know in the west. But this is the street we need to cross, to get to the newest and biggest Starbucks ever. She turns to me and gives me my first and BIGGEST piece of advice \u2013 \u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t bolt\u201d. That is, when you are crossing the street, be seen, be predictable, do not zig \u2013 do not zag. If you do, You will get hit. Those words lingered in my mind for the remainder of our 3-week mission. I would practice this adage most every time I was on the streets.\nMy Mission\nOur team of 10 would be delivering 2-day workshops to parents and their young children stricken with various degrees of cerebral palsy or CP \u2013 a motor nerve disability caused by dead brain areas due to oxygen starvation either before or during birth. Up to 40 mothers at a time would be attending with their CP stricken children and our team would be doing 1-on-1 exercises, teaching the parents how to care for and help their children. By comparison, my task was to capture a video showing how our team worked in rotating 1-on-1 sessions with the parents & children.\nIntro at Rehab\nAs we began each 2-day workshop in a new rehab hospital, we always gave each parent, a microphone so they could introduce themselves and tell us their story and journey, of their child\u2019s cerebral palsy, when they were first diagnosed - delivered the shattering news that their child has this affliction called cerebral palsy. With a translator, each 5-minute story became 10. Several stories brought those parents to tears. Our volunteer translator turned to me and said, \u201cmany of these mothers have never been given this opportunity to tell their story \u2013 no one has ever\xa0 asked them . . . no one has ever cared !\u201d Truly a moment to capture on video.\nWatching Everyone\nWhile everyone was watching the person speaking at the front, facing forward, I was always sitting to the side, near the front but always looking back into the audience. I was looking for every facial expression that I could capture in my video. A mother in tears over her dilemma of having a child with cerebral palsy. I looked for the smiling face of a 3-year old stricken with CP, to be able to show everyone watching the video months later at home, that YES, even children with CP have a life like you and me, and can smile, can enjoy the simple things in their daily living.\nMy Days Long\nAs a volunteer videographer, my days were long. I would be standing the entire day, with camera in hand, always looking for the ideal vantage point. Sketchers should have been my main sponsor! Our team\u2019s day at the rehab hospital would start with their arrival at 8 am and end at 4 pm. Then we had a 1-hour bus ride back to our hotel. Time to refresh and we agreed to meet around 6 in the hotel lobby,