The calm before

We've all arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam! What a relief to have safely gotten all 32 individuals from the airport and settled into our rooms. Some had arrived a few days early and even went on a bike tour! I'm still trying to adjust to the time change, so I'm pretty impressed with that level of intensity. And that's saying a lot since I'm pretty intense :)

I arrived around 3:00 pm yesterday (one of the later arrivals) and was greeted by some local doctors from Vietnam, Yen Nguyen (medical mission coordinator), and Hanh Ngo (HSCV staff). The doctors were absolutely amazing. Two women and one man greeted us, all three so young and so seemingly successful. I was absolutely thrilled to meet the two female doctors. It is truly wonderful to see because I've grown up with the notion that this is a culture with very traditional female roles. And as a feminist of sorts, that is exciting. The Vietnamese doctors were eager to use the English they had learned, genuinely interested in our trip to Vietnam and wanting to become fast friends. Arriving at the same time were a few translators that flew in from Da Nang, one of the other cities in the middle region of the country. Also Dr. Aubyn Marath flew in with tissue valves that were donated and to be used in the surgeries this week. In this cardboard box is tissue from an American that had passed brought here to save a Vietnamese person's life. Really gives you perspective on why we are here!

For me, it is my first time in this city. It's sort of like the Vietnam I know from all my previous trips, but with a twist. For example, last night we had amazing food. I had a Vietnamese fondue (Lau) at a restaurant called Highway 4, but instead of regular meats found in the Southy's version (shrimp, squid, beef) there was fighting cock and ostrich. It's subtly different, enough to make it interesting, but still has all the best parts of Vietnam. I'm finding I will really like it here, Hanoi is really quite a treasure. Especially from the culinary perspective, though this isn't supposed to be a food blog, I'm quite concerned I might slip a few times.

This morning is the first meeting where the entire team will gather and discuss the work ahead. We arrived from all over the world. 7 countries in all, from India, Spain, Canada, United States, to name a few. There is plenty to do; I've heard that there are plans for an ambitious 16 surgeries to be performed over the next weeks. Excited to see what is ahead! I will share more details about the activities of the mission as we start officially working tomorrow.