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Comanche · **The Deep Countryside of Vietnam -** 04-26-2007, 03:12 AM

Deep Countryside

There are cities, and suburbs, towns, the countryside - - and then there is the deep countryside.

I mean, we were way out into the boonies in the mountains southwest of Hue. It's where the ethnic minorities of Vietnam live. They are not Vietnamese - they don't even speak Vietnamese. There are 57 such groups, and we were in the land of the Katu (say cut too.)

The land is not only infertile, but it has been badly bruised by centuries of slash and burn agriculture. Life is hard - and the people are poor. Outside one of the five health clinics we visited, this old man waited patiently to see the doctor.

The medical professionals try to provide good health care, but are severely limited by the lack of water. In this village, UNICEF had drilled a well a few years ago, and on another occasion, the government too had drilled a well. Both have gone dry, and the only source of water for the clinic was this common garden hose that tapped into a nearby stream.

Sometimes there was water - sometimes there wasn't. It was shared with those who lived in nearby houses. To get to the water source, the nurse or midwife from the clinic would also walk by this pen with a large sow and her brood of piglets. Yes - that is raw pig sewage to the right side of the photo. It stank too.

I watched this one grandmother admiring her new grandson. She was so proud, yet I also wondered how the midwife managed to wash the baby after the birth. I guess she had to carry buckets of water from the hose.

A few of the villagers are wealthy enough to own motorbikes, but that can be a bane or a blessing. This lady waits for her husband to get treatment for the minor injuries he sustained in a motorbike wreck on one of the steep mountain roads. Realize for a moment that someone washed his wounds before putting on bandages. Maybe the water used to bathe him was safe - maybe it wasn't.

This was my first time visiting one of the minority areas. Unless you have business in the mountains (as we did) or you are with a licensed tourist guide, foreigners are not generally allowed in the central highlands. But I hope to return someday and learn more about the people and their ways.

And see if the old man is still there.