Chaud et froid: Changements climatiques au Vietnam

Ai-je déja mentionné qu'il y a une bénévole ici (de l'organisme allemand, GTZ) qui travaille sur les changements climatiques au Vietnam? Je dois avouer que je ne m'y connais pas vraiment, mais je garde l'oeil ouvert parce que c'est un sujet qui m'intéresse.

Climate change (or climatic change as one of my former colleagues would say) is affecting Vietnam in a BIG way. According to an Asia Development Bank report, Vietnam is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

It [the report] predicts that by the end of the century rice production will decline dramatically and rising sea levels could submerge tens of thousands of hectares of cropland, forcing thousands of families in coastal areas to relocate. More than 12 million people could be affected by increased water stress.

The ADB, of course, is not the only well known organization that has expressed deep concerns about climate change in Vietnam. OXFAM released a report in November 2008, outlining their findings from field research in Ben Tre and Quang Tri provinces. Their main findings? Not surprisingly, that poor women and men are the most at risk from the likely increase in extreme weather events (for example, typhoons in Ben Tre province, neighbour to Tra Vinh). Women, in particular, are vulnerable because A) they can't swim, B) they have no money or alternate means of earning an income when their crops are destroyed, and C) they have fewer employment opportunities away from home. The OXFAM researchers recommend a number of things; I found it interesting that "There is a pressing need for a much greater knowledge base of the possibilities of salt-resistant, flood-resistant or drought resistant crops, which should be developed with the active involvement of smallholders on their plots." Reports like this often make me wonder how realistic the recommendations are, but in this case I think training farmers to adapt to a saltier water environment is pretty basic and should be done immediately.

This article in the Courrier du Vietnam also explains a little more about the threats to the Mekong:

En général, la température moyenne dans l'ensemble du pays a augmenté de 1ºC à 2ºC par rapport à la moyenne des autres années. La rigueur du climat a entraîné de nombreux problèmes pour le monde agricole, surtout au Nord et au Centre. Les faibles précipitations, qui ont fortement affecté le débit des cours d'eau, au grand dam des riziculteurs.

....Actuellement, la sécheresse et l'invasion de l'eau salée menacent le delta du Mékong. Des milliers de foyers vivant sur le littoral manquent d'eau douce. L'invasion de l'eau salée dans les rizières met la production rizicole en danger. Environ 6.000 ha de riz d'hiver-printemps seront affectés plus ou moins durement. Full article here

Rice production is being threatened, not to mention that there have been reports of 13 forest fires in the month of February alone. Pretty terrible stuff, for a region that depends on agriculture. The volunteer from Spain (Ms. not Mr.) is working with the agriculture department at TVU for the remainder of her term here...she was actually at a conference on climate change, up in Hue (in the central part of Vietnam), before Tet. I will have to ask her what she learned...Am a little frustrated at times with my complete lack of Vietnamese (I know, partly my own fault for not trying harder), English language newspapers are not available in Tra Vinh Town so I have to get news from online sources.

And complete non sequitur here...But CANADA WON! Men's and women's hockey won gold at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Of course you already all know that, I just wanted to say WE ROOOOCK! LET'S GO CANADA!

Karaoke (bis)

Eh bien devinez quoi...je suis retournée au karaoke hier soir! Cette fois, c'était avec un groupe de "plus jeunes" - avec les deux Américains, les deux Espagnols, deux amies vietnamiennes, et nous, les deux Canadiennes! Un karaoke international, quoi. Un peu plus fou cette fois-ci...nous avons hurlé "Bohemian Rhapsody", et d'autres chansons du genre.

Hier matin, je suis allée à l'université pour assister à une compétition de décoration de gâteau, de cuisine et d'arrangements floraux (florals?). Les hommes étaient les seuls compétiteurs, puisque le but de l'événement était de souligner la Journée internationale des femmes (le 8 mars). J'étais vraiment surprise et émerveillée de constater avec quel sérieux les hommes se sont appliqués à créer des bouquets et des plats impressionants.

Fleurs pour la Journée internationale des femmes

Dragon fait de fruits (les 2 fruits roses se nomment "dragon fruit")

De plus, c'est officiel, j'ai acheté mes billets d'avion, et je pars à Bangkok du 19 au 21 mars, et ensuite à Hanoi du 26 au 28 mars!

Karaoke

Karaoke comes from two Japanese words: kara - meaning "empty" - and okesutora, meaning "orchestra". Apparently, Finland holds the world record for the largest number of people singing karaoke at the same time (over 80,000 people singing "Hard Rock Hallelujah"). But Asia is surely the continent where karaoke is the most popular. Any excuse is good for bringing out the karaoke juke box, really - parties, weddings, going out with friends, a long car or bus ride...

I've had at least 3 nights of epic karaoke so far. Tonight the WUSC volunteers decided to treat our offices to a night out - we ate nem nuong, picked up some che ba ba (yummy sweet pudding and beans for dessert) and then headed to the only karaoke place in Tra Vinh that has English songs. Early on I picked Radio Ga Ga by Queen...and other people followed up with a mix of Vietnamese and English songs. My voice is gone now - belting out "Total Eclipse of the Heart" really maxed out the vocal cords!! But it was totally worth it. Plus, it was educational - I'm getting better at speaking Vietnamese thanks to the only Vietnamese song I know, the "Uoc gi" song.

Manger comme des rois

Typical Vietnamese spread

Mmmm...one of my Cambodian lunches

Nem nuong - roll the veggies, bun (noodles) and meat all together in a rice paper, dip in fish sauce and voilà!

J'avais promis à mes frérots de leur montrer des photos des festins que je déguste au Vietnam. Impossible de tout décrire dans un seul billet, hélàs! La nourriture au Vietnam est tout simplement délicieuse: les ingrédients sont frais, les sauces sont excellentes et les saveurs sont...inhabituelles (mais habituellement elles se marient bien!). J'hésite à "parler gastronomie" car je ne possède pas tout le vocabulaire nécessaire. Pour cela, je vous invite à parcourir l'excellent blogue de Gastronomer. Ou tout autre blogue qui parle de bouffe vietnamienne!

More Pictures of Tra Vinh

Last weekend we met three photographers - 2 Americans and 1 German - travelling through Tra Vinh for the weekend. They gave us their cards and told us to go on their websites to see the photos they had taken during the weekend. Have a look at Christian Berg's photos - they are stunning.

Some Thoughts on Gender

From the Facilitator's Guide for Gender Training:

Men and women are different biologically and socially. The former is called “sex” and the latter “gender”.

Difference in itself is not the problem; the problem is that because of these differences, men and women are valued differently and in relation to each other. This is called social relations of gender.

These differences are manifested in a number of ways: gender division of labour, gender needs and access and control of resources.

These differences are inter-related and affect each other. They also shape society (in terms of who is valued, who gets to do what) and, in turn, society reproduces these differences creating, as a result, gender subordination.

Vietnam seems like a society where gender equality is important. For example, women are a valued part of the labour market (all the vendors at the market are female; they are very money-savvy) and generally seem to have an important status within the family. Vietnam has signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and has passed marriage and family laws granted women equal rights in the case of divorce.

Fruit and flower vendors on the way to the market in Tra Vinh

However, as the following quote from a Cambodia gender profile attests, men and women are far from equal in South-East Asia.

Although women representation in local government has increased, 15% in 2007 compared from 8% in 2002, female commune councillors (CC) still face obstacles in terms of participating in local government. Low levels of education among women mean that many feel they do not have the skills, experience, or qualifications to act as representatives of their community. They feel unable to assert themselves during council meetings, and they know that this has an impact on their ability to raise issues of concern to them as well other marginalised groups and poor people. High levels of poverty force many women to focus solely on supporting their families and also means they do not have sufficient funds to stand for election.

Some women also feel politics is simply men’s work in which women should not be involved. Perceptions that women are not capable of serving as councillors and that women’s participation in government is ‘inappropriate’ also discourage women from standing for election and entering political decision-making. Some female councillors have reported being marginalised by their male counterparts. In addition, female CC members are also worried about how they can balance their council duties with their traditional household, family, and child-care responsibilities.

I personally think that the first step to take in order to achieve greater gender equality is to admit that there remains structural (and behavioral) discrimination against women. Most of the people I have talked to at TVU about gender insist that men and women are equal. It is true that salaries are equal for male and female teachers, and there are many women in positions of authority at TVU. However, there is a remarquable "gender segregation" when it comes to the labour market - employers admit that they seek women to do a certain kind of job (generally a job that requires a meticulous nature, e.g. working with knives at a food canning factory, or working as an administrative assistant) and men to do another kind of job (security guards, construction work, IT, engineering). Furthermore, women continue to hold the lion's share of family responsibilities as well as managing the household accounts and doing income-generating activities, despite some advances among younger men taking over household duties.

I also wanted to share this statement - a quote from Ann Whitehead at the Institute for Development Studies:

One of the specific forms of oppression which women suffer, and which other oppressed social categories share, is the inability to be in social relationship and social situations in which gender is not present. Our experience as women is of being always perceived and treated as members of a gender category about which there are all kinds of stereotyped beliefs, and which is inferior to the alternative gender category, that of men. [...] Gender then, like race, is never absent.

Food for thought, indeed.

Animal Farm

I went for an early morning bike ride (it was 6:30 when I left my guest house - early morning for me, grasse matinée for the Vietnamese) today, and started to think about all the animals I've seen in Vietnam. Farm Girl might be used to animals (she did grow up on a farm), but for me it's still a novelty to see cows on the side of the road, roosters in my backyard, and chickens on the university campus.

I often see people driving by on their motobikes, either with 20 chickens tied up by the legs all around the side of their motorbike, or pulling a wagon with one or two pigs in the back. It always strikes me as funny...but I'm also amazed at the resourcefulness of people here (I should really take more pictures of people carrying all kinds of stuff on their motorbikes).

Plus you see all kinds of interesting things at the bus rest-stops here. The other day, coming back from Saigon, we stopped for a 10-minute break and I got a banh bao to go (looks like a cha sue bao for those who like to eat dim sum with me). At the checkout counter, where you would normally have little chocolates and gum in North America, I saw this thing:

Yup, that's definitely snake wine! A powerful aphrodisiac for men, apparently.

I almost want to bring some home...except that I think immigration control wouldn't let it through. You just gotta love Vietnam!