Hanoi

So my old man and I have made it to Vietnam!

Today was our first full day.

Banging some thoughts and observations down below:

• Saw an old Viet man on a bike wearing a beret!! Talk about the French influence. He rocked it.
• Cà phê is "coffee" - I will guess it derives from the French "café" and also I imagine it sounds like how the Cantonese language says "coffee" 
• The streets of Hanoi are such much like Paris'/Lille's old quarter !!!! All sharp acute angles, confused concentric circles, although there are more parallel streets towards the perimeter. I love this. (Although I hate how it can be difficult to navigate/see the street sign on the other side of a large intersection). It's like France except with more overhanging trees, one billion times more motorbikes/scooters. On most acute corners there's usually a restaurant or coffee shop. It's just... so French yet a bit dustier (it's quite clean for an SE Asian country) with a few more potholes/uneven tiling and motorbikes parked everywhere. And of course tanned Vietnamese everywhere :)  Fuck. I love cosmopolitan spaces so much!!!!!!
• I googled some info about the French influence in this Indochina region. (From memory they were colonial rulers from circa 1800-1940). "Even when the French retreated from Vietnam, French architecture still keeps its strong impact on Hanoi. Until now, Hanoians are constructing their city accordingly to the remnants of Hanoi's French Colonial past. The old French buildings, which were supposed to belong to one regime, are now carefully conserved and used by Vietnamese, showing the harmony in combination between indigenous and exotic cultural characteristics and keeping the essential roles in all aspects of Hanoians' lives." I find this so interesting!!!!!
• Another google find "Going through many historical changes, several French buildings were destroyed, yet almost all of them been reserved in good condition. They become the witness of a miserable period in national history but also remind people of interesting culture interaction between the two countries as well." 
• Also, so I have read but would also logically believe, the French gradually abolished the native characters of the Vietnamese language and replaced it with Latin characters - as can be evidenced by the language now! Latin characters yet incomprehensible sounds... also the characters have heaps of funky different accents which make interesting sounds :)

Tomorrow I go to Halong bay yew! I will ZZzz on a boat. 

Thoughts on making development effective

So I want a career in International Development. The management student in me, the cynic in me and the defense in me that rises when I know that others will be undoubtedly cynical towards me demands that the work I do be ethical, effective and efficient. I genuinely want to help out and I want to make sure I do it well so that I can be sure what I'm doing is a good thing (and not just wasteful and overly self-serving).

Some International Development uni notes I found on the net by UniMelb define International Development as:

Relates to the development of greater quality of life for humans
•    Therefore encompasses foreign aid, governance, healthcare, education, poverty reduction, gender equality, disaster preparedness, infrastructure, economics, human rights, environment and issues associated with these
•    Focus can be international OR national
•    Seeks to implement long-term, sustainable solutions to issues

All things that are appealing to me!

WhyDev.org is a blog I think will be an online bible of sorts for me as it's an information blog about ID.

One awesome article I read was this one by Alison Rabe: http://www.whydev.org/send-them-to-the-field/

She talks about how expat development workers should spend more time working away from the capitals of the developing country and more time in the country. What particularly caught my attention was that she seemed to intimately tap into exactly who I am as a person and what I want to achieve... strikingly accurate and it makes me really think that this could be the lifelong vocation for me.......

" Working in the field would give development workers an opportunity to have a new lifestyle, localize their experiences and knowledge, cut costs, and ultimately give them the ability to do their jobs and deliver aid more effectively and efficiently."

" This may be true for some people that work in development, but much like we came into this field to help people, we also did it because we love living in a totally different place, we are fascinated by cultural differences, we enjoy ethnic foods, and, again, we have a heart for the disadvantaged. If this fact isn’t enough, development jobs could be re-drawn to attract people who are dedicated and passionate about foreign culture, language, and people, not just wanting an opportunity to be cool living in a city where they can have a fancy Western lifestyle. Job advertisements should promote cultural intimacy from the beginning."

All I can say is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.............. just yes.

Working in the field would give development workers an opportunity to have a new lifestyle, localize their experiences and knowledge, cut costs, and ultimately give them the ability to do their jobs and deliver aid more effectively and efficiently. - See more at: http://www.whydev.org/send-them-to-the-field/#sthash.BolGTyda.dpuf

Working in the field would give development workers an opportunity to have a new lifestyle, localize their experiences and knowledge, cut costs, and ultimately give them the ability to do their jobs and deliver aid more effectively and efficiently. - See more at: http://www.whydev.org/send-them-to-the-field/#sthash.BolGTyda.dpuf

Working in the field would give development workers an opportunity to have a new lifestyle, localize their experiences and knowledge, cut costs, and ultimately give them the ability to do their jobs and deliver aid more effectively and efficiently. - See more at: http://www.whydev.org/send-them-to-the-field/#sthash.BolGTyda.dpuf

Working in the field would give development workers an opportunity to have a new lifestyle, localize their experiences and knowledge, cut costs, and ultimately give them the ability to do their jobs and deliver aid more effectively and efficiently. - See more at: http://www.whydev.org/send-them-to-the-field/#sthash.BolGTyda.dpuf

The next step after France

Hi there reader :)

I'm starting a new blog now under the username faceofasia to talk about the next step in my life!

So basically a follow up from where I stopped in my Jessica en France blog. 

Exchange, of course, was amazing and the first big turning point in my life that has made me realise that simply; I love being an Australian overseas. In France I reached ecstatic high point in my existence and entered the world of being happy. Truly happy.

And I personally feel that I must contribute back to the world that has given to me so much - so. truly. much.

So I knew, standing in that Parisien hostel during my last day of the exchange trip with tears pouring down my face that I would be an expat worker who would also give back to those, in some place, in some way or form, who are less fortunate than me.

So since Feb 2012, after lots of thought, and dialogue, and chats and searching around on the web (and considering joining the army at some point here...) I have decided with much clarity that I want to pursue a career in International Development.

I mean, since Feb 2012 I already knew my next destination would be Cambodia. I know it is a troubled country, one of the poorest, but the younger, less aware Jess would have never wanted to go to Cambodia, or know anything about it. She would have been more interested in boys and shoes and going out to clubs to get drunk and feel like an adult and other things that teens tend to think about.

Now I have graduated (and am now a Bachelor of Arts & Commerce yewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww *happy dance*) and as I had planned more than 1.5 years ago I will be going to Cambodia this November !

There I will do a 6 week volunteering with NGOs program through International Volunteer HQ where I will work in one of the following in a local NGO:

-community and rural development,
-democracy development
-gender issues
-capacity building opportunities
-organizing advocacy for the reconstruction of the country.
-fundraising and proposal writing
-organizational development
- administration
-research
-Community development
-Health/ HIV/Aids awareness prevention and rehabilitation
-women and Child issues
-advocacy and working with NGOs Issues
-environmental issues
-education.
-arranging campaigns/meetings/public forums
-implementing new projects
-developing the internal structures and new initiatives within the Working with NGOs programs
-develop a newsletter or a website.

This will be my first foray into international development volunteering and I am quite excited to get started just to DO something!

In this period I will try to learn as much as I can about working in an NGO in a developing country and network as much as possible. After my six weeks is up, I will branch off, hopefully find other NGOs to volunteer with and just continue on. For I don't-know-how-long. At least 6 months I am hoping. I really, really, really, really want to get some field experience in the sector I would like to work in after so many years of education and not knowing exactly what it is I wanted to do!!

Oh and the French connection isn't lost. Cambodia was once under France's rule - which means a potential opportunity to further exercise my French with any French NGOs about.

So this blog will be a travel blog as well as a blog documenting my interests in International Development. I'll be posting things on here that I find interesting and that I want to refer back to when thinking about the work I am thinking about spending my life on.