LSVN Day 9: Ca Mau

This morning we woke up at 3:30AM to check out and head to the airport to fly down to Ca Mau (which is the very bottom of Vietnam). Ca Mau is the wettest part of Vietnam with much rain and many rivers, streams, and rice fields. It is a very wet area with the most mosquitos in the country. When we arrived, we unloaded all our stuff at a hotel and then headed out to a small speed boat. The river is used as a means of transportation more than land is. Most people live along the river and have boats. We took a two hour ride to the very bottom tip of Vietnam, at the Pacific Ocean. There are these trees that drop seeds down into the ground and they naturally grow and absorb water from the ground. This causes the land to naturally extend further unto the ocean. Frere says that if we come back to the tip years from now, we would be able to walk across the ocean to Thailand.

It rains constantly in Ca Mau. We had lunch with a small village church. The government is still very strict in rural areas, so having an official church is illegal, so they have a secret unofficial church that is shared in a home. The people showed us much hospitality. They cooked for us a huge feast, which they normally couldn't afford. We were the first foreigners they had ever met. After lunch, we headed out to do some service. We arrived at this village to help build a house. Houses there are very poor and dirty. Mud is everywhere and trash is all along the river and around the houses. The homes were basically shacks made of rusted metal sheets or straw and wooden sticks or poles for framing. Our job was to nail together the wooden poles to make a frame. When it got dark, we hopped back onto the boat, went back to the hotel and prepared for mass. We reflected for a bit and had dinner. There are mosquitos everywhere!