{"id":3322,"date":"2012-10-09T11:41:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T16:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=3322"},"modified":"2012-10-09T11:41:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T16:41:31","slug":"abundant-hospitality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=3322","title":{"rendered":"Abundant Hospitality"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am now an expert at peeling and chopping vegetables.\u00a0 I was at mere amateur status before Sunday.\u00a0 One of the humorous recollections I have from Sunday is, several Vietnamese women grabbing my hand to adjust my knife.\u00a0 I was even given a new task from time to time because I was doing it \u201cwrong.\u201d\u00a0 Cooking mass quantities of food is specific and no joke here people!<\/p>\n

\"\"
Perfecting my chopping skills<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sunday I attended an event for the TAM THIEN BUI DOI charity in Ho Chi Minh.\u00a0 Once a month, a group of about 50, gather and cook a meal to deliver to disabled, homeless, and random wanders throughout the districts.\u00a0 I met the founder, Danh, through our Loyola coordinator, Chris.\u00a0 On our first night in Ho Chi Minh, we ate at Danh\u2019s restaurant, Quan Bui, and were told all about the service he does for the people in Ho Chi Minh.\u00a0 At first glance Danh is an intimidating guy.\u00a0 He is tall and buff and looks like he can throw a punch.\u00a0 In reality, Danh is kind and compassionate in a way that is inspiring.\u00a0 \u201cIt is all about the people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of October I emailed Danh and asked to join the October event to supplement the English teaching the Loyola students do each week.\u00a0 I also held interest from my experience with Hunger Week at Loyola and global hunger issues in general.\u00a0 I wanted to learn more about food culture in Vietnam and interact in person as opposed to reading an article or listening to a lecture.\u00a0 Due to busy schedules, I ended up going alone.\u00a0 I was honestly nervous and somewhat scared.\u00a0 A hard fact to admit but it turns out I had an incredible day at Tam Thien Bui.<\/p>\n

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Tomato Tofu preparation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The day was divided into three parts.\u00a0 One, the group would prepare the food.\u00a0 To prepare food we sat on the ground and chopped and peeled and cleaned for several hours. (My hips still hurt by the way) The older men and women cooked the soup and tofu outside.\u00a0 We shared a meal together and had the best conversations we could with the language barrier.\u00a0 Two, the group packaged the food.\u00a0 The assembly line was comprised of rice stuffers, soup and tofu packagers, as well as meal kit baggers.<\/p>\n

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The biggest bag of green beans I have ever seen, and there were two! This job took two hours.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cooking the soup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Sharing a meal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three: By five o\u2019clock I was hot and exhausted.\u00a0 I thought my day would have ended by noon, but it was five and I hadn\u2019t even handed out a meal.\u00a0 This thought excited me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want people to resist my meal gift on the street.\u00a0 So, when Danh said he\u2019d drive me home I felt relived.\u00a0 But soon I realized that he had prepared the motorbike with several meal kits to hand out on the way to the guest house.\u00a0 We turned a corner and he would say, \u201cGet off and give that man the food.\u201d\u00a0 So, with my large umbrella in hand and my oversized moto helmet I gave that man the food, as well as many others.\u00a0 I will never forget the smiles.<\/p>\n

\"\"
What an assembly line!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Later I learned that this month was small in comparison to others.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t understand this because we had almost enough food to feed 3,000 people.\u00a0 The charity itself depends on monetary and food donations each month to create each event.\u00a0 The previous month the charity traveled to three central provinces and fed over 10,000 people and gave away 90 bicycles.\u00a0 This month a small meal of rice, soup, and tofu was given.\u00a0 Danh said it wasn\u2019t much but the people appreciate it.\u00a0 This is the only organization of its kind in the city.\u00a0 The group may be small and the donations may vary, but the hospitality is abundant and I had a lovely time.<\/p>\n

Now I am off to study for my Vietnamese midterm! Da Lat this weekend for hiking and relaxation!<\/p>\n

Xin Chao,<\/p>\n

Stephanie<\/p>\n

P.S. In 12th grade my Psychology teacher asked if I had ever been on tv. \u00a0I said no. \u00a0But, Sunday I did a television interview. \u00a0So, now I say yes and I am famous (but not really).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am now an expert at peeling and chopping vegetables.\u00a0 I was at mere amateur status before Sunday.\u00a0 One of the humorous recollections I have from Sunday is, several Vietnamese women grabbing my hand to adjust my knife.\u00a0 I was even given a new task from time to time because I was doing it \u201cwrong.\u201d\u00a0 … <\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}