Friday May 13

Today's planned activities started with a lecture on rural planning and development in the Mekong Delta.  The Mekong Delta is a of significant economic importance to Vietnam.  It is responsible for over half of Vietnam's rice, fruit, and seafood production.  Its products account for 18% of Vietnam's total GDP.  Continuing to develop factors of production and value adding industries to complement the agricultural wealth of the Delta is a goal of the Vietnamese government.  The sustainability of the economic value of the Mekong Delta is threatened by global warming.  A one meter rise in ocean sea levels would put much of the Delta underwater for part of the year, destroying investments and reducing productivity.
The language class today focused on review.  The teacher said our pronunciation of the tonal inflections is getting better.  She said some people are even intelligible some of the time.  I am fairly sure that I am still pretty idiotic sounding.  I found out why the Vietnamese students laugh when we use the phrase "too expensive."  It also means I am having an emergency with my bowels and need to get the the restroom.  We also learned how to say the months and days of the week.  They are easy in comparison to English.  All you have to do is learn the words for "weekday" and "month" and then modify them with a number.
In the afternoon we went to an ACDI/VOCA, SUCCESS Alliance office.  It is an organization that helps farmers in developing countries increase their income by educating them on how to cultivate cocoa in a sustainable manner.  The organization is a non-profit, non-government organization that receives funding from the U.S. government.  I like this organization because I like to think that it functions to improve the international reputation of the U.S..  It is a form of foreign aid that does not entail merely giving money away but indirectly helps the American business Cargill, who buys most of the cocoa beans.  Additionally, it helps to reduce the price of chocolate on the global market by increasing long term supply of a key raw material.  With an annual budget of only 8 million U.S. dollars, I think that whatever small amount in additional taxes we pay as Americans is money well spent.