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No.
05 Oct. 2004
Dear friends,
Thank you so much for
all your encouragements. It is always great to hear from
you. Sometimes we need a few simple words to go on. Till
now we do not know if there is any other organization or
NGO in Vietnam doing the same kind of work what we are
doing. Our goal is to help poor people in the
countryside in using this kind of simple technology for
daily cooking. We always try to use local material and
to keep the cost as low as possible. There is no
copyright on the cookers. It is just helping poor people
in using free sunshine. We will be very happy if others
will pick it up too.
While
we are helping
While we are helping the
poor and needy, we come along other difficulties and are
sometimes able to help. This Summer for example one of
our staff, Mrs. Ngoc, took care of a 15 years old boy,
after his parents separated and left him behind. We were
also able to support others in difficult circumstances.
The solar cookers are not really free, but we look at
peoples living standard in order to make up a price
which can be food, work, money or sometimes free. It is
not our purpose to make a profit although the parabolic
solar cookers may be used for covering the costs of the
box solar cookers. We need to consider this carefully,
because of all kinds of (tax) regulations in Vietnam.
Last year we were checked by some (secret) tax
collectors, who wanted to buy a solar cooker in order to
find out if we were selling any
thing.
Mid-Autumn
Festival in Danang
The last few days you
could hear the sound of drums and gongs everywhere.
Children parade in the street with decorative lanterns
and lion dances are performed. On the 15th day of the
8th month (lunar calendar) when the moon is full and
bright, the Vietnamese children (and also the adults)
celebrate their Mid-Autumn festival. This year it will
be celebrated on the 28th of September. It is also known
as a mini-Tet (mini-new years day) for children, and
mooncakes or a toy are special presents given at this
time. The Chinese do not celebrate this Mid-Autumn
Festival like the Vietnamese (which is a children’s
festival), but they called it a Family Reunion Festival.
No matter how far they are from home, Chinese return to
their native place to reunite with their families.
New
excitement
Well, our solar cookers do not work
during those full moon evenings, and also not during the
coming raining season, but this Summer we had many clear
and sunny days. We were amazed of all the good things
which came out of this year’s program. Two things were
outstanding. First of all our new parabolic cookers. We
had very good results during demonstrations and even one
was transported to Hanoi to be used for research by the
Ministry of Agriculture. Secondly, our new project with
de Katu people, an ethnic minority group. In our last
letter we wrote about this group. Our first contact was
encouraging and later we found out that they used the
cookers for making their own herbal medicines. When our
staff were teaching, a film crew showed up and made a
short documentary. Here are some shots which were shown
on Danang television:
Solar
Serve Staff conference
Last
month we came together for our yearly Solar Serve staff
conference at the beach in Danang. Two days of training,
encouraging, discussing and resting were appreciated by
all staff. Mr. Bich’s wife and 3 children came along, so
we had a full house. Here are some pictures. Two of our
staff were not attending at the beach, but they are on
the pictures below:
Kia
Truck
This year we had some
minor accidents  on our
motorbikes while we were moving material. In Vietnam the
owner of the motorbike is responsible for any damage and
has to pay for all broken parts. We decided to have
mercy on the drivers because we had not provided good
transportation. It was dangerous to move the glass
covers from one place to another. Many
transport-companies are afraid to move such material. We
decided to look for a pick-up truck, able to enter
difficult roads and climb steep mountains. Last month we
found a four-wheel drive truck, able to transport
material and enough box and parabolic solar cookers. We
were also very happy that some generous people made it
possible for us to buy one (soon). This will really help
us for the coming season when we are planning to expand
our project. The model of the truck on the picture is
the same, but the back wheels(4drive) of our truck will
be bigger.
Keep
in
touch!
We really made this
letter for you. We hope you enjoy reading it. Next time
when you come to Danang you will be able to move around
better. We met some foreigners last week who were
studying Vietnamese in Danang. This couple paid 120 USD
per months for renting a small house outside the city
(near the beach) and 80 USD per person for 30 hours
language study per month. So if you have plans to stay
in Danang, you should consider a language course, stay
at the beach and become…very old…(smile!)…well, it is
not all that easy. You need a lot of courage, patience
and perseverance to stay and live in this city.
Therefore, if you do not come…please remember us. We can
not do this work alone and need this courage, patience
and perseverance
desperately.
So, please keep in
touch while we are all serving in the presence of the
Sun.
Greetings,
Solar
Serve Team
Note: To
keep this letter reasonable in size, we have made the
pictures very small. There is nothing wrong with you
eyes!
Called
To Serve
See
also: No.1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|
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