I went on a field trip while visiting Hanoi to the Phu Tho Province which was about 2 hours south west of Hanoi.  The main source of income is agriculture; rice, corn and livestock.  It is one of the poorer provinces and about 50% of the rural population don’t have decent toilets and drinking water.

We visited two houses that Habitat has helped to build through a combination of grants and loans.  The first house was built by 8 University volunteers from Boston and the technical parts are being finished off by a tradie when we got there. The house consists of 2 bedrooms, living room, outside toilet and bathroom and an outside kitchen. It houses two parents and 3 children.  This is the family, the father is a farming labourer.

The bricks they use up here are a lot different to the bricks used in the south.  These ones weigh 8 kg and therefore don’t need reinforcement in the walls when built like in the South.  Here is the living room and toilet of the house.

The second house we visited was built by the home owner and a tradie, no volunteers worked on this house.

The last house was a grant from Habitat to help the home owners build a toilet which is being built to the right in the picture.

Here are some of the children and the audience we had that followed us around: