Samara Lectures represents SalaamGarage founder, Amanda Koster

“Samara Lectures is a full-service Seattle-based lecture agency that focuses on speakers who make a difference in the world.  SalaamGarage is the perfect example of the type of organization we like to support – making connections by telling stories about real people and their struggles. Since we specialize in bringing this kind of inspirational first person story to audiences, Amanda Koster is a perfect addition to our roster….

“We’ve been very impressed by Amanda’s talks at conference such as TEDX Seattle, Web 2.0, and Gnomedex.  The most challenging part of talking about humanitarian work is making the suffering of people who live far away, that the audience will never meet, relevant and personal.  When we saw Amanda successfully raise $2600 for fistula surgeries in Ethiopia with a five minute talk at Ignite Seattle, we knew we had to get  her more opportunities to share her work.”

Amanda Koster’s bio is now available on our website including a description of her talk and quotes from people who’ve presented her as a speaker.  If you know of a lecture series, conference, company, artist in residency, or school that could benefit from her inspiration and expertise, please contact us at info@samaralectures.com.

Getting Canon 5D Mark2 footage and separate audio into FCP to edit

I would imagine taming a tiger would be easier because I can easily see when the tiger is trying to rip my head off. This process has a lot of invisible irritations that I don’t know what is going on until much time and processing has been eaten up (versus a simple decapitation).

So, I thought I would just make this easier for others after logging hours and hours of tutorials, emails, Facebook communications.

1. Shoot your footage (albeit it 12 min increments :-l)
2. Keep the DSLR audio capture on, though you won’t want to use the sound later. That audio will serve as a ‘map’ to synch your nice audio.
3. Capture audio on a separate device. I use a jerry-rigged Olympus with my XLR adapters from my old video camera (below) because when I got into this the Zoomh 4nwasn’t on the market yet.  I will upgrade to the Zoom h4n soon because I want the XLR plugs among a few other reasons:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1350

4. Finish capturing content.
5. Really think about how you will organize your content. I do something like this:

6. Offload the entire DSLR card contents over to your harddive, not just the footage. Yes all those files and folders that seem useless and you don’t know what they mean. Those too.
7.  Offload your audio file (s) onto your hard-drive as well.
8. I say hard-drive because I do not keep anything on my laptop. I have a Drobo that houses all of my archives, of everything.
9. You can’t just import clips from the DSLR into Final Cut Pro(FCP) and start editing. They have to be converted.  Even though Canon has a plug-in for FCP I found it to be slow and confusing, so I use this software to do this:

This one is free, though no guarantees with upgrades, etc:
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

My friend also recommends this:
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-grinder/

10. Follow this how to (convert your DSLR clips) vide by Philip Bloom (who I think is great when it comes to tutorials:)
http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/frame_rate_conversion.do

11. From there, you need to work on your audio. I like Audacity to do simple clean up jobs and processing audio.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

It is important to capture it the best audio you can at first at ‘time of capture’ (I just made that up), but you can do a few things with Audacity that makes good audio sound better. You can also do major logging and labeling with Audcaity. I spent 6 months with that on a project last year in 2 languages…  let’s not go there.

So, import you audio and MAKE SURE you work at 48000 Hz.  Otherwise your audio will not synch and you’ll have and hear a very trippy (and maddening)  ‘audio drift.’ You can set that in the lower left corner of the Audacity timeline.

12. Work on your audio a bit and export as an MP3 file into the project folder.
13. Now that your video (with its bleh audio from the DSLR camera) and good audio captured from some kind of separate device are downloaded it’s time to open FCP.
14. Import your content info FCP. Again, keeping everything organized.
15. lay down all your content
16. Open Plural Eyes and sync your audio.
Here’s the software:
http://www.singularsoftware.com/pluraleyes.html

And a tutorial:
http://bit.ly/caDZau

17. Your video and audio should be synched. Right now I am working how to ditch the DSLR audio I don’t want to hear, but I think Plural Eyes still needs to synch… I need to figure that out….
18.  Did find this nifty how-to page on Vimeo, where I will stage the rough cuts for my clients to view:
http://vimeo.com/help/compression

More soon……

 

“I may have had more impact on a cheeseburger”

Just submitted an Ignite talk:

“I may have had more impact on a cheeseburger”

Doral Chenoweth: a viral video (made by a flip camera) of a homeless guy with a great voice spread like wildfire and his life was changed forever. A very simple act of grace, a few hours on the computer and pow, massive impact. SalaamGarage: thousands of dollars spent, thousands of miles traveled, pro media gear, award winning media makers with social media at their fingertips, capturing stories of people in dire need. Where is the impact? What is wrong with this company? SalaamGarage: several years later.

Hope I get in.

‘The Social Network’ and the imitation American Dream

Just flew back from the east coast after 10 days doing the holidays with dear friends and family, which was awesome. Watched ‘The Social Network‘ on the plane. Fascinating movie. Exciting glimpse into the ivy league start-up success Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook… or sort of founder… and about the creation of the company.  The 21C maverick rock star, kind of a today version of  ‘Less Than Zero’ meets start-up, fast and lonely lifestyle riddled with a destructive desire for power, wealth, sex, recognition, greed, stuff like that, all wrapped up into a truly ‘cool idea.’ I liked how ‘real’ and current it felt especially since Facebook is on the tip of our tongues. After the whole thing the friends all sue each other, relationships are shattered, billions are made and Mark is still lonely, hitting refresh over and over impatiently (neurotically?) hoping a woman will friend him.

I’ve dated this guy (s). No not Mark Zuckerburg, but that start-up entrepreneur guy, that guy married to his work, starving for recognition, wanting to please his dad, desperately needing to impress his x-girlfriend or x-wife (or eeeww- daughter), needing a few more million so THEN he can start his life… on and on. Hamster wheel. I didn’t totally get this from Mark, he seemed to be innocently obsessed with Facebook, pretending to be an as*hole though actually hiding and protecting that he is really a softie who just wants to be loved and accepted. But I have met this guy before and foolishly thought, at times, that we were in a relationship. I unapologetically loved them cuz that’s just what I do, clearly to a fault.

With Mark’s character in the movie and with the men I knew, each situation breaks my heart. It breaks my heart when love shows up and then is eventually extinguished by fear, addiction to money, power, slave to anything other than gratitude for the amazing gift of love itself. It truly breaks my heart.

Unfortunately I think this beast is in us all. It is inescapable, it is the imitation American Dream. Not what our forefathers fought for, not what Martin Luther King dreamt of, it’s this get rich before you’re 40 or 30 or whatever pick a decade, before you’re ‘someone.’ .. lie that enslaves so many of us. Before  _______________ can start in your life. Fill in blank. Complete with the messed up hair, clad in North Face outerwear and ‘f*ck-you’ flip flops…  Same as Mark. And with each of these boyfriends I have either watched them or dealt with remnants of them falling apart chasing that dream, many ending up with plastic love.

One had a mental breakdown + became an alcoholic (ironically one of his later x-wives contacted me via Facebook to tell me all about their terrible marriage), another is so emotionally locked down after his wife had an affair and the marriage fell apart while chasing the dream he claims he may never warm up again (and told me that persuing a long distance relationship with me still wouldn’t exceed his annual golf budget), another after pursuing me for years just couldn’t keep it in his pants after the divorce where his work ripped the marriage apart, another here on a very long visa (or American ‘marriage/divorce’) long enough to attend an ivy league school, make a ton of money or at least have us think so, ride out the American cowboy lifestyle boots and all (except after a hike the 1st thing he’d do was look at himself in the rear view mirror- not too cowboy) until he cashed in/checked out when his Indian parents roped him back to India for an arranged marriage.  Most likely all part of a plan that he ooops, forgot to tell me. But hey, thanks a lot for leaving me your … microwave… ?

Each situation break my heart. Separate from these men it is the infectious, cold fear that breaks my heart. That fear of being truthful, loving and graceful with each other. Instead we are dismissive, unavailable, we lie, avoid, quit. This is why my heart aches and is ultimately the driving force behind my ferocious hunger for truth and connection within my personal life, through my work, it has become my mission in life.

[breather]

Anyway. It was interesting to re-live the ups and downs of another start-up entrepreneur dude… this time on a screen which was much easier to deal with.  Besides addressing that the standard chasing-the-dream may include sex drugs and rock and roll, that seemingly priceless-pat-on-the-back from ‘ol dad and past women, covering how greed kills friendships, showcasing the genius geek as the new maverick rock star… besides all that the movie addressed something else that I have been thinking about for a while. Social media and where does it leave us.

In the last several years millions of us dived head fist into a cesspool of umpteen social media sites, landing for now on Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, used to be Freindster, Myspace and a few others we chuckle about now. When Facebook came I started to see something, along with speaking at social media conferences on behalf of SalaamGarage.  Facebook in particular, and this is not an original thought, clearly taps into that insatiable, narcissistic rock star we idolize, infecting and devouring our precious minutes. That need to be recognized, important, loved, the hope that someone out there is really listening, that someone actually cares and is loosely a part of our lives.  And that in the end, no matter how many ‘friends’ our profile says we have, this does not by any means substitute a real live friend in person, or the friends we truly have, real friends, that we can if we are lucky count on two hands. And further, Facebook may actually be keeping us from being with those friends (not to mention a growing deficit in productivity), because instead of just calling them and committing to facetime (fyi: the url is already taken), we are obsessed with everyone else’s lives, making new friends, suggesting friends, racking up friends, being friended, etc. Ironically not really being a friend. And it is a huge time suck. What did we do with that time before it took over? Facebook has definitely helped me to keep in touch with and locate old friends, build a business, accomplish heaps of great things. But I still consider myself blessed to be able to count my true friends on two hands, roughly 7-9 fingers. No matter what my profile says no more fingers have been spoken for since accepting Facebook into my life.

Facebook also taps into the dark ugly beast of loneliness. How may of us flip though profile after profile, looking at one bad party picture after the next. What are we looking for? Why are we doing this?  We are lonely. We want to ‘be there’, we want to ‘know them’, we wish we were with them right now, anywhere but living our own real-time lives. We don’t call. Instead, we comment.

The movie ends brilliantly. Mark briefly connects with a woman versus his typical M.O. of ignoring her or dropping obnoxious, condescending remarks. Once she leaves the room he immediately looks up her Facebook profile, goes to ‘friend her’, pauses at his own creation and then does it. Then he sits there, in a super classy boardroom, in his version of a dress up suit (no Northface) all alone. After loosing his best friend, millions of dollars… here is the worlds youngest billionaire sitting there hitting refresh to see, I am guessing, if she accepted his friendship request.

Brilliant.

Click, click, click. Hooray for such a dark, human ending that begs at least one question: what was it worth?

I often wonder what it must feel like to be in the midst of such success, look over  your shoulder and see a trail of broken hearts.

Truth is, we have all been in both positions: the breaker and the broken.

It reminds me of what I told each of those boyfriends. Even some male friends in my life now, all have spent some precious face time trying to convince me (or themselves) that chasing the dream is worth it, don’t I understand? That “Once I get __________________ then I can _____________________”, and my trying to convince them (or myself) that is all a farce. Life is NOW. It is arrogant to think everything will go our way. There is no guarantee that all of this will fall into place they way we want it to. We just don’t have that much control. I watched each of them charge into completely unforeseen circumstances: a mental breakdown, booze, a divorce, affairs, major health issues, abusive x-wife who hits their daughter, another suicidal daughter, etc. This is not exclusive to .com. Their fields ranged from bio-tech, law, oil and natural gas to yes (surprise surprise: the Indian), a software startup. All amazing teachers though none of them factored life, life-ing into their get-rich American Dream rock star equation. Not one and yet they all ended up facing something huge that money couldn’t buy.  Most of their wives cheated on them and it broke them. The last man in my life… I pleaded… ‘Do not end up like these guys, don’t wait for your bank account to reach $X so that you can finally love loving. You have no idea what will happen.’ I had tears in my eyes because I don’t think he was listening.

A month later his dad was diagnosed with a very very serious brain tumor.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…”

Go see the movie.

A [Long] Walk To Beautiful.

We leave for Ethiopia in a week. SalaamGarage is leading a trip to work with the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

To get up to speed, watch A Walk To Beautiful. And try very hard not to cry. Just try.

This is a pivotal trip for me personally in many ways. For one, Ethiopia was my first time to a developing country back in 1993.  A seed was planted there, very very deep into my heart…  along with a vision for the way I would devote my life. It was also the trip where I bumped into ‘Salem Garage,’ while in Eritrea, which gave me the idea for ‘SalaamGarage.’ From there, we drove over to Ethiopia and my life path completely changed.

That trip in 1993 changed my life. Period.

I am forever grateful to Senayt Samuel, my friend from university who invited me to visit Ethiopia and Eritrea when she first heard that she was granted her green card. “Want to come with me to Africa?” she asked. Yes. Done. I showed her my airline tickets and her jaw dropped. “I said yes, I meant it” and smiled. Ethiopia and Eritrea had just ended a 30-year civil war and I witnessed a post war country for the first time.  That is a journal entry on its own, to see the bombed out buildings, the mass graves (piles of dead bodies with skin on their bones, boots on still on their feet and screaming faces), destroyed roads, veterans missing legs, arms, eyes, hearts in the streets of Addis Ababa. Then in the blazing heat seeing injured people relentlessly rebuild their county. I will never, ever, ever forget that experience. I was 22 years old.

So now I am going back. I get to go back and am so grateful. This time I get to try to help someone. I’m not just an onlooker this time; I have formed a company that I truly hope has a positive impact on people’s lives. Hopefully more seeds will be planted.

This is a pivotal trip for me in another way. A few weeks ago I was visiting the man I love in Ohio.  Days after the visit his father was diagnosed with a serious brain tumor and a week later he told me he couldn’t handle the distance relationship right now with his father’s situation. Ouch.

Life is so uncomfortable sometimes.

And then I began to read up on fistula and watched ‘A Walk To Beautiful,’ learned about how these women endure long and painful labor to end up delivering a dead baby and meanwhile the lining between their anus and or urethra was torn and they leak feces and or urine. From there, they are shunned from their community treated like garbage. Their world gave up on them.

Serious ouch.

I am sad about the relationship with this man, thinking of his father and their whole family, and man…. then I learn about these women. Sad and motivated at the same time. Very motivated. Life is amazing. Amazing how it changes in an instant. Then amazing how simply we can opt to change someone’s life forever.

Grace.

It is easier to give up than to persevere. Steadfastness. It takes something, a focus above the horizon, off the easy path, opt out of the default. Choice, that’s all really. These women did not give up. They walked 7-27 hours to this hospital barefoot with God knows how much or how little food and water so that hopefully a surgeon will perform surgery and literally save their lives. They weren’t actually ‘dying’ either, they were leaking urine and feces. But truly, they may as well die because their husbands and communities left them, gave up on them and moved on. And all over the world that can be an indirect murder of a women.

Their world gave up on them. And can you blame them? Their lives were at risk as well. The shame we humans create from unusual situations is deadly.

It shames the husbands in the community to be with a woman, their wife and the mother of their own children who smells like urine and cannot help it. She was trying to deliver their child and her body was injured. The men defaulted to ‘easy’ and the women lost it all. But it’s messy. One can not point the finger at the problem. Instead we can motivate, believe in and work towards a solution.

This trip just hit me. My past history with Ethiopia, the way that trip changed the course of my life and without a doubt why I have done all the work I have done for the last 15 years, created SalaamGarage, the public speaking, the book, everything.

I return to Ethiopia with some sadness, distant from someone I love dearly and for his family.  I return to Ethiopia with a deep deep gratitude for how Ethiopia changed my whole life, and a powerful respect for these women who don’t quit and brave it all for hopes that their lives will be changed forever.  I return to Ethiopia motivated to do the best I can for the SalaamGarage team, the partnering NGO, the women they are serving and just whoever I run into. Serve the best way I know how. This trip just hit me over the head pretty hard. It is such a privilege to do this work.

Wish us all well.  All of us.

mastering life: sitting still with crap.

i’m convinced mastering life is the ability to sit with seriously crappy situations in total stillness with a smug look on your face knowing things will ultimately change.

Leftovers.

by Amanda Koster in Eldoret, Kenya.

I ordered fish last night and like most dishes in Eldoret so far, with it came a heaping pile of oily, soggy french fries. I don’t touch them because they’ll make me fat. And, if I were to indulge there is no ketchup here.  Instead there is some sugary, syrupy sweet and sour sauce died pinkish to possibly resemble what westerners would call their beloved Heinz Ketchup. Deal-breaker.

I pass the fries off into the up-for-grabs center zone of the table. 7 of us are out to dinner. Somone says, ‘give them to the street kids,’ the street kids in Eldoret, outside the restaurant sniffing glue, homeless.

I am torn. On the one hand definitely, why waste anything.  The kids outside the restaurant are hungry, homeless, orphaned, dirty, reckless and high on glue. They will eat them.

On the other hand I remember Raj, our SalaamGarage tour guide in India last September, had another perspective. “Buy them their own meal.” Then he made a face like your guys are arrogant western assholes. “Why give them your leftovers. Give them their own plate of fresh food.”

I still see his point. I think to myself today, imagine your whole life people feeding you the food they don’t want. Not getting your own meal just for you start to finish. What does that do to a person?

Bryant and I asked the waiter when we are finished to pack up the ‘chips’ for ‘take away’ (‘french fries’ in a ‘doggie bag’ would not have made any sense).

We all finish out our dinner. I watch Bree as she keeps on eating the fries, even after it’s been publicy decided those fries are going to a street kid. I keep watching out of the corner of my eye. One fry afer the other she eats. “I feel munchy” she says. One after the other. The pile is decreasing and she keeps picking. I say nothing. She’s enjoying them. However all I can think of is that is one less fry for some kid living a horrendous life on the street.

Eventually we all get up to leave, the waiter has packed up the ‘chips’ for Bryant and I to hand off.

We get outside on the street and look around for all but 5 seconds. The streets kids are lingering amongst the rest of the Eldoreties, all of us out for a night on the town. It was Saturday night after all. Everyone was out and about. Street kids everywhere sniffing glue running around. Eldoreties out for dinner, drinks and dancing, us Mzungus (whites or literally ‘one who moves about’ in Swahili) also out endlessly trying to make sense of it all. All of us wandering around.

One street kid came up to me. He was small, about 8 years old, filthy and nearly barefoot. His shoes were too big, worn out and barely clinging to his feet. His clothes were the same, too big, half missing, worn away. Again, someone elses leftovers.

He came up to me sweetly. He wasn’t aggressive or mean, he was gentle. I know these kids are masters at begging so it could have been an act, though this didn’t feel fake. It felt hungry.

I hand him the bag of soggy, cold, damp left-over french fries. He looked up at me and said “for me?” … “Yes” I said and handed them over. He gently took the bag and said thank you. He then put his hands together, brought them up to his face in gesturing a prayer almost like Namaste, made eye contact and softly said “thank you, thank you,” again and again, smiling. Then he ran away really fast.

“I hope he doesn’t get beat up.” I turned around, Bree said that. I looked back at the boy running away from the bigger street kids. No one seemed to be chasing him.

If  you are interested in helping the street kids in Eldoret, below is an organization I met personally here in Eldoret. Tumanini Children’s Center (‘Tumanini’ means ‘hope’ in Swahili) is run by former street kids themselves who are now married with families, employed and living productive inspiring lives. Tumanini is open 3 days a week, provides food, showers, counseling, medication and support for street kids in Eldoret.

learn more: http://www.betterplace.org/projects/2367-tumaini-chidrens-center/invitation/new

their website, it needs help: Tumaini Chidren’s Center

Want to help? Let me know: hello@salaamgarage.com . I am going to talk with them to get a site up where people contact them.and help.

thank god.

wading thru images

whoa. i made 7808 images in vietnam. man-o-man. digital.

if these were film days it would have been half as many. easily. we paid (differently) for each click back then. hard cash. now we pay with time. this is photography, the other side.

the beauty of digital is that i get to re-live my trip several times, as editing is a multiple-session (2-4ish hours at a time) process. with help: red wine, jetlag and pandora. this is good. reliving the experience.

had dinner with my friend becky tonight. we sat down and she asked me, ‘tell me about vietnam.’ i smiled.

you see, when we were skiing 3ish weeks ago i had just returned from south africa and she asked, ‘tell me about south africa.’ i looked at her, paused and said, ‘i can’t.’ like any really good friend she understood, nodded and we skied on.

this time i could tell her about vietnam. why? because yesterday, when i got home i could see the top of this specific mountain. i saw  a presentation and decided to submit a presentation to ignite seattle about my trip to vietnam (it helps that brady forrest -who kicks ass-  curator of ignite and web 2.0 punched me in the ribs at the last ignite and said ‘i wanna see you up there’ … he gets it). i may or may not be accepted, though i now have a goal, a presentation, a project where i can share my trip with images. this is how i express. whew.

i told becky about my presentation idea and she got it with very few words. ‘artists need to create, they need to express their experiences thru their medium. it’s how they work through life.’

bulls eye. so good to have friends, lovers, partners, etc., who understand us, isn’t it? in fact, it’s vital (for me).

luckily, i was asked to talk about my south africa experience at TEDx. thank god, as this will help… with that. so i am a happy, busy woman. this is where i belong, this is how i contribute.

so, wading through these images has been pretty emotional for me. it always is. i have to carve out time to do it, right away, after any project. i have a few upcoming interviews and presentations that will help. believe it or not, these SalaamGarage presentations (upcoming TEDx talk: 4/16, SxSW: 3/13, a few schools and buzz bruggemans ‘tertulia’ (private event) on 3/9 in seattle) help a lot. For me it is a way to process, create, share, EXPRESS and complete. guess this is why i used to do photo exhibitions. however, life is moving pretty fast right now for me…  so public speaking is my new exhibition. my book (and next one) helps a lot as well. ah. just figured that out as i write right now. i am grateful for every opportunity to present my experiences, as it helps me to process what i just saw.

and man, what i just saw was potent.

stay tuned.

Introduction: SalaamGarage trip to Vietnam.

Hanoi, Vietnam.

Most our SalaamGarage Vietnam trip was spent in Quang Tri Province. Quang Tri Province, the southernmost province of what was North Vietnam was where most of the heavy fighting took place during the Vietnam war. In the coming blog entries I will write more about the details, stories and people of this trip. However to introduce where we were and why, I will begin with general information and facts that we picked up along the way. The in-depth stories will come later as I edit and process my photos (and mind).

Why did SalaamGarage go there? I believe now was the ideal time for this trip, acknowledging any parallels of Vietnam’s war legacy with the history the US is currently making through our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.   Like Vietnam, we all may experience residuals of our own history of war and the steps required to heal from those consequences in the future. Also personally, I wanted to learn more about Vietnam, it’s history and culture, the war and where it is today. I was curious. Apparently others were too and a SalaamGarage trip was born.

We collaborated with PeaceTrees Vietnam, a humanitarian non governmental organization (IRS 501-C3) based in Seattle, Washington and operating in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam.   Their vision is to create a safe and healthy future for the children of Central Vietnam by working alongside the Vietnamese people to reverse the destructive consequences of war.

Founded in 1995, PeaceTrees became the first US non-governmental organization to be permitted by the Government of Vietnam to support humanitarian mine action, to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance and to provide survivor’s assistance and Mine Risk education.

The focus of the conversation on this trip was UXOs. (from wikipedia) Unexploded ordnance (or UXOs/UXBs, sometimes acronymized as UO) are explosive weapons (bombs, bullets, shells, grenades, land mines, naval mines, etc.) that did not explode when they were employed and still pose a risk of detonation, potentially many decades after they were used or discarded.

Here are some facts from Blaire Burroughs, the executive director of Peacetrees Vietnam:

·         83.8% of Quang Tri Province has been designated as bomb/mine areas
·         64.5% of the communes in Quang Tri have high or very high UXO impact
·         40.3% of all ordnance used in the war was deployed in Quang Tri
·         If all this ordnance were spread out uniformly in Quang Tri (which is about the size of King County), it would amount to 140 pounds of ordnance per square meter
·         7000+ individuals have been killed or wounded in Quang Tri by UXO/landmine accidents since the war ended in 1975
·         61% of all victims are younger than 30
·         81.2% of the victims are from rural areas
·         The poverty in Quang Tri is directly correlated with the impact of UXO

The group met, interviewed and photographed landmine victims (people who were injured by UXOs) and survivors (those whose families were injured or killed by UXOs), Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (EOD), scrap metal hunters (people who hunt for and sell scrap metal as a living and often uncover UXOs safely, or are injured or killed by UXOs), scrap metal buyers (people who buy scrap metal from the scrap metal hunters), children who are blind as a result of Agent orange, a teacher at a school for the blind who lost her sight after an accident with a  UXO.

We also met an extraordinary Vietnamese team from PeaceTrees Vietnam and the Department of Foreign Affairs who traveled with us, helped us ever second of the way and made this trip possible.

Stay tuned.