Halfway to Vietnam! :)

After a 11 hour flight, we have finally just landed in Qatar. The time is 8 hours ahead. We have a 9 hour layover that has been spent with lots of walking around to explore the airport. We will depart from here at 1:25am local time and will have a 8 hour flight to finally reach Hanoi, Vietnam. 

The past week in DC was wonderful. We had a few guest speakers come to our class, a trip to the capital building along with our classes making our week very busy. Our group director for our time in DC is actually changing jobs so after 8 years of working as director of the program, the departure dinner on Thursday was filled with much appreciation for all that Jen has done. :)

On Monday we had an activity called Neighborhood day. My group of 30 students was divided into smaller groups and we each went to explore and observe other communities throughout DC. I went to Anacostia which is one of the more highly stigmatized crime areas in DC. As 97% of the people were black, I definitely felt my race as  I walked through the city being the minority.  It was a very eye opening experience. There were no supermarkets in the whole city as well as very few areas that were not run down. Many of the people even verbally stated that the area was not safe at night so we should leave before then. The few little market stores did not have any hand to and contact at any point during the transaction of a purchase. This experience left me with so many unanswerable questions; why are there no healthy food options? Why are most of the construction projects half done? Why is there no green space for outdoor activities or for children to play? These are definitely questions that I plan to continue to think about throughout the semester as well as finding new questions along the way. 

As I am sitting in the airport now I am filled with excitement to see the world. Once we land in Hanoi we will be staying at a hostel for a day or two in hopes we can  all quickly adjust to the 12 hour time change from the US. Then we will be off to meet our host families that we will be living with for our entire time in Vietnam. This is such an exciting opportunity and I cannot wait to meet my host family! 

Definitely thankful for the wi fi in the airport! :) 

I hope all is well with everyone! Thanks for all of the support! =) 

Hillary :)

"If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down" -Buddha