Category: The Archive

Hop was not granted a visa at the interview today. They require an Affidavit of Support from me instead of from any sponsor, which was not stated in the instructions, and they told Hop she was lying about our eight years of correspondence because she told the interviewer that my Vietnamese wasn't very good. He insisted that after eight years of writing to each other, my Vietnamese must be excellent, despite the fact that Hop's English is easily good enough for us to communicate completely.

I am here safely in HCMC at the Metropole Hotel. The number (from the US) is 011.84.8.9201940 room 615 - please keep in mind there is a 12 hour difference between US Eastern and GMT+0700!

I'm sorry to report that Hop's father passed away before I arrived. She is currently returning to HCMC from Gia Binh, where she attended his funeral. Hopefully I will be able to go up there after the visa interview.

40,000. 40,000 dead. The US government has pledged $15 million. That amounts to $0.05 USD per citizen. If every citizen gave $50, we could put our own government to shame.

So:

1) Get out your wallet.

2) Go to the the Red Cross/Red Crescent's website.

3) Give $50. Go into debt if you have to.

[Edit 12.29.04]: 70,000, and the US has pledged $35 million in aid. We're now up to 11 cents per citizen. The Aussies, with 20 million citizens and $27 million pledged in aid, are up around $1.35 per citizen.

From a Reuters article:

In parts of India's Tamil Nadu state officials gave up trying to count the dead and were counting survivors instead, while burying bodies as quickly as possible in mass graves.

Yikes.

22,000 people just died across southern Asia, and several hundred thousand have nowhere to live. (For the Americans in our audience, that's in excess of 7 times the number that died on September 11th. Think the world will change?)

Please donate to the Red Cross/Red Cresecent today. If everyone in America gave $50, that would come out around $15 billion USD. So be part of it. Chop chop, off you go now. Click on the link.

Here's a happy fellow in Ukraine.

Hop's visa interview date has been set for January 24th. I'll be going out there for it, of course!

In which my cat rules: