The third day we had wonderful weather, it was perfect for our boat trip. We visited many caves and enjoyed the sun. At that day we met Peter, a Dutch zoologist. He works on the project to save the small population of the lagures, a small monkey species, which only lives in Cat Ba. At this moment there are only 64 animals left and Peter is working on how to improve their rate of breed. As he said they’re very lazy concerning this topic ^^.. female animals live in their own group with only few male animals.
I think it’s a rather interesting job and his place of work is fantastic, although he said that it was the first time, going to the islands by boat. But he has been in Cat Ba (Vietnam) only since February, so I think he’ll have much more chances to go around.

And what’s more interesting is, is that I saw him tonight on TV, while they were reporting about the National Park Cat Ba ^^.. I get to know more and more celebrities during my work….so great! =)

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It was a really relaxing day.

In the morning we had again meetings with several departments. This time my boss was with us and she did most of the translation work, so that I only had to entertain the German business group during the breaks. Very funny was the meeting with the Joint Stock Company for water construction Hai Phong. Due to a flat tire we arrived at the company at 11.30 am. When we arrived there was a big welcome team, with cameras and reporters and after the director of the company introduced the company’s business field (around 10 minutes) he said: “It’s already late, so that I suggest that we continue our work while having lunch.” So much trouble for only 10 minutes ^^…

According to the plan, we had to go to the island Cat Ba in the afternoon. Unfortunately, a storm approached, so that we spend several hours driving to the ferry pier and waiting for the ferry boat to bring us to Cat Ba without any progress. The wind was hard and the ferry was small, so that everybody was waiting. I myself hoped that it wouldn’t go, because two month ago another ferry in Vietnam sank with more than 40 people on board (and a cow), although the capacity of the ferry was only 20 people (without any animals). We decided to wait until 5 pm and called a taxi to bring us back. Also, the ferry didn’t go that day and all the other passengers had to go back to the hotel in Hai Phong. A very unlucky day as you can see, as you would’ve expected from a Friday, 13th.

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I started my first business trip early in the morning. It was still dark outside and a little rainy. The driver came on time, but I was faced with some sudden changes in the plan. Furthermore, we lost a lot of time when there was this traffic jam, so that we came late to the meeting. When we arrived in Hai Phong the meeting has already started and Mrs. Reyer was explaining her presentation. Without any break I started to translate and with my Vietnamese, which is far from perfect, I had some problems to find geological terms. Nevertheless, I still could complete my task with the help of my other two collegues. The meeting was continued in the afternoon. The main topics were waste water and water management. And the Vietnamese partners were very interested, so that an active discussion started. For lunch as well as for dinner we were invited by the Vietnamese partners. In the evening we were conceived in the guest house of the city Hai Phong — very noble with good service, but the food was quite bad (mostly European). So that was my first experience in business trips.

My internship at Hanoi IEC offers me unexpectedly many different tasks, through which I did learn a lot in the past weeks in Vietnam. The most interesting fact is, that I get to know many companies — working in many different fields — and so I got to know many nice persons.

Last week, I got the chance to go on a business trip to Hai Phong (those who don’t know where this city is, please google for it ^^). There, I assisted the business group working in the field of environment (water supply and waste water handling and so on), my job was to translate German-Vietnamese. But through the translator job I got to know many important politicians from Hai Phong, they were really nice: always inviting us to lunch or dinner (you could say the German delegation got more scared of food as the days in Hai Phong increased ^^).

So you can see that an intern don’t always need to make coffee or copying. Internships can also be very interesting. Of course I also had to do lot’s of office jobs, like translating documents, but besides I also could go on meetings, working with Vietnamese students through my German and Math lessons and I also can do jobs with a big responsibility.

I think in the next days I can write more about my jobs outside the office as I’ll go on another business trip to Ho Chi Minh City ^^. See you again.

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