‘We come to a stop somewhere in the central highlands and pay a visit on the Ma people. No sooner do we climb off the motorbikes and we are surrounded by children. Grubby little faces smile at us and hands appear from everywhere eagerly anticipating the coconut sweets that they know Lulu is going to produce. As the sweets come out, there is chaotic pushing and shoving until everyone receives their share. We are invited into a wooded shack to drink tea with some of the older members of the community who mind the children while the parents work in the coffee plantations.
‘We are interested to know why, in a country with a two child policy, there are so many kids in this tiny hamlet. Lulu tells us that the government were also concerned with this, so in came the doctors and out came the condoms. Six months after the condoms were distributed, the doctors came back to check the progress and much to their dismay more women were pregnant. It seems that after a night’s consumption of the potent local brew, condoms are the last things on
these gentlemen’s minds! I think that the government’s strategy needs tweaking slightly!‘The Ma children do not go to school. Keen to maintain a strong sense of tradition in this minority village, the families reject the governments attempts to assimilate them into mainstream Vietnamese society which includes education. They speak their own language and don’t understand Vietnamese, but of course all the children can say “Hello” and “bye, bye” in perfect English!'
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