Hospital visit, water puppets, and cooking class

This has been quite a busy week for me and I only have a short time to write before I am off to my roommate's hometown for the weekend to have dinner with her family and attend her boyfriend's cousin's wedding. I have been having all sorts of trouble with this website lately from pictures not uploading to deleting blog posts, to having the Vietnamese characters not show up so hopefully this post works out alright.

Thursday Alyce arranged for us to meet with Vietnam's #1 lock and key mogul who is also a benefactor to many charities in Saigon. She visits the city's largest government run cancer hospital to give presents and money to children with cancer and their families. We were fortunate enough to go with her to help her distribute milk and mooncakes for the mid-autumn festival. We also got to play with the children. I really enjoyed this because I had a very nice conversation with a cute five year old boy. Talking with children in Vietnamese is fun because I can have very manageable conversations like "What color is your shirt?" "What animal is this?" that wouldn't necessarily fly with an adult. Afterward the boy's mother said to me "Chị nói tiếng Việt giỏi lắm. Chị nên lấy chồng một người Việt Nam." This means, "You speak Vietnamese very well, you should marry a Vietnamese man." The trip to the cancer center was also very sad though because the conditions at a government run clinic are not very good. There were about 40 children living in only 6 medium size rooms. Many had to sleep on the ground because there weren't enough beds. The women we met with informed us that most of the children were terminal and about 90% of them would die in the hospital. All the children at least had rooms though. There was not enough room in the hospital for all the adults with cancer so many had to sleep in hammocks outside the hospital. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to visit this place because it is often difficult for foreigners to gain access to government clinics.

After that, we went to see a traditional Vietnamese water puppets show. The show was very impressive and featured elaborate puppets including fish that shot water out of their mouths and dragons that spewed fire. I have posted a short video clip of the performance.


Today, the big excitement was that I was able to teach a cooking class at the Little Rose Shelter. Anna came with me to help out and we both had a really great time. I thought it would be fun to make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Yesterday, Loan and I went out looking for ingredients. We were unable to find baking powder but the pancakes were still quite good without them, just a little flatter. We also couldn't find chocolate chips but we found M&Ms and a chocolate bar which we cut up into little pieces. Trang helped me out by teaching me new vocabulary such as "flip" "batter" and "stir" and I taught the girls a few new English words like "flour" "sugar" and "milk." For the most part, I explained how to make the pancakes in Vietnamese but the girls sometimes had a difficult understanding my pronunciation of the words. What was really funny was that one of the girls, who didn't speak English, could somehow understand my bad Vietnamese better than anyone else and acted as "translator" meaning she just repeated what I said, fixing the pronunciation and grammar so that everyone else could understand. I was really impressed at how quickly the girls caught on. Anna and I only made one pancake as an example and then the girls took over completely. They figured out exactly how to adjust the heat and when to flip the pancakes without any instruction. From my time at the Little Rose Shelter, I am extremely impressed at how well they take care of the girls. They let them play and be kids, but also teach them how to be extremely independent and self-sufficient so that they can be successful after they leave the shelter. I think many American teenagers could learn a lot from the girls at the Little Rose Shelter. The girls declared the pancakes "ngon!" delicious, and distributed them to all the plates that they were preparing for breakfast. It made me really happy that they all wanted to get their picture taken with me and many asked when I would return again.

Teaching the girls English words for some of the ingredients

A traditional Vietnamese breakfast of fish, rice, cucumber soup and M&M pancakes


One of the girls expertly flipping a pancake

Tuần này tôi bận quá!

Thứ năm, tôi có dịp đi bệnh viện ung bướu chỉnh phụ. Tôi đi với một người giàu, giám đốc công tý chìa khóa ở Việt Nam. Cô ấy thường đi thăm bệnh viện ấy và cho các em bị ổm đồ ăn, tặng, và tiền. Tôi chới với các em bẻ. Tôi thấy các em bé rất vui vẻ. Tôi thích nói với em bẻ vì tôi có thể hỏi "Cài náy màu nào?" và "Con này là con nào?" được. Nếu tôi hỏi người lơn các câu hỏi này thì thấy hơi ngu! Sau khi đi thăm bệnh viện, tôi thấy rất buồn. Bệnh viện này không có đủ phòng cho tất cả bệnh viên nên nhiều bệnh viên phải ngủ ngoài bệnh viện. Tất cả các em bé ngủ trong bệnh viện nhưng khoảng 40 đứa bé ở sáu phòng thôi. Tôi biết ơn có dịp đi bệnh viện vì khó người nước ngoài đi thăm bệnh viện chỉnh phụ.

Sau khi đó, tôi đi xem múa rối nước. Tôi rất thích múa rối nước và tải lên một bộ phim.

Sáng thứ sau, tôi đi Mai Ẩn Hoa Hồng Nhỏ để dạy các em gài làm "pancakes" với M&Ms. Tôi cũng dạy những từ bằng tiếng Anh như "flour" "stir" "sugar" and "milk." Tôi giải tích làm pancakes bắng tiếng Việt, nhưng nhiều đứa trẻ thấy tôi khó hiểu. Một đứa trẻ hiểu tôi hơn và em ấy là "người dịch" nhưng không dịch tiếng Anh bằng tiếng Việt. Em ấy dịch tiếng Việt xấu bằng tiếng Việt tốt! Tôi thấy lớp nấu ăn vui lắm và hình như các em gài cũng thích lớp ấy. Tôi thấy các em gái rất thông minh và độc lập.