Typhoons and trips

Hi everyone. Some of you have expressed concern about Typhoon Ketsana so I wanted to let everyone know that I am out of harms way. We've had some heavy rain but Ho Chi Minh City should not experience any major problems from the typhoon.

Also a lot of you tell me that you like reading my blog but no one ever comments! So please do, I'd love to hear from you.

In other news, I had two very interesting class field trips recently. The first was to an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City. The orphanage had mostly children with special needs, such as children with Down Syndrome. Another one of Alyce's great contacts was able to get us into the orphanage. Vi wanted to work their previously as her service placement but they didn't want anyone from America working there because they thought we might have swine flu. When we went, at first the guards wouldn't let us in but the woman we went with bought them breakfast and promised that we would wear face masks and they eventually let us in. We played with the children and helped feed some of the smaller ones breakfast. The children all wanted to be picked up because they are taken care of, but there are so many that they don't get many chances to be picked up. It was so sad because I'd give a piggy back ride to one kid but then all the other ones wanted one, but the first child wouldn't want to let go. After playing with them, we went to visit the babies in the nursery. Most of these babies did not have developmental problems. Some did, but most of them were abandoned at the nearby church's doorstep. We helped feed all the babies their bottles and held them and played with them. They were so cute and I had such a difficult time leaving. Our program director had to tell me that we were going several times but I felt terrible leaving the baby that I was feeding before her bottle was finished.



The next day went with a church group to two ethnic minority villages near the Cambodian border. We went to give food and money to the villagers and moon cakes and lanterns to the children for the mid-autumn festival. We saw the villagers do traditional dances and gave food to them. The priest who we went with talked about how he came every two months to give food to supplement the villagers' diets because most of them work on rubber plantations or farm and only make about 8000 đ per day, or about 50-60 cents. He also tries to encourage them to keep their cultural traditions such as traditional dancing and weaving cloth for traditional skirts. Many ethnic minorities try to emulate the Kinh, the ethnic majority in Vietnam and wear jeans and t-shirts instead of traditional clothing. The pastor was telling them that they should be proud of their culture and keep their identities.

The oldest woman in the village, at 86, sits with the bags of food an presents that we are about to give out

Some of the older women in the village play gongs to welcome us

After visiting the first village, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that I think was owned by a friend of the priest. Our lunch included some interesting dishes such as a whole chicken (including the head), deer (though I've never seen a Vietnamese deer), wild boar, and fish ball soup, all cooked in front of us. A drunk guy also came to our table and started trying to get me and Anna to drink with him while Alyce was freaking out a little bit. He kept talking about how he didn't like Vietnamese girls, he liked Japanese girls and white girls. Then his friend came over and told him not to bow to foreigners because he was sort of leaning over the table that we were sitting at. All in all it was a pretty entertaining lunch.

Cooking the deer meat

After lunch, we went to visit a second village where we gave out more things and met with more people. This was an interesting experience because it made me think a lot about charity in Vietnam. So far, most of the charities I've been to have been Catholic and I have to say I greatly admire the work that they are doing. They provide many much needed services where public service is greatly lacking. I was especially impressed with the remarkable doctors that I met at the HIV clinic that we visited earlier. They were completely selfless and worked 13-14 hour days for extremely little pay. I was also impressed that despite being a Catholic charity, they gave HIV patients counseling on safe sex practices and how to use condoms. Now, all of this being said, there were some things about this trip that I was very disappointed with. Below is a picture of the church that the church group we went with helped build in the second village.

Now here is a picture of another church that they are building near the village

Alyce and I went away from the group and explored on our own and found some houses like this. It's basically some sticks in the ground with leaves for a roof.
I can appreciate that the church brought poor people food and that they are providing jobs through the church's construction, but sometimes I wonder if their priorities are in order. Sorry to end on a somewhat pessimistic note, but my next post will be about mid-autumn festival activities so that should be a bit happier!

Tôi mới có hai chuyên đi với chương trình CET hay lắm. Thứ ba, chúng tôi đi một trại mồ côi. Chúng tôi có dịp chơi với các bé nhỏ. Tôi thấy buồn lắm vì những đưa bé có sự tàn tật như Down Syndrome. Tôi tuy buồn nhưng vẫn thích chơi vơi các bé nhỏ. Tất cả các bé thân thiện và dễ tương. Tôi giúp những đưa bé ăn sáng. Khi giám đốc Alyce nói các sinh viện phải về nhà tôi không muốn đi vì muốn chơi với các bé nhỏ nửa.

Thứ tứ tôi phải dậy lúc 4g sáng để đi thăm một làng nghèo gần biên giới Camphuchia. Chúng tôi đi với một nhóm đạo Thiên chúa và cho người nghèo đồ ăn và tiền. Chúng tôi cũng cho các con ở làng bánh trung thu và đèn. Người ở làng múa truyền thống.