A Mini Me Cho con

I miss the days of sleeping in and NOT working out. I actually felt somewhat motivated today..maybe because I had that glorious day off yesterday!

After a workout, shower and breakfast I was off to meet Jemma at the bus stop. I was going to visit her orphanage today which was about 20 minutes away.

Once we arrived I felt the intense overwhelming feeling I had felt that first day at my orphanage. She took me around to check out the different areas.

They had a nice courtyard with a small (run down) playground. She then took me to see the first room and I was so overwhelmed. There must have been about 40 boys (all confined to their “cribs”) just lying in a big room. We moved on to the “hospital” but we could only look through the window. There was a boy (with a twisted spine) who did speak a bit of English so we asked him his name and how old he was but it was very hard to understand him. The worse part (and I think the first time since I have been here I thought I might throw up) was this small boy. He was just skin and bones and had a mangled body. His hip bone (I think) must have stuck out when in the bed because there was a massive bed sore that they were changing. I am glad I saw it to really learn what these children are dealing with, but it is an image that will never get out of my head.

We then saw a few more rooms upstairs and Jemma suggested I take out a little boy (very cute and lots of fun!) and guess what? I bet 28,408,203,480,234 VND he was Cho Con’s little brother! They are like TWINS! This little boy is mostly blind and did the same, “Hello”. He was ADORABLE and would repeat everything I said. I tried to get him to say, “Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!” We came close!

Myself, Jemma and Trinh (Jemma’s friend who volunteered here last year and has returned for 2 weeks) each took a child out to the park to play on the swings etc. At 9:30am it was time for feeding! All the children there are fed in their beds because apparently they can’t swallow sitting up. Trinh recommended I take an “easy one” and she was easy! She ate big spoonfuls, wasn’t too messy, and finished quickly! Unlike the food at my orphanage, all the food here is puréed. There was only one worker in the room with us (of about 20 kids) and there were 5 volunteers that helped with feeding.

Next, I was given a tricky one! He was a small boy with a TINY mouth. I took my time feeding him because hey, all I had was time! I hate when I see people shove the food in their mouth to get to the next child. I realize if the staff didn’t have anyone around they would have to do that, but I had all morning to feed these children. Finally, a staff member came over, grabbed the spoon out of my hand, held his head back and shoved it in his mouth. I had to walk away, but these are the times I wish I could speak the language. I would love to tell her that I had all the time in the world to feed him and I didn’t mind that he was slow.

I left to go find Jemma, a bit upset at the situation. She knew JUST who the staff member was and said the woman was always on a power trip. Jemma said overall she didn’t feel like any of the staff wanted her there. It was disheartening to hear because the staff in the main room at my orphanage are ALWAYS so welcoming (a smile is a smile in all languages!!!) and here I didn’t get that same vibe. Both Trinh and Jemma said that most of the staff appreciated the help, but a few didn’t mind showing how they feel. Trinh can understand a bit of Vietnamese and she was feeding a tough kid (would not/could not swallow). One of the staff members said they should help, but another responded, “No, let her learn the hard way”. It is really sad to hear that some of them are so unwilling to accept help from us.

We left at 11:00am (their naptime) to go grab some lunch. Jemma and Trinh live on the 3rd floor and have beautiful rooms! I think the rooms are used for adoptive parents that come to the orphanage (although Jemma said in the 30 years no one had adopted a disabled child..only the “normal” babies). They each have their own room, large bed and bathroom attached!

We went to Pho 24 which is a chain restaurant. Pho is a type of soup that Vietnam is famous for. I got the chicken version and yogurt! The soup wasn’t bad, although I am not a soup girl! I also have decided I HATE scallions. The yogurt, however, was AMAZING. I had one before AND one after my meal because it was so good!
We went back to the orphanage to relax a bit before heading off to the deaf school!

When we arrived they had us sit down for a bit (which we never do). At 2:15 I was about to ask if we could go to our classroom but then they brought us somewhere else! This was a new class of about 20 students (same age..late teens) and a teacher who spoke no English. I was almost ready to ask if we could go back to our classroom because they knew us and knew the games we would be playing. But, we stayed. We played a game they wanted to play and then the teacher turned to us. We tried “the hand game” but they seemed like they didn’t care. I missed our old kids. We then did musical chairs (and dropped something instead of music) which worked well but they got VERY aggressive! They are so competitive.

One of the reasons my day was so tiring and exhausting was because one girl was all over me. At first it was sweet, but then it did get a bit strange because she is probably 16. She kept stroking my hair and holding my hand and I felt bad because I was trying to be sweet (and I did hold her hand and hug her etc.) but I was also trying to help Jemma and Trinh and not leave them hanging! She was really cute at first but then I wasn’t quite sure how to kindly tell her I couldn’t cuddle with her the whole time because I needed to help my friends.

The teacher brought us to the board and started writing the word “sports”. It took her a while but once we understood we wrote it for her. She then proceeded (I forgot how we managed to find this out) to explain something about questions about sports. We thought she wanted us to do trivia, but we explained we don’t speak Vietnamese (although Trinh can understand a bit!). The whole process was very frustrating without a translator. I wish I could bring all of you step by step as to how everything worked out from here..but the next thing we realized was they were saying something about sports at 5:00pm. We thought they were going to the park to play sports but why were they telling us? We then thought they wanted us to come with them to play sports now. Finally, we acted out and drew pictures of some sports and translated it into English. I THINK this is what they wanted. They were talking (well acting out) about Gold metals and Olympics. So then we thought maybe they were going to the park to participate in something..some sort of Olympics? We had no clue. Finally, we had translated most of the sports and then they wanted us to translate flowers, bouquets and bus. WHAT was going on? I had no idea. We were all frustrated and it was almost time for us to go anyway so we decided to head out. However, we somehow managed to find out (we thought) that some Olympic (team?) was coming by bus to the school at 5:00pm and these students were giving them flowers! That is the spark notes version..although I can’t tell you how complicated it was to come to that conclusion. They wanted us to be there to cheer them on! It was 4:00 and we needed a break so we said we would be back and went to grab a coffee. We had NO idea what to expect but we returned to see flowers and the students EAGERLY waiting.

They started cheering and banging drums and we saw other students in white team jackets enter. We realized they were also students of the deaf school and had returned from somewhere with Gold metals. EVERYONE was crying and hugging! It was beautiful and strange to watch.

We STILL have no idea where they competed or what “sport” they play, but it was so nice to see how excited everyone was to greet them! They handed out flowers and had confetti and then we left!

Khaly and I got dinner at a place down the street. It was sort of “cheap” in the sense that it has plastic chairs and some dog was running around (gross I know). I ordered a roll and spaghetti but when the bill came something didn’t seem right. I knew I was paying more than I should have. Now, I think I would have overpaid about 9,000VND which was 50 cents, but it is always the principle of the matter. I asked to look at the menu and sure enough they overpriced me for both the roll and my spaghetti. I guess it COULD have been an honest mistake, but with two different items? It is a bit frustrating that you always have to “watch your back” here, but hey, it’s Vietnam!

Hugs and kisses from my mini me Cho con!