What we do...

Every day we go to the Quang Nam Province home for Orphans, informally known as the Baby Orphanage. We spend an hour and a half there playing with the kids, the only play time they get. We also bring fruit everyday since they aren't fed much beside rice gruel and tofu. The whole building is made of cement with barred windows everywhere. The buildings form a square around the play area; a roof covers the entire area, though the sides are open between the building, so there's plenty of fresh air. The play area has a couple of swings, a teeter totter and two small slides. We also have the key to the toy closet and bring those out for the kids to play with.

The kids can be a bit crazy at times and there is a definite difference in rearing children here. There are no "no hitting, no throwing" rules, so chaos reigns when too many toys come out. We've learned to keep it minimal. There is little to no respect taught to the kids, so they do whatever, including tearing up the books that we brought to share with them. The "mothers" (workers at the orphanage) aren't afraid to smack the kids and don't do much cuddling with the babies. It's also an interesting cultural norm to yell at a baby/kid when they are coughing. I asked Yen why and she said that it detracts their attention from the coughing and makes them stop. I had to turn quickly before rolling my eyes at that one.

So every day we go there, cuddle the babies, play catch with the kids, sing nursery rhymes and toss them around a bit. Stuart and Audrey are great with the kids. Audrey has gravitated toward the shyer girls and Stuart takes on the craziest boys in chase and in physical play. Yesterday, he was flipping the kids around and walking around with them while they held onto his ankles. Very cute and the orphans have a great time with him. They don't get much rough and tumble, so they appreciate it all. They really love to jump and be spun around, so a lot of time is occupied with that. Burns energy for both Stuart and the orphans!

There are several sets of twins there right now and the kids range from 1 month old to 13 years old. One new girl has a cleft lip, so the volunteers are going to see what it would cost to get that fixed and see if there is a way we can help. She is about 1 year old and very small due to not being able to eat well with the lip problem. She is kept to herself in one of the rooms so as not to disturb the other kids. Another boy there is 6 years old, but due to some unknown problem, is about the size of a thin 18 month old, maybe two. He's agile and fearless, making him quite the sight as he flips around the play yard. He hasn't grown in more than 2 years, despite repeated visits to doctors and added nutrition (he gets yogurt, bought by us volunteers) every day. Altogether there are about 25 kids, I think.

I'm learning to not be so depressed by the orphanage, though it's a daily fight. Holding one of the babies yesterday, Stuart asked how long they have to stay in the baby room (we aren't allowed to carry them out into the play area) and was told until they are 2. So for the first two years of their lives (depending on when they come to the orphanage), they stay in the same room 24 hours a day. His reply was "That's crazy!" but Yen couldn't understand why it would be any different. I explained that in America, we take our kids out with us anywhere after a few weeks. And she thought that was crazy. The kids do get adopted out, though, and that is a step up in my opinion. It's nearly always by foreigners (they have had one domestic adoption from that orphanage) who take the babies out of Viet Nam, so there is something about that that smacks of colonialism, but I would, personally, rather see that than living in an orphanage for years on end, only to leave at 18 with little education or job skills.

We also visit the Home of Affection most every day and on some days, twice. We lead classes there, as well as playing with the kids. The kids are older there and know a little bit of English. They are better behaved, though not angelic by any stretch. C'mon...they're kids! We separate into 4 classes: preschoolers (4 or 5 of them), 7-year-old twins, older kids (ages 9-16) and Truc. Truc is the unofficial security guard for Home of Affection and is always a joy to see. He has the biggest smile and always asks how you are, even though he pays no mind to the answer. Truc came the orphanage almost 6 years ago after he was found isolated in a tiny, dark room of his parents' home. He had been held there for the first six years of his life. He is now mentally retarded and physically the size of a 7- or 8-year-old. It isn't known how much the isolation affected those things, but I'd guess it was the primary cause along with malnutrition.

The kids have a cement play yard that is uncovered and contains an ancient teeter-totter and a small metal play structure that can be climbed and then slide down. The kids play a lot of soccer in that area and I've joined in a few times. Quite fun and since all the windows are barred here, too, it doesn't matter if you kick it too hard and it hits the buildings. ha! They have one classroom that we all use, which makes it a bit difficult, but we're trying. The kids learn English in their regular classes, so we are just supplementing and giving them and opportunity to use the learned English.

Audrey and I have also been learning a bit of Vietnamese sign language from one of the girls there. Her name is Nga and she is 16 years old. She has both parents still alive, but they didn't feel like they could raise a deaf daughter and sent her to the orphanage as a young toddler. She sees her family once or twice a year and is really looking forward to going "home" for the Tet holiday next month. The VSL is similar in ways to ASL, but different enough to cause confusion. She's wonderfully patient with us, though. It's interesting, because at times we are using four language to get the meaning across. She fingerspells in Vietnamese, so if I don't know the word (often the case) I ask Yen to translate into English, then I'll show her the ASL sign and she'll show me it in VSL. Pretty fun, actually.

The kids are great, but the orphanage is a bit rundown. No surprise. It hasn't been painted in years and there are several broken windows. The kids live in dorm-like rooms with four to 8 bunks in each, grouped by age and sex. Then there is a kitchen, the office, the teachers' bunks and the classroom. And like all other official buildings (and many others) it is painted yellow. It is adjacent to a vocational school for the older children where they learn domestic skills, like cooking and sewing, that will hopefully help them get a job in the future.

We also had two adult classes, but are now at one. We taught one class at the Tam Ky Hospital, but it was cancelled tonight due to irregular attendance. This was our third time and only two of the students have been there for each class. Otherwise it is pretty off-and-on as to when people are attending. It makes it difficult to plan lessons because people are at such different levels of English and dedication to learning. It can be frustrating and the hospital decided to call off classes until March.

The other place we teach is the Economic Zone, where we have 8-10 adult students. They are all professionals: architects, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, international trade manager, etc. Their English levels are pretty high, some better than others, of course. The shocking thing is the wages that these people make. Tam Ky is a very small town and the average salary is less than $50/mo. The electrical engineer, after 4 years of college and several years of work experience is making only 1,000,000 VND a month. About $60. A month! He was shocked to learn that in my job in the States I was considered poor making $12 and hour. I made in 5 hours what it takes him 120 hours to make. Amazing.


As for the city we live in, it has roughly 100,000 people in it and just became an official city (instead of a town) in November. It is fairly large, but we've only explored within about a mile radius of the house. The train station is not too far away (which we'll use to get to Hue in a couple of weeks), there's a large market where we are the center of attention and lots of government buildings. Tam Ky is the province capital so there are plenty of government officials wandering around all the time. A bit creepy. And every night around 2 or 3 am I can hear helicopters flying over, but there are not lights on them. Ever. The craziest thing is the Voice of Vietnam, a message that comes on, preluded by music, every morning at 5am to usher in the day with news of Vietnam's growing prosperity. It's interesting propaganda, though I don't have any straight-up interpretation of it. Just an explanation from our translator. No matter what, I can't sleep through it. It also comes on around lunch time and after dinner (at 7pm, I think) though it lasts the longest in the morning. Not my favorite. In Da Nang it was at 4:45 and sounded like a fire alarm going off, but never followed by talking. In Ha Noi, it started at 7am and had music and talking. I'd prefer that one over the others, but I'm growing used to it, even if I can't sleep through it.

photos on flickr.