Reunification Day

In Viet Nam today, people are enjoying a day off for Reunification Day, celebrating the fall of Sai Gon. Looking at the details of this day in history is difficult. So many people were left that wanted to go. Children were taken and parents were left. Tears and fear were everywhere, both with the American soldiers and the Vietnamese. Nowadays, the day is celebrated, like America's Independence Day, to mark the bringing together of the country. Just as Ho Chi Minh had long fought for.

It seems ironic as I think about the ensuing "Operation Babylift" and the current state of adoptions to America from Viet Nam. Lines have been drawn and American adoptions will be ending this fall if there isn't some miraculous agreement between the nations.

I can't help but wonder what will happen to the dear children in Tam Ky. So many of them were adopted to the States and that will end. The sponsoring of the baby orphanage will likely end as well (since the flow of funds/adoptions fees will stop). What will be the consequences? I worry that the volunteers of Tam Ky will fade as well, though perhaps it will require more help and elicit more volunteers. The kids will need them and the extra fruit and yogurt that they bring each day.

I want so badly to head back there, bringing along money, clothes, toys... It was so much easier to do so when we lived in-country, but now the transportation costs are a bit prohibitive, though I'm doing what I can to figure out how to do so. Part of it will be the rice bags that Mr. Tung's sister made. They'll be online soon and will help to pay for a gift-laden visit, ensuring that everything arrives to the children in need.

Today, I can't help but wonder about all the kids there and the frustration of so many and the celebration of others.

Yes, I'm still alive

Life has been a little extra crazy lately with a mad hunt for a new job, watching my old one expire and not finding anything capable of earning the same (or preferably) more than the barely-scraping-by amount that I earn now. I start a new job, nonetheless, on Monday. I will be writing and editing for an area adoption agency. They don't do adoptions through Vietnam yet, but if all goes well with the agreement between the two countries, adoptions will continue and the agency will start doing VNese adoptions.

There are always a lot of differing opinions when it comes to adoptions: pro, con and everything in between. I'd like to think that in an ideal world it wouldn't be about fees, gender or age. In an ideal world, parents could afford to take care of their children, mothers wouldn't die at birth and there certainly wouldn't be any corruption. But we don't live in an ideal world, by far, and things are a bit messed up. Not just with adoption in Vietnam, but throughout the world. It's just that in Vietnam, it's on the chopping block.

For some time the two countries (US and Vietnam) have been working on the agreement to allow international adoptions. The current agreement expires soon, leaving hundreds (thousands?) of families in limbo. There's no promise that it will be renewed in some form or another; the State Dept. did say it won't be renewed in its current form. But the when and what's have not been defined.

I've been following the story as it unfolds, but not being an adoptive parent (despite wishing I could be mother to several kids in Tam Ky), I am unfamiliar with the lingo, the requirements, etc. But there's a great blog out there for families to keep track of what is happening. Check out Voices for Adoption Integrity. It's informative and the bloggers seem to truly have the interests of the children in mind. It's an important issue and one that won't go away. Even if they close down the adoptions between the countries yet again.

why it drives me

I know a lot of people don't understand, but it's scenes like this, situations like theirs that make me crave to do more. The video documents a trip to Ba Vi Orphanage outside of Ha Noi. There are 124 special needs kids, thought to be 3rd generation Agent Orange victims, being taken care of by 1 doctor, 2 nurses and 4 caretakers. They are given little money to care for them, so all their resources (time and money) are stretched to the limits. So sad.

Watch the video.

Clothes are getting ready to go....

Thanks to some sales on eBay (with some more coming soon), I was able to raise about $75 toward shipping some packages to the kids in Tam Ky. I got some of the smaller boxes together and it'll take way too many of them to send them that way (though it is quick and a good deal: $37 for the flat-rate box). I just can't get enough of the shirts in there. I did pack one full of 16 pairs of pants, so that'll head out to them early next week and should be there within two weeks. Fingers crossed. I'm also going to send some handmade Xmas candies to the volunteers there.

Then I was thinking maybe you guys could mail off some Merry Christmas or Happy New Year cards to them, as well. You could include cards for the volunteers, Mrs Hanh, Yen and/or the children at the orphanages. Just do NOT send cash. It'll get pilfered long before it gets there.

So send some cards to:
GVN Volunteers
158 Hung Vuong
Tam Ky, Quang Nam
VIETNAM

and give them all a reason to smile. I'll get a box or two of pants, socks and candies off soon and the holidays will be a bit nicer for those who are away from their families.

Finally ready...

I've wanted to make a calendar with our pictures for a while. I actually have used a couple of different companies to make them, but when I got the final product in hand, I wasn't so pleased. I finally found one, though, that offered exactly what I want. A desktop calendar with our photos, captions and dates marked for Vietnamese holidays. Woohoo! I'm stoked. Here's a composite of all the pages:



And of course you can get one yourself! I'm charging $8.99 and the couple extra bucks will go toward the shipping of all those clothes to the Tam Ky Baby Orphanage. I'm also selling some of the not-as-useable-for-Vietnam stuff on ebay to pay for postage, as well. All these shirts and pants have been sitting here for far too long.

[I've tried a dozen times to get this button to work, but nothing seems to help. Ugh. So, if you want the calendar, hit me up on paypal. Donate [at] teresaandkids.com is the address. So much for simple and easy.]
THANK YOU!

helping the children

For those of you in Ha Noi:
Inc. Vietnam will be arranging the fund-raising run / walk around Westlake, in Hanoi on Sunday, 14 October 2007. We shall be greatly thankful for your (financial) contribution to this cause. We would be delighted if you and / or your friends / colleagues could also join us for the run/walk. *The event will start at 6:30 am at the Hanoi Lake View building, 28 Thanh Nien Road, Hanoi.* Should you need more information or would like to register for the event, please contact our local coordinator, Mr. Au Minh Tuan at tuanamATadb.org>

For everyone:
I have three more boxes of clothes that were donated for the kids in Tam Ky, but they cost more than $100 to ship. I'd like to send one more box of warm clothes, since it's starting to get cool there, and hoping I can get some help from y'all. If you can spare $10 or so to help with the mailing costs, I'd be ever so grateful. The paypal address is donateATteresaandkids.com. If you would like to include a card or anything small (and very light), let me know and I'll give you a mailing address.

Last day in Tam Ky (journal)

5 March 2007
This is it--our last day. We went to the Baby Orphanage, after some mad packing after breakfast and dragging it all downstairs, with the other volunteers. All our replacements. I'm really going to miss those kids. I love playing iwth them and being silly with them. Lan has really attached herself to me and I feel bad that I have to just leave. It's been such a great experience and I'm so connected to them all. The twin hellion girls. The little rambunctious boys. The quiet ones, especially Quy even though she cries all the time.

Each little kid has their own little thing that I will remember about them. It's so hard to leave and I just hope that they will be loved. It's amazing how close I've become to the kids here; I knew I would enjoy it, but I really didn't think it would be quite this strong of a bond with them. I really do wish I could do more them--take one or two home with me. Or something. It feels a bit frustrating. These kids are so wonderful and loving and really just need to be loved a bit more.

We said a quick goodbye, as to avoid the tears, then hurried back to the house to make sure all of our stuff was packed. We still had more (shoes, books) and decided to leave some (clarinet, clothes) to get later.

Mr. Hanh had to go back and get the other volunteers; we waited at the house watching time pass and consoling Mrs Hanh, who was crying pretty darn hard. I felt so bad for her, for Audrey. We've grown to love Mrs Hanh very much and even though we have plans to come back, it is still hard to say goodbye.

Han (journal entry)

9 February 2007
Another lovely day in Tam Ky, Viet Nam. The weather is gorgeous, though I will admit to it taking its toll on me when I ride out to the orphanage. It makes me more tired, so it's a bit harder to play with the kids. Not the way they want me to, at least. They really love the grabbing and tickling and chasing and carrying, but it's hard to do that after getting all sweaty and tired from the bike ride.

Today I rode in the car-only the third time to the Baby Orphanage. Jo and Charlie came along, as well as Kim, so it was quite a crew of us--nine of us in all. The kids all seemed to love it, though, especially to have another 'boy' to play with.

We picked up Han on the way to the Baby Orphanage. She lives at the Rehab Hospital during the week, but comes back to the orphanage on the weekends. She came to the orphanage five or six months ago. First, her grandmother brought her in, but they would not take her because she is disabled (no muscle tone or control in her lower body). So that night the grandmother left Han in front of the orphanage. GVN volunteers felt really bad for her and two of them are paying for her hospital stay and rehabilitation.

There's high hope for her gaining muscle strength since Mrs. Hanh's son Trung had the same sort of issue going on and he lived at the hospital for two years and now he can walk okay. Still has a lot of trouble with eating, but his muscle strength is much better. So there is hope for Han to get a bit better. Stuart seems to like her a lot. She laughs at his antics--always a good thing.

[Rumor has it that Han is being adopted by an American family. I can only hope it's true; she's such a cutie.]

Truc at the Home of Affections

5 January 2007 continued
We came back for lunch, I went to the internet cafe (2000VND/hr-cheap!) and sent a few emails, then we headed out again. This time to the Home of Affection. It's much closer, less than 10 minutes by bike.

It was quite different from the baby orphanage because it is also a school and the play area was larger, but not covered. The kids there range from 4-16 years old. Many have one (or both) parents alive, but they were too poor or the government took them.

The 16-year-old is Nga and she is deaf. She is fluent in sign and so we were having a good time trying to communicate. There are many differences [between American Sign Language and Vietnamese Sign Language], but I was able to pick up a bit of it. She was teaching me more and I'm hoping to get fairly decent at it by the time we leave.

There is another child there who is supposedly 16, but he has something wrong with him [Added: we were later told he was 14, so I don't know how old he really is]. He is about the size of a 6- or 7-year-old and has the mental ability of someone around 4 years old. It was shocking to find out his age. He always wants to be held and just repeats "Hello. How are you?" over and over.

This seems to be the key phrase that people learn. The other is "Hello. What is your name?" Everywhere we go people should "Hello!" and, sometimes, the other bits as well.

Some of the kids at the orphanage can speak pretty well, mostly the older girls who were a bit awestruck by Stuart. Too funny.

Today we just visited, but next week we will start teaching there. My kids were a bit bored and happy to leave; we'll see how next week goes.

Tu (journal entry, part 2)

5 January 2007 (continued)
Oh, there's also a little boy there who is 6 years old and, honestly, the size of an 18-month-old [okay, maybe 2]. His brain is fine, but his body has just stopped growing. Yen says that when she met him two years ago, he was the same size. They feed him extra with GVN volunteers bringing him yoghurt several times a week, but it hasn't made any difference yet. Sad, but he's adorable and seems fine with his size. It makes him very nimble and quick. He's like a little monkey the way he runs around and does flips.

The babies range from one week to eight months old and except for Fat Baby (his nickname), they are all tiny lil' things. So fragile looking.

One of the kids told Yen that Audrey had something stuck on her legs. Yen looked and come to find out they didn't recognize that it was hair. Their bodies are hairless. None on their arms or legs. We are hairy beasts in comparison.

We spent about an hour there and by the time Stuart left, he was nice and sweaty. Those of us that rode bikes out, rode them back, though it was a bit tougher on the way home since we were a bit tired out. It was a fun ride, though, riding down little one lane roads past chickens and water buffalo. Odd but fantastic. I know that we will never forget this place, this whole experience.

volunteering: day one

Journal entry: 5 January 2007

Our first full day in our new home and it went pretty well. I was fairly nervous about it, but it was all okay in the end. We had breakfast (yea for fruit and yoghurt!) then took off to visit the baby orphanage.

The name is a bit of a misnomer as there are many more little kids than babies. But they take babies and keep them until age 18 or until adopted. Right now, two of the babies are getting ready to be adopted by foreigners. I have mixed feelings about that because it seems a bit colonialist to come in and take the babies, but no one here adopts babies, so they are stuck there forever if the foreigners don't take them. Well, until they are 18, but that seems like forever. Their chances for a good (prosperous, educated, comfortable) life are much better if adopted by foreigners, but... still there's something about it that bothers me.

We also found out that if the father dies, the government will often take the child(ren) away from the mother and put them in the orphanage. I feel so bad for the poor mother. First she loses her husband, then her child(ren). How depressing.

The orphanage wasn't too terrible. Very different from what you'd see in the States (do we even have orphanages there?). All the buildings are concrete with barred windows (this is the main style of building for everything). They form a rectangle around the playground which is about 40 ft by 25 ft. There are some metal swings, bench-style, and a TV, a teeter-totter and a small play structure with a slide and a couple of swings. Very minimal. Most of it is on cement, but the play set is on a softer rubber material. They also brought out some toys (volunteers hold the key to the cupboard) and the kids flipped out, they were so excited.

There were about 10 kids little kids there, from 3-12 years old. Most were 4-6 years old, it seemed. Then there were six babies if I remember correctly.

We'd ridden bikes out there (Leah, me and Claire) and got there 5 minutes before Jo, my kids and Yen, the organizer. When Stuart and Audrey first arrived it was a bit shocking for them. The orphan kids just gathered around and stared. It took about five minutes or so before they loosened up and everyone started playing together. Stuart was great with the kids--just as I'd expected. He played chase and catch and gave them airplane rides. It was awesome to watch them all play. Audrey latched onto Trinh, a small girl in a yellow hat, and a set of twins [Thao and Trang]. She seemed very happy and that was great to see.

It was a hard decision to do this and was especially hard to do at the end, but we managed somehow and it seems to be working.

volunteers

Jo came from Australia to volunteer with GVN in Tam Ky. She was there for only a month and in that time we became good friends, but she and Audrey became sisters. She's a ton of fun and loved to run and play with the orphans, chasing and carrying them as much as they wanted. She was an all-star volunteer. Having her leave was pretty hard; Audrey wrote the most heart-wrenching goodbye letter ever. Still makes me teary-eyed.

As volunteers there, we are all excited to be there and quickly fall in love with those kids. The first couple of days, granted, were hard. Who knows what to expect? I know I only had some rough ideas and most were wrong. Soon enough, they wiggle their way in and you build bonds with them. It's such a strange thing, too, considering we can't really communicate beyond gestures. Somehow we all manage to understand each other and over time the friendship and the trust grows. It's the best part about volunteering. The kids know you are coming and wait patiently on the front steps for the bikes to pull in, for the car to park. Out we'd pour from the car and they'd run up and give us big leg-hugs, wanting to be picked up and carried as much as possible. Stuart always got mobbed on arrival. Being the only boy certainly had some perks when it came to popularity.

The only bad thing is that we all have to leave. There's no staying forever, though Hannah (who stayed for five months) might argue with that. And while the volunteer may grow tired of the simple, repetitive life of Tam Ky, it's never easy. There are always tears shed, sometimes a stunning amount. And yet, the orphans are oblivious to our sadness, kept sheltered from knowing that we are leaving and unlikely to return.

We were lucky and stayed in Viet Nam long enough for a return visit to the orphanage, but it wasn't smooth sailing the second time around.

Caroline

While scouring through our more than 8000 photos from our time in Viet Nam, I came across pictures of this baby. I was contacted a while ago by her prospective adoptive mother to find out if I had any information or more photos on this baby. I didn't know her name or any facts, but I did have a few more pictures (and I think I found even more!). Come to find out, she already had one of my photos from the orphanage with her daughter and my son with the orphanage 'mother.'

Checking back on her blog this morning to assure myself that I had the right baby in the photos, I was happy to find out that they've arrived in Viet Nam, made it down to Tam Ky and are now on their way home. In fact (if I can remember what day it is) they're already home! She has a family, at last.