For all the structural 'shortcomings' in Hanoi as to basic cleanliness, lack of ‘luxuries’ and such, this is one amazing place and I’ve truly fallen in love with the people and the city. Feel very safe, tho to see much of the dinginess, you’d think it may not be… but the same misty weather and general ‘grayness’ just adds to the oriental mystique and intrigue of it here. And the volunteers and staff at VPV are just fantastic... it's early on, but I really am enjoying this placement so, so much after strongly believing that only a non-urban, rural placement is for me.... I should have expected this would be the case.


First my work placement… ..

Started my first full time day at Peace Village… volunteering with Ryan and Krisztina…  We have about a 10 minute walk to get there and we work from 8:30am -11:00am, have off for lunch from 11-2, then return from 2 -4:30.

As mentioned, Peace Village exists to care mostly for the 2nd & 3rd generation children whose families were victims of the forest defoliant used during the Vietnam War called Agent Orange. Most of the kids are extremely low functioning to where it is nearly impossible to reach them. That’s why when I arrived, the teacher was just sitting in the room doing nothing , being helped by perhaps 5 teacher assistants from the college, also eqally adept at doing nothing. Basically, it appears that these kids have been totally given up upon and the teachers are more like night watchmen. So, so sad. This afternoon when I return, Krisztina and I switch classrooms and I believe my kids will be a bit higher functioning and capable of doing a puzzle and such .

Here was how it went this morning…. There was one boy who turned pages from front to back and then from back to front for the entire 2 ½ hours I was there…and I’m sure he’ll do the same this afternoon and tomorrow & the next….just turns pages, not even sure he knows what he is looking at. A few kids can build with Legos, and one seemingly mostly blind girl just puts plastic balls with a hole thru them onto a chopstick all the time. In this class of perhaps 15, she is toward the top as far as being able to interact with intention.

I was proud of myself tho in that two or three I actually ‘reached’, and got more than just random response from… some big smiles and a few laughs and even was able to high five one kid who never had never done so before… but then it became nearly impossible for him to stop wanting to. Another kid I showed how to build a chopstick ramp and roll a small ball down it on his own… definite baby steps at best .

But I had most all of them watching when I brought out Ken’s medley of nursery rhyme songs. Started with Old McDonald Had a Farm (the real hit was the ‘Moo, moo’s ‘ here etc.), graduated to Wheels on the Bus (babies going ‘waa, waa, waa’ got their interest piqued), and then brought down the house with my rendition of 10 Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed… must have had 5 of the 15 smiling or laughing actually.

But then I hit the home run! The finger tricks went over well, as did the finger in the mouth cheek popping sound,… but I dazzled them with the lining up of the coins on my forearm and quickly bringing my hand down to snatch the coins. First I started with one, then two, then up to 5 and the teacher went out to bring some others in from the next classroom…. then 7, then 8-- the teacher went to get others in yet another classroom as I got up to 9 coins.   Each time they would count the coins as I lined them up on the forearm… this whole thing was going on for now perhaps 20 minutes . The crowd must have grown to 25 people in the classroom in anticipation of a successful attempt at snatching all 10 coins. The teacher got the school director’s attention to witness this moment (he was actually just walking by).

So there I was ready to go for 10 coins (I had previously only missed at 8 coins when I dropped one). I lined them up, the quiet and the tension in the room could be cut with a knife (I added that for drama, sorry).

Then a quick swoop snatch, and all 10 coins landed in my hand and the place went nuts (a bit more hyperbole perhaps)… but there was a lot of clapping. People responded in a way that they perhaps had never responded before…I had reached some more, I had truly touched a response cord that may never have been before stimulated…Wow , unbelievable!!!

However……..unfortunately, the only ones I reached were the teachers and the administrators who are probably bored to death working there… .the actual kid’s? Well, I’m not sure…perhaps a few, but it would be impossible to say for sure…. All the time, the one kid kept turning pages from front to back oblivious to what was going on, and the mostly blind girl kept putting balls onto chopsticks… and the other kid was probably giving high fives into the air. Actually it is just so, so sad to see … just in their own world.

This afternoon….. we again went back to Peace Village and Krisztina & I switched classrooms. As it turned out tho, the kids in this second class were at exactly the same function level as the class this morning. After a while tho, someone came to get me to go back to the morning class to sing Wheels on the Bus with Kris who, being from Finland, needed some help I suppose with the language… so we did that song and a few others and I stayed back with the morning class.

Again, it is so easy to just say this is meaningless volunteer work…the impact to the kids seems infinitesimal at best… . that all these kids need is to be supervised to avoid hurting themselves. Sure seems like most everyone from the director down, is clueless as to how to proceed and have given up.   And I know from experience that this is just the first day and after a week or so, it gets more and more demanding to just drag yourself there every day when the personal satisfaction ‘payoff’ seems so low. But then I see one or 2 smiles that the kids show in their faces that they haven’t shown in days or weeks or ever… perhaps the smile is nothing more than them just passing some gas…who can tell for certain.  

But my strong belief is that it is much more and the smile I am seeing is just the happiness for them to feel and see a ‘blip’ from their every moment ‘sameness’  of routine. Just the possibility that some emotion inside got touched and has perhaps brought ecstatic joy to them that just can’t be expressed outwardly by them... it is this that makes me enjoy this stuff so much . But I can’t say for sure that the only one deriving pleasure isn’t just me...or perhaps the teachers who watch them and now can get a short break.... But it really doesn't much matter, just the possibility that something may be stirred inside one kid makes it worthwhile for me.
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Finally, I haven’t yet mentioned the Vietnamese cooking and food. It is exceptional and the cook in our house is excellent….more to follow later. And then there are the massages and they are so cheap, so mediocre but so enjoyed. I actually have had two now at a place about 2 blocks from where I live. Always starts with a hot steam & sauna & shower. I have been using this place as a great place to shower as opposed to back at VPV, where ten of us use one shower without a curtain or great facilities. For $7 U.S. dollars, I can get this hot shower, a sauna and a 90 minute massage from these really beautiful women-- however half the time is spent keeping them focused on just giving me a massage and convincing them that I don’t wish to have ‘more’...  Oh, hi Ben…hi Deborah…daddy misses you.