Wondering Feet

Too ambitious?

stacey_brooke — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:08:00 GMT

After a crazy weekend of partying and tubing and birthday celebrations in the gorgeous Ha Long Bay we come back to Peace House for a day at the office.

Amelie, Rachel and I, decided we wanted to not just fill the immediate needs of the kids but, look at some long-term goals that are really going to make a lasting impression. Too ambitious you ask? So do we. But we can only try.

So I put my project manager hat back on, and write a project plan. It’s a bit rough at the moment, but the content is good and I really believe that we can implement some simple things that could make a real difference. Like keeping a diary for the volunteers, so the next lot of volunteers are not starting completely from scratch. There is little information as a newcomer, so we thought; it’s a good place to start.

Our project plan consists of our objectives and how we plan to achieve those. If those objectives are long term or short term, what issues exist, and what risks we foresee. Our first challenge is going to be speaking to the director and gaining her support for our ambitious goals.

We are going to attempt to break down the communication barrier with the teacher in a hopes we can encourage them to be more involved with the kids.

We also put together a schedule and a list of resources required, and again off we went to Big C to buy materials. For just over $20 we bought, a ream of paper, pencils, crayons, another ball and other stimulating textile objects for the autistic kids and two big boxes to store it in. It really is amazing how far a small amount of money can make.

In the afternoon we took a walk down to Friendship Village, the orphanage close to the Peace House, and explored a little further. We met this young girl of 20 who came to visit her aunt, who unfortunately spends her days in a wheel chair. She travels over two hours to come and visit. She shows us the medical ward, and I have to say it was incredible. They have rehabilitation rooms where two of the volunteers are working as physios. In their late teens you would expect some resistance to the exercises they were put through. However, incredibly, they were all smiles and committed.

It was a little reminder, that when things get tough, they could always be much much worse. And if you think you are being too ambitious, the only thing lacking is effort.

The Zoo

stacey_brooke — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:38:00 GMT

Ok day two of ‘The Zoo’. I call it the zoo because once you walk through those bars of death you are on your own with the animals, and I am telling you, they are wild.

Today was fun, and productive, which is a big relief because yesterday we were really unsure of how effective we were going to be.

I work with two amazing girls and we have decided that to be effective we are going to need to take a class together instead of separately. So we made plan…

We stopped by the local supermarket, Big C and bought a bunch of toys, balls, books, cars etc for the kids. We are looking for items that will be stimulating and teach the kids some motor skills, which have been completely neglected.

We enter the zoo with the balls I the morning and they are an instant hit. Let me just re-iterate how tiny the room is; we have four adults, as Keegan, this big American dude came with us, about 15 kids and four soccer balls… You may now refer to me as Stacey, the mayhem maker. I took it as a personal challenge to see who could tire whom out first.

I am pretty sure I won. J

There was this one particular boy who is very timid, and wasn’t getting all that involved. He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) catch the ball when thrown to him. So, I would take the ball and pass it to him, he would throw it in the opposite direction to me, I would take the ball and we would repeat this process, until finally, he worked out how to catch the ball. He would continue to throw it away from me, which is all part of the challenge I guess. The cool thing was, in one hour this boy went from timid, barely making eye contact, to smiling, laughing, throwing and catching the boy. We had a win.

We may not be able to change the way the teachers handle the children or how uninvolved they are, but we can impact positively on these beautiful children and this makes my heart smile.

Love, the happy wonderer xx

Weight lifting, Vietnam style

stacey_brooke — Tue, 5 Jul 2011 23:37:00 GMT

Date: 5 July Weather: stupid hot, 39degrees? Soundtrack: Aukistra ;)

I have been procrastinating for the last hour about writing this because I really want to do this part justice.

Today we visited the centre for disabled children where we will be working. Let me start by describing it. From the outside it looks like a run down shed that your folks converted into a pool room, 50 years ago.

There are three classes and the rooms are smaller then your bedroom. Much smaller. No windows, however there is air-conditioning, thank goodness. There is a small courtyard, no grass and little shade.

One of the classes is for the severely disabled. Some can't even walk. They don't have mats or beds to lay on, they have a rug, on top of some hard tiles. It's completely heart breaking. There are about 4/5 severely disabled children and the other two classes have 10 - 20 kids each. From what I can see, mostly they have small physical disabilities but mostly learning, down syndrome, autism, etc.

We only met the teachers and said a quick hello to the kids and tomorrow we will start full time.

This afternoon however, we took a trip to the orphanage that is two kilometres from 'Peace House', the place where we live. It is comparatively beautiful to the small dilapidated shed that our project is at. Granted there are 120 children here, but it is big. Large rooms, a massive playground, grass, soccer nets, lots of space, the kinds of things kids need.

These kids have a range of disabilities, birth defects from agent orange, to down syndrome and some others that I am not sure of.

We enter the 'Friendship Village' and the first to meet us are the children. They are excited and are instantly wanting our affection. We get lead off by the hand to more children and they are all smiles.

One small girl has green nail polish on her tiny nails and half of it is in her mouth, and she is adorable.

We spend some time and eventually we see some staff but it is immediately apparent to us how under resourced they are.

We met this boy, although very hard to tell his age, who has down syndrome and he grabs Keegan, the biggest of the group and drags him over to where he has a bar with two chunks of concrete attached to each end, and he starts lifting his weights up and over his head, photo attached. He then makes us each take turns. We take photo's of him and he is so proud of himself. Giving us a big thumbs up. It's incredible how these kids communicate with us.

It was extremely sweet. So.. here comes the sad part:

I walk inside to help a staff member carry food. She speaks no english and all I can say in my terrible vietnamese is "hello my name is stacey", and even worse "nice to meet you".

This boy, lets say 12 yrs old is sitting on the floor and he grabs my hand. He tries to pull me with some strength I must say, to the ground. So I sit. And it breaks my heart. Here I had to really fight the tears. He can't speak, he doesn't respond to his name and he can't feed himself.

The lady shows me how to feed him, and she really is force feeding him. I was taking my time and it made me very uncomfortable that she was forcing more food into his mouth before he had finished the last mouthful. It dawned on my walk home, that this carer does not have enough time to spend one hour feeding one child. There are so severely under resourced they simply cannot give the time required to each child. Often the other children are feeding each other. I do manage to get a smile out of Minh by tickling around his neck and stroking his head. He can't really smile with his mouth, but his eyes are distinctly smiling.

One the walk home we were all fairly sombre, we were all very touched. For me I was instantly grounded. On the way to the orphanage, I was bitching at the trucks and their extremely loud horns and unnecessary use of them while they are a metre behind you, it seriously scares this crap out of you, and on the way home it just didn't matter.

Its incredible how interactions can change our mood. Keegan is researching NGO's as part of his project and looking at their funding etc. He told me that it costs a mere $3000 to fund 'Friendship Village' for a whole year. 120 kids, $3000. I wonder what they could do with double that amount?

The bowl of food that I was feeding to the 12 yr old boy, Minh, consisted of rice, chicken stock, half a prawn (that was his favourite), half a spring role and the smallest amount of chicken.

As a group we bought a soccer ball and were keen to play in the local village, after today I think we will be playing at the orphanage. The place is beautiful, and its amazing that these children have a place to go. The Government does not fund places like this. This has been set up by a Vietnam Veteran.

Today I appreciated home, we have all of these things, and we don't just have them we expect them.

Anyway, this is going to be a challenge but already it is rewarding. I am looking forward to learning off the other volunteers and hopefully we can make a some positive impact on this local community.

Peace and love

Stace x

Photos: Volunteering in Vietnam

stacey_brooke — Mon, 4 Jul 2011 13:53:00 GMT

Day 1

stacey_brooke — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:09:00 GMT

Wow. I haven't experienced this kind of tired probably since the last time I was in Vietnam.

I thought that at some point an overwhelming since of holy telitos batman, what am I doing? would hit, but it hasn't.

I rocked up at volunteer house, The Peace House, and well to be frank, it's kinda gross. The bathroom is dirty, the kitchen is not great and the toilets, well they don't flush the toilet paper. It sits in an open bin beside the toilet. Hm..

I am looking around the room and I do believe that I have probably chosen the thinnest mattress out of all the beds. I think I need to reassess this situation and make a claim before the next lot of volunteers rock up.

I went for a walk through one of the villages today, which was hilarious. We were the only white people there so of course everyone is staring. We took some photo's then showed the people the photo's and which I think went down quite well.

We walked through the fresh markets where they were selling fresh produce and we came across a woman selling dog. It wasn't just a woman selling dog, it was all freshly cut meat out in the open, of course not refrigerated and there sitting beside it was its head. With the lips all curled up around its teeth. What a sight! A photo will have to be attached soon.

We really are way out in the sticks out here, there is no corner store or really anywhere to get food, but the big supermarket is not very far away.

Well I am off to attempt shower number one and see what kind of an adventure that. THEN, SLEEP.

Peace x