A goodbye

The goodbye I have been least looking forward to making officially took place last night with a small party with the kids at 'P' Centre.

I will miss them very much. Bi and I have already swapped email addresses so there will be a good chance for us to stay in contact, share photos and for me to practice writing in Vietnamese.

Thank you for the beautiful embroidery picture and the wonderful memories. Until we meet again.

 

Long Hải Stage 2 Opening

Way back in 2009 I wrote about the opening of stage 1 of Long Hải Centre for the Social Protection of Children (aka "orphanage"). Since then Long Hải Centre has operated as a school for poor and disadvantaged children in Long Hải town, with enrolments each year generally hovering around 110 children studying across 5 grades of primary school, and aged between 7 and about 14 or 15 years old.

The long-term goal of APER for the centre has always been to include residential care, both for disabled children affected by the residual presence of Agent Orange in the district over 40 years, and for homeless, abandoned or at-risk children. On 17 April 2012 this dream was finally realised with the official opening of stage 2 of the centre.

Here are a few photos from the opening day. Aside from very many, and very long, speeches in Vietnamese and French (which language did I find more informative!?), there were performances of martial arts and dance by some of the students at the school and some of the children from P Centre in Vũng Tàu. I travelled with them and some of the staff by mini-bus - always fun to spend time with the kids!

 
Remember: although it has an official name Trung Tâm Bảo Trợ Trẻ Em, and a formal relationship with the government through the local People's Committee, Long Hải Centre is funded almost entirely through the efforts of APER and donations by corporations and private individuals. The Centre needs your help to continue to provide care, education and social development for the children - you can make a donation (http://www.vungtau-orphanage.com) or support a project (http://titibititiem-projects.blogspot.com/).

 

where have u been?

Trời ơi! It's been three months since the last post. A period punctuated with the usual lackadaisical intentions to bring another view of life in Vietnam ... A quarter of a year.

So here are some of the highlights.

October ...
... brought a long-anticipated visit to Australia and Bảo's introduction to life, family, friends and -scapes of Sydney, Newcastle, Tamworth and the Blue Mountains. I spent two weeks before our trip monitoring Australia Network weather forecasts daily, hoping, hoping for an indication that we would arrive to balmy October days, but it was not to be ... The weather was variously cool, warm, cold, foggy but seldom wet.

What did we see? What did we do?

We stayed with David at Potts Point and did a lot of walking from this point. To the Domain, the Botanic Gardens and Circular Quay. To the city and through the Rocks. To Glebe and Newtown!

We ate well, but far too much, marvelling at the immense bowls of phở and hửu tiêu with which we were served, enjoying feasts at the homes of family and friends.

We were Sydney tourists, (re)discovering the Opera House, the Bridge, Sydney Tower, Wildlife World/Sydney Aquarium, the harbour and the ferries ...

We twice borrowed David's car (yes, it seems I do still know how to drive after 2 years absence from behind the wheel, and 2 years travelling on the other side of the road!). Our first trip was to Newcastle and the Lower Hunter, to visit Karen and her family, as well as friends and the vineyars. The second trip was to the Blue Mountains which sadly and determinedly remained shrouded in dense fog for two days. No vistas of the Three Sisters or the Megalong and Jamieson Valley's were ours to behold this time.

We flew to Tamworth to visit Mum and Dad and enjoyed the greenest scenery I can ever remember, courtesy of the rains that have since continued well past their welcome, and saturation, point.

Three weeks were like a life in another world. Time seemed to be our friend, marked out measuredly from a bottomless cup. Then all too soon the day of our departure loomed ...

(if you are a Facebook user please try going to Bảo's profile for his pictorial perspective on our visit)

November ...
Edwin (fellow teacher) and I took up a housewarming invitation to celebrate the extension of the family home of one of our most lovely teaching assistants, Kiều. This entailed a motorbike trip of approximately 50km to the town of Ngãi Giao in Châu Đức district.


We were very warmly welcomed by her family and neighbours and enjoyed some fantastic food prepared by Kiều's aunt. As I write we are still waiting to hear which of us her aunt has selected as her potential husband!

No party in Vietnam is properly formed without singing and dancing. In this we were very ably managed by MC Hải.





After the party Edwin and I took a detour via Long Hải so that we could go and visit the Centre for Social Protection of Children. We arrived in time for a karate lesson but also had personal escorts around the grounds. I was told many things about the plants - a few of which I understood!

The teachers at ILA in Vung Tau support the centre each month by giving food to assist the lunch/dinner prepared for the 110 children who attend school at the centre. Which brings me to ...

December ...
and Christmas. In November, the teachers and staff at ILA collected enough money to buy each student at the Long Hải centre a basic pair of shoes. We also put the December food collection towards making a Christmas treat for each of the students and on 20 December a group of us (teachers and teaching assistants) made a trip to Long Hải to present the shoes.












We met with the morning contingent of students (approximately 50) to share a little bit of Christmas culture - via singing a round of the chorus "We wish you a merry Christmas!" - and some good old-fashioned TPR (for you teacher-types in the know!) with the Vietnamese version of Simon Says (Tôi bảo). There were also several lucky number prizes to give, followed by the presentation of the shoes.

Assisting Anne (Mỹ Hương) and her cousin Mỹ, the orphanage volunteers joined in on the Christmas festivities for the 50+ children (this number doesn't include the babies or severely disabled children) living at P and N centres on Christmas Eve. We took advantage of fine weather and the space at N centre to have an outdoor party with races and games followed by some scrumptious food and the climax of Santa's visit (you will see who that was in a moment!) and two immense cakes.

Click here for all the pics.

Orphanage school

It's now a year since the school program at the orphanage in Phan Boi Chau Street started. There have been some changes in faces all round - Vietnamese and foreign teachers and children - in that time. A few kids have been adopted and are living happy futures in France. New faces appear in class from time to time as new residents arrive and younger children grow up.

In this photo you can see Ms Trang, one of the current Vietnamese teachers. Bi is now wearing glasses and this seems to have done a lot to improve the general health of his eyes. Next to him is Phuong - a lovely older boy who is keeping his past a secret from everyone at the moment. This is not unusual for kids in his situation. Their past has not been fantastic and they just don't want to talk about it yet.

Some months ago the Sunday Night program on Channel 7 in Australia came to Vietnam to make a story called The Lost Children. It's about children who were adopted out of Vietnam after the American War, and their search for family back in Vietnam. It featured Anne (My Huong) who does so much work with the children's centres in Vung Tau, and is a touchstone for many past adoptees looking for their mothers now. I can't give a direct link to it here but you can find the video in the Sunday Night archive on the Internet.

Christmas no. 2

The Christmas festivities for yours truly started, as last year, with the ILA Vung Tau party on 13 December. This year we went to the Palace Hotel, and enjoyed an extensive buffet dinner at tables set out around the swimming pool. The party continued well after the party, as people got into the singing mode already promoted by karaoke, and broke out Christmas song after song until past 11pm. God knows what the people in rooms overlooking the swimming pool thought was happening! Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.

From that event, my Christmas shifted strongly to a focus on the children at the residential centres in Vung Tau. On the evening of 23 December I went to the children's party hosted by Belly's Bar on the waterfront near Front Beach. The children from "P" and "N" centres all came along, and greatly enjoyed the food and fun. And of course, they especially enjoyed Santa Claus' visit!

The next day they had a second party, this time courtesy of APER. I was an accidental invitee to this one, only knowing about it because I had taken Bi out for the morning to go to the beach and a ride around on the motorbike. Here you can see Phuc with the plane he received, and Dung comfortably sitting to eat his lunch!

That night I went out with Bao and one of his students. Firstly, we went to Ba Ria and ate a great goat curry. After that we journeyed to Phuoc Tinh, a fishing town close to Long Hai, which has a strong Catholic population, and an even stronger compulsion to string up all manner of Christmas lights and displays, especially nativity scenes. In Phuoc Tinh town we stopped off at one of the big churches and watched an all singing/all dancing presentation of the birth of Jesus and the visits of the angels and the wise men. The end of the show had a very large cast of players on stage, including tiny nuns and a very small Pope! I was also interviewed by BRT television station and was asked what were my impressions of Christmas in Vietnam. I answered about the similarities that I was seeing between communities that like to put up and visit Christmas light displays.

On Christmas morning I met up with Angie (fellow ILA and volunteer teacher) for coffee and then we went to visit our class at the centre to had out presents. Many big thanks to Killki, Chaska and Rumi who decided that they would like to donate their Christmas money from me, directly to the orphanage, instead of giving it to them. I made Angie cry when I told her this :( Here you can see the building blocks that the kids have given to the boys in the class and the modelling clay for the girls, plus the big jar of lollies!

After that Angie and I set out for Tommy's 1 where a group of 12 of us from ILA were scheduled to meet for Christmas lunch of roast turkey and vegetables. After all that it was time to take a rest in the time-honoured traditions of Christmas Day afternoon.

Orphans

I'd like to bring you a bit more information about the orphanage in Vung Tau. It's actually more proper to think about these two residential centres in the context of the support network that has been created around them, and in connection with foreign adoptions of Vietnamese babies and children.

A big part of the support network, though not the only factor in it, is the Association pour les Enfants Rizieres (APER) through which the residential centres at Phan Boi Chau Street and Ngo Quyen Streets are supported by sponsorships from France, and through which the many adoptions to France are coordinated. As well monthly financial support is given to many children living in the Vung Tau and Long Hai communities.

Anne (Le My Huong), a teacher at ILA, is the representative of the association in Vietnam. Anne is half Vietnamese (Vietnamese mother, Australian father) and went to Australia to live when she was only 5, along with her brother. She has now reconnected with her Vietnamese family and much of her time is spent supporting her local village (near Can Tho) and working with APER and the orphanages. It is Anne who started the pre-school program at the Phan Boi Chau Street centre (P Centre). This program is supported by the head of Orange in Vietnam, through his company's community arm. (Here is a link to My Huong's life story.)

APER and Orange re also among the main supporters of the new Long Hai centre, which opened last Friday 23 October. This is a day centre, providing schooling and other activities for many poor children living in the Long Hai community. Many of these children have not previously been to school.

My connection with the orphanage is small, but important to me! I go with Geoff - a fellow teacher from ILA, also from Australia - on Thursday mornings for 2 hours to teach English in the pre-school program. On Monday mornings (though not all of them!) I join the kids at the swimming pool and at the park.

I also now sponsor Bi, who you can see in the photo on the left, dressed in red. Bi is about 7 years old, but is learning through the pre-school program because he is HIV+. He is a keen student, very good-natured, and has already survived a lot in his life. The boy on the right is Phuc, who has 'adopted' me! Phuc is about 5 years old, also HIV+. He now lives with two of the staff at the orphanage but comes in with them everyday and attends the pre-school as well.

Vung Tau orphanage

Next week (10 September) I will start voluntary teaching at the orphanage in Vung Tau. There are 3 centres. I'll be teaching 15 pre-schoolers - yes, the age group that I have sworn off teaching at ILA - for 2 hours per week in company with one of the other ILA teachers, Geoff (also Australian). The kids will get 6 hours English teaching per week as part of the pre-school program that will be held 5 mornings per week.

This post is just to introduce the topic and show you a few of the beautiful kids at the centre. There are many babies here as well, aged from 1 week up, and altogether approximately 90 children are living here at the moment. Mostly they are under 6, but a few older children who are HIV positive also live here. The second centre in Vung Tau houses the older children, and the third almost completed centre at Long Hai, will be a day centre catering, in part, to people with a disability. There are also about 200 people living in the community supported by the organisation that runs the centres.

Sponsorship and donations are always welcomed as there is not a strong social welfare system in Vietnam and relatively little assistance is provided by the government. Overseas aid is always program-based and so cannot often be used to provide for the daily needs of the children.