Vietnam (Day 4) Part 1

Note:  Viewer Discretion Advised due to graphic meat pictures at the market.  

 Today was Mekong Delta day!  I was really lucky to get on the trip since I hadn't bought at ticket.  I had originally reserved the day for some market shopping, but I decided shopping shouldn't really be my priority when there was so much else to do.

   After about an hour bus ride through beautiful rice fields, we arrived at our first stop, a busy market.  We walked through it so fast I didn't really have any time to get any of the dodgy looking food, but I was able to quickly buy these strange things.  I had no clue what they were, but they ended up being quite good.  I unwrapped the leaf and found sticky rice, red beans, coconut, and dragon fruit pressed together in an interesting kind of snack bar.  I have to say I prefer it to powerbars.  I almost didn't pay enough for the snack because I couldn't understand the lady I bought it from.  I am still confused actually.  I gave her a dollar and she tried to give me change and I said not to worry about it and got back on the bus.  Then my guide comes up to me and says the lady wants another dollar.  Oops!  So I gave him the dollar to give to her of course.  I felt really bad that I almost underpaid for the snack!

There was SO much to see at the market!  I wish I had eyes on the back and sides of my head too.  (While I'm wishing for extra body parts, an extra arm would be nice when I am braiding my hair.)  

Honeycomb!  I was very excited to see this because I had taken a beekeeping class in college and had learned about these tiny kind of bees.  

Many houses in Vietnam have these dog statues outside of their house to chase off bad spirits from their property.

A dog so ugly it is cute.

Vietnam (Day 3)

   I don't know how I managed, but I signed up for pretty much the same service visit two days in a row.  I was a little disappointed at first, but then I realized how excited I was to go back to the School for the Deaf and see all the kiddies again.  :0)

   It was just as fun as I thought it would be.  The kids remembered me and were very excited that I came back.  I couldn't participate in the first activity that the kids and SASers did (standing and running) so I drew pictures of the kids with the animals from the zoo from yesterday.  They thought it was really cool and drew some pictures of the zoo animals for me too.  :0)  

    Once again, the picture book was a fantastic thing to have.  The kids loved going through it and showing me the signs for the pictures.  We had the added component of me acting out the some of the pictures.  They were very interested in the medical pictures so I showed them where all the things were in the body and where the braces went.  It felt very cool because I could see that I was teaching them things.  They would excitedly show one of their teachers the new things they were learning by explaining them in sign.  We didn't even come close to speaking the same language but I was still able to use my limited knowledge of the world to show them something new.  It made me start wondering if I may want to be a teacher.     I also learned some new things myself.  Lots of new signs and how to write the names of things in Vietnamese.  

   I still probably wouldn't consider this a good example of service learning.  I remember when tourist used to come to my elementary school and we always thought of it as us doing service to them for allowing them to come and showing them our school.  I imagine that is what the kids here think of all of us coming as well.  It doesn't really matter whether it was service or not though.  I had so much fun, and so did the kiddies.  :0)

   I hung out a lot with my little buddy from the day before.  He was just as rambunctious as ever!  He was the kid in class running around while everyone was coloring and poking people or stealing their crayons.  :0)  

I think he met his match in this little one.  haha

I REALLY didn't want to leave now that I had spend so much time over two days here.  The kids kept sneaking downstairs to wave goodbye and give me a last hug as I was waiting for the bus.  :0)

Our next stop was quite a bit more sobering.  We went to an orphanage for kids with disabilities.  Once again, my views on the trip differed from most people.  They were sad because the kids were disabled.  I was sad because they were abandoned by their families and there weren't the resources to help them meet their potential.  There were kids laying in beds all day and I could just see it in their eyes that they could think far more than their bodies would let them act.  It breaks my heart that at home, these kids would have an electric wheelchair and assistive communication device and could do almost anything any other could have.  Here they had to lay in bed all day in a room with forty other kids and only two or three staff members.  That is to say nothing negative about the facility.  THey were actually doing a wonderful job for what resources they had.  The place had an excellent playground, decent medical facilities, and some trade classes for the older kids.  There was a much better staff or kid ratio than in some other places and the staff was all very caring and attentive.  There was a therapy room which I snuck into while my group went up stairs so see some more rooms.  It was really interesting to see a therapy session.  I talked with the women working there and between the four of us we communicated that I was a therapy student.  THey were really excited that I was going into that area.  I was worried that I was getting distracting so I excused myself and headed out to the courtyard.  I have to say I was a concerned at what I saw of the therapy session.  There were three kids to one therapist and they weren't really interacting.  The therapist was sitting there putting a puzzle together and the kids were looking around the room.  The therapist didn't really do anything to engage them even though I could tell they were definitely capable.  It added to my feelings of frustration that these kids would never be able to reach their potential.  

On a brighter note, some of the kids were only at the orphanage for day care.  They got to go home with their families at the end of the day.  I was so happy that so many of the kids actually weren't abandoned and and had homes to go to every night.  It was nice to see that there were resources for families with kids with disabilities because this is often not the case.  

I rejoined my group and we handed out some toys and played with some of the kids for a while which was really fun.  Then it was time to go and a short bus ride back took us back to the ship.  

Vietnam (Day 2)

   Internet is severely dodgy again so these may be sent out of order since I have several  entries in my outbox right now.  

I was a bit grumpy when I was woken up by someone slamming into our door in the early morning, but soon realized it was meant to be because there were hash browns served at breakfast!  haha  It is very exciting on this ship when something unusual and tasty is on the menu!

After some noms, I met up with Hannah and Courtney to do some shopping before our service project FDP.  They were both getting dresses and saris made so our first stop was to a tailor.  It is really cheap to get things made here!  We went to a more expensive place and it was still only $26 to make a dress out of already bough fabric and $55 to make a dress using the tailors fabric selection.  If I didn't already have ten zillion dresses I would have gotten one made as well.

  

Then it was shopping time!  We set out to visit a market we had heard about but got distracted by a minnie market where we spent all of our time.  I got some more movies, some of which sadly need to be returned because they don't work, and browsed through the knock-off brand American clothes.  

We went back to the ship to eat lunch since it is free and all.  Today must be bonus day because they were serving PIZZA!!!!  I haven't had pizza in like months!  I ate way more than usual and happily retired to my room to rest and digest.

The service project we went on was to the School for Deaf Children just a few blocks away from the boat.  I'm learning many of these service projects are not quite good examples of service learning, but they sure are fun!  I really do enjoy kids.  They are so enthusiastic about everything!  It makes life more exciting when I hang out with them. :0)  When we first got to the school, the lady who runs it gave a short talk about the school and a crash course in sign language.  I think I forgot everything except how to ask what the kids' names were.  Then it was up many flights of stairs (yay for midodrine!) and on to the room where the kids were waiting.  We split off into informal groups around the room to get to know each other.  The teachers passed out paper for us to draw on.  One of the kids really liked cats so I drew him one and then his friend one, and probably about five more.  :0)  I brought my picture book which turned out to be a hit with the kids.  They taught us some sign language by pointing to the picture and then showing us the sign for it.  One of the kiddies discovered my camera and now I have a memory card full of awesome silly pictures.  I was sad when one of the teachers made the kid give me back the camera.  I guess they weren't allowed to play with them.  If the teacher only knew how many times I have dropped that thing, she would know it was in safer hands with the students!  haha  

Then it was time for a field trip to the zoo.  I swear I have never seen so much excitement!  We all loaded onto the bus to drive the few blocks there.  There was much yelling and general enthusiasm going around.  Once at the zoo we took a snack break.  I thought it was funny that not even the kids would have anything to do with much of what came from the ship.  Mystery meat is gross even when fun dip is considered a food group.  

I was using my chair and I thought it was really cute that the kids all thought that I had to use it because of my hurt wrist.  They all wanted to know what happened so I showed them a bendy wrist in my picture book and their eyes got really huge.  I took the brace off to show them that it was ok now.  

As usual, I pair up with the most difficult (aka awesome) kid.  He very much enjoyed screaming pinching my arm and stealing things from my bag.  He was definitely the most excited and helpful though.  He took it upon himself to help push my chair (and run it into things to see me make my surprised face) and make sure that I could see all of the animals.  He definitely had a well defined personality!  I didn't bring out my bag of toys because everything was so hectic, but I managed to discreetly slip him a toy plane at the end.  He promptly took it apart.  :0)  

Everyone except four of us piled back on the bus and headed back.  Hannah, Courtney, and the other Hannah stayed to finish touring the zoo and get eaten alive by bugs.  The zoo was cool in the sense that we could get right up close tot eh animals, but sad in the sense that the animals didn't seem to be well cared for.  The cages were far too small for most of them and many had sores or displayed signs of anxiety and boredom.  

We thought this river otter was funny because it looked like it was playing dead.  

Sad face.  :0(

After the zoo, our fearless leader, Courtney, guided us to a restaurant that had come recommended in a guide book.  We finally found it and it was worth the walk!  We definitely didn't speak the same language as our waiter, but ordered with only a few mishaps.  We got barbecued beef which we got to cook right on the table!  It was a little dodgy to use the same wooden chopsticks to pick up the raw and cooked meat, but hopefully we will survive.  :0P  I thought it would be a good idea to try some of the peppers on our table once I was done eating.  It was a good idea because now I have a hilarious video of me freaking out about how spicy it was.  I only touched the thing to my tongue and it felt like I had burned a hole in it!  So funny!

Look Grandma!  Vegetables!!!!

After dinner, it was just a few blocks to the hotel where we would catch the shuttle to our bus.  We had to cross the street a few times on the way and now I have some video of us almost getting run over by some scooters.  So much fun!

I opted out of another movie night tonight for an early bedtime.  Can't wait for tomorrow!