Christchurch-ians, the cheques in the post!

WOW!!!!

WE RAISED $3000 FOR THE CANTERBURY EARTHQUAKE APPEAL

Good on you people!.... Flaunt those totes with pride!.. A special thanks to The Gisborne Herald, BMS, Pene Walsh and the lovely crew at the H B Williams Library

and to the lovely ladies at Gisborne's Kati Medical Centre,

Thanks to everyone who got involved.

Your Amazing! Have a great long weekend!

Kind Souls

Wow, great effort everyone! Not many left now!.... looks like we'll be able to post a cheque by the end of the week!.. Ya!... I hope you love your tote's, and feel really good about doing your part to help the Salvation Army with the fantastic work they're doing. x

BUY TOTES ONLINE: w w w . s o k o. b i g c a r t e l . c o m

Brown Paper Packages.... These are a few of my favorite things

Today's been great!.... we sold 60 today! "35 online" and the rest around Gisborne City.

Bags were sent to Australia, Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch, Timaru, all over the show!

There's been lot's of wrapping, tapping, address writing and three trips to the post office today

"which I thoroughly enjoy I have to say" the Nz post ladies are the good fun!

Popped my head into Pharmacy 53 this afternoon and all the lovely ladies there

purchased a tote or two, Thank you! and the same again at Headline Hair Design, what wonderful generous women... Fun, fun! see you at the crack of dawn tomorrow, I'll be at the flea market from 6am

Amazing support everyone! thank you! x

Totes!...

Wow people!...... We sold 48 last night.

Thats a great start! Thank you, for your amazing support and generosity.

BMS ( Blitz Main Street ) Gisborne, have very kindly offered to sell the Soul Project Totes in their

Gladstone rd store. "Thank you Lee!" Or come see me Saturday morning at the flea market

Bright and early.

BUY ONLINE AT: w w w . s o k o . b i g c a r t e l . c o m

Lets Help Canterbury!...

Lets do what we can to help Christchurch!... Come on People!..... We have 300 canvas totes left!... So lets

put them to good use, and raise money for the "Canterbury Earthquake Appeal" Purchase online

from www.soko.bigcartel.com or If you live in Gisborne I'll be setting up a wee stall at our local flea market

starting this Saturday!

Goodbye Vietnam, I'll be back!...

Wow.. Time is flying by...

I've been here a month.
(extened my stay by 2 weeks) Because I loved it so much.
And neglected to let my parent know. "Oops Sorry Dad"
One month is no where near enough. I wish I could stay for at least three more!..

It's been an action packed four weeks. We started painting at Social Support, Disinfected the baby orphanage after an outbreak of pink eye, Phoebe and Thora have taken little Budda and Little old man baby to the doctor on the back of a scooter! "scary".

What else, what else?...Phuc duc is about to start walking, any day. Two babies have been adopted, 5 new babies have been dropped off, Red cross have made some cool travel pillows and eye masks to sell in the new GVN show room. We've attended a Vietnamese wedding, and an extremely sad funeral, Steven turned 27 Natalie turned 36, its been great!

New babies... there are now 12 newborns!. and 10 babies aged 6mths+ at the orphange we work at.. They're stretched! There are 4 carers and 22 babies. Since we arrived, there's been an outbreak of conguntavits, which is almost under wraps, pheew! (and only two men down). But now the babies have horrible chesty coughs "its a viscous cycle" Two have been adopted this month. Gosh and I have to ask! where dose all the money go? Certainly not here!.. I've been told it costs anywhere from 25-$50,000 to adopt a child, but they seem to barely scrape by???

After helping the gorgeous miss Tihn with her physio, I took her for a ride in the wheelchair "She loves it!" It's her reward for trying hard with her walking. We raced down the footpath, with Tihn laughing leaving a dog, some chickens, and a group of elderly men in our dust. When one of the wheels took off in front of us, great entertainment! and luckily I had a firm grip on the wee one.

Well I have enough stories to fill this blog for the next 12 months... its been one of the most fun and enriching experiences I've had in my whole life. I've met some amazing people and fallen head over heels in love with Vietnam. My placement finished last Friday, and I'm now making my way home to NZ..

For those of you thinking this is something you'd like to do. Do it, you wont regret it and there's no time like the present, Volunteers are desperatley needed in Hati at the moment.

I'll post a few new photo's for you each week, and keep you updated, untill the Soul project sends it's next volunteer.

Weekend Adventures!..

We're so lucky!.. We're free to get out there, and explore Vietnam, during the weekends.

So far we have been to Hoi An, a really gorgeous and bustling little beach town, and we have just arrived home from Hue' on Sunday night. Hue' was amazing!.. 6 of us took a dragon boat tour to the tombs, watched some Kung fu! and biked to the Citadel...

I saw an elephant at the Citadel today, he was marvelous and majestic! I felt a little emotional... He was sooo big! and beautiful it was really neat. The Citadal is where the Emperor and his familly lived along with the generals, concubines, servants, and his 140 children.

(Busy Man!..)

We met some other tourists on the boat trip, and met up later for Japanese, DELICIOUS!.. The Lonely Planet recomended this place. So we had high expectations! It was great, the staff were wonderful. I asked the waiteress for a glass of white wine? she walked away and asked her boss to turn on the WiFi.. Funny stuff!..

Great food, great people, great Fun!

Oh and good work Lonely Planet.