Today was the first day it's rained, I really enjoyed the cooler air , as yesterday the mercury rose pretty high. This morning I went to Social, we took the kids some soy milk and fruit, and helped the mothers brush their teeth. What a challenge!.. Duc just wasn't having it!.. he was not impressed.

Duc has been at the centre for 10 years, he was a healthy young man until age 14. He became ill and was taken to hospital. Durring the hospital visit he was given some kind of vaccine, and he has never been the same since. He dosen't talk or play and you really have to encourage him to get up and move around, he's very unreponsive. I've managed to get a smile out of him once, I swear he was with me for a few seconds, then his eyes glazed over and and he returned to the land of Duc.

Oh Scooters!....

There was a scooter crash last night, just out side the GVN house. We ran out to see if the guy was ok, but he was out cold. A huge group of people gathered, but no one called an ambulance?.. The only reason I could think of, was that an ambulance probably costs a lot of money and considering there are around 20 million people here who scrape by on only $1-2 US Dollars per day it's understandable.

I'm not sure if there is any such thing as first aid here? A Vietnamese man picked the boy up and shook him silly!.. to our horror!.. he finally came around after the longest 5 minutes ever, shakily stood up and staggered around for a bit, before running off into the night, leaving about 30 people standing there very puzzled? We'll never know exactly what was going on, but I think the young man had stolen the scooter from outside a near by pub, crashed it, then gapped it...

I took this opportunity to give a lecture about the dangers of scooters. I've seen 3 crashes since we arrived. A couple of the other volunteers have witnessed a scooter crash fatality
The roads of Vietnam are not for the faint hearted...

Phuc Duc

Our first placement...

Our first placement was at the Social Support Center, it's a community project which feeds and shelters around 200 people. Most of these people, were previously living on the street. Some are 60-80 years old while others are young orphan babies and children.

Orientation was great, we had a short language lesson, and talked about some of the individuals
we would be meeting.

"Han is a young mentally disabled girl who loves to hold hands and walk"

As soon as we arrived she made a bee line straight for me, grabbed my hand and took me for a walk, around the courtyard. With Han holding one hand, another friend showed up who we've nick named "Hey Oh" he held my other hand and insisted that I say hey oh, "Hello" to everyone we passed along the way. We ended up walking quite a few laps.

We played games with the other disabled children, Lou was especially cool he is a very smiley and happy wee downs syndrome boy, Lou's 8. So many charters!

During the orientation Miss Huang, asked us to do our best not to form any favourites with the kids. Of course I wont!.. but I do have to mention "Phuc Duc" a chubby little Buddha. he is about 5-6months old he's just gorgeous!.. they were being fed when we arrived, and he had rice coming out of his mouth with his little eyes half shut. I had a moment of panic, cause he looked like he was choking. But "false alarm" the wee man was just falling asleep "food coma".

I'll put some photos up of these guys soon but for now here are a few neat snaps of Vietnam, and one of me and Hey Oh another volunteer took.

Happy 2010!..

We touched down in Vietnam on New Years Eve. It has already been an eye opening experience

Trying to cross the road in Ho Chi Min City, a taxi ride Jody and I took yesterday, which involved 24 + people squashed like sardines, into a mini van and speeds of 120km while weaving through a sea of scooters and bicycle's. We definitely take for granted all the lovely wide open spaces and even the road rules we have in New Zealand.

Things I can tell you so far, it's very, very HOT and its the middle of winter!!! There is no such thing as personal space, and I have never seen so many scooters in my life. So much to tell, the GVN staff are fantastic, lovely people.and the 13 other volunteers here this month are a great bunch and an absolute pleasure to have met.

We are rushing off, just now, its just after lunch here and all the volunteers are jumping into the van ready to go to placement so I better run. More later....