Kon Tum Orphanges - running out of 'Wow' words for these places and these people

WOW. possibly my favourite evening of the entire last 5 weeks. Kon Tum is a big city and we are staying right on the edge of it.

It is amazing. Very very rual very quickly. Cows cross the roads, water buffalo lie in the paddy fields. Rubber tree plantations line the roads. the smell of coffee flowers and wood smoke clings to everything. Children play in the red dust. Field workers carry whicker baskets on their back heavy with corn.

 

 

We had a safe and easy bus journey and met a lovely French lady in her 60’s called Bridget who told us some amazing tales of her travels, she even lived in a kibuzt in Israel while the Vietnam war was happening and met may people fleaing from service in America there.

After sharing lunch with her we waited for Teresa, a 30yr old lady who was herself an orphan here and who has 4 beautiful children and a charming husband, who works for the Vin Son orphanages. Her dedication is incredible. Her youngest son is even called VinSon. After a coffee and chat with her we were invited to her house and to Vin Son 5 (there are 6 orphanages in total). The taxi took us to another world.

No ordinary backerpackers are lucky enough to visit here,and I felt a huge weighted priveldge to be there. Teresa and her family are obviously not rich, they live in a small house with 3 rooms - a bedroom, living room, and kitchen, the bathroom is in the yard. Greeting us were her 3 smiling daughters and one naked little son.

We walked next to the orphanage and were immediately encircled by children. At vin Son 5 the ages are from 2yrs to about 14yrs, 100 children live here. the government provides no funding at all. they desperately need to buy concrete for the rainy season to stop the children getting scurvy because it is impossible to get food to here when the rains come...

the children sang many songs to us,alll holding hand in a circle and then they wanted us to sing too - we taught them okeykokey , twinkletwinkle, 3 blind mice, run rabbit, down in the meadow, wheels on the bus, jingle bells, baba black sheet, old McDonald, head shoulders knees and toes, incy wincy spider,i’m a little engine, and then we ran out! what other songs are there?!

they sang ‘we are the children of kon tum’ it was very emotional. all their beautiful faces.

 

it wasn’t long before they all wanted to hold our hands and climb into our laps. when we left we were swamed by long hugs. some of the children even  cried.

 

but they seem well looked after by the women there and obviously have good friends and are learning well in their classroom. the orphanages just need some money.... and more teachers. I think we will stay for probably a week, but already these children will stay in my heart forever. and Teresa and her family too.

walking back through the darkness past sleeping tethered cattle with two children holding my hands. I could not have felt more honoured to be in this country.

Hunger

The Lantern’s restaurant in Nha Trang is well worth a visit. Not only do they do delicious food and sell handmade trinkets from local minority tribes, but they also do some amazing charity work.

We were privileged enough to have the opportunity to help out at the Monday Food programme. Every Monday the restaurant provides free food for homeless locals. We arrived at 10:30am and helped to pack up boxes of rice, courgettes and pork. Even with all the advertising around the restaurant we were the only two to show up to help out. This in it’s self made me so angry I was close to tears. There are thousands of rich tourists and so called ‘well-travelled opened minded’ travellers in Nha Trang and yet we were the only ones there.

After packing up the boxes and chatting with the waitress the queue outside the restaurant was growing. About 50 men,women and children were waiting for the food. At first it was exciting to be handing out the food parcels but as the pile depleated and crowd got more desperate and were pushing and grabbing to get the food.

 

I soon realised we did not have enough. And that was really really bloody hard. As I handed over the last box I couldn’t help it I burst into tears, so did Sophie – we quickly retreated to the bathroom. Two drippy rich white girls are no help to anyone. And I know I need to learn to ‘man up’ if I am going to continue to be part of this kind of experience.

Talking to the waitresses after we heard many more inspiring stories of the work the restaurant does. As they don’t really take cash donations we bought some of the jewellery instead as any profit from that goes into the charities the Lanterns supports. This experience has really fired me up to continue with our voluntary adventure and to keep opening my eyes and mind to all experiences.

We needed some reflection and relief so headed to a temple and then a catherdral for the afternoon. Had the experience of sitting inside a huge bell as it was stuck and a monk chanted around me. What a day.

 

Hello Nha Trang

Arrived in Nha Trang. What an odd place! Full of Russians with severe hair cuts and colours wearing scary swimsuits.. This place is going too be huge in a few years though... some kind of Florida (90210 TV programme type) place...

When we arrived there were huge waves crashing onto the beach and it was really windy - we were the only white girls to go running and leaping into the sea unsurprisingly!

We got pretty beaten up by the waves, but it was great fun. Did a dance of celebration when we got to our hotel room - it's not a scary commune yay! and your feet don't get wet when you turn on the tap! And the shower doesn't feel like you are just being weed on from a great height :)
Even in such a tourist land though we still managed to find something truly Vietnamese to do - heard some chanting and followed it till we found a pagoda. Were encouraged to sit down by the Pagoda guard where we had a cup of tea (the most disgusting tea I have ever had) and a cigarette while listening to the chanting and watching the rats run through the pagoda.

Then today was a beach day :) sunbathed, ate a TUNA MAYO SANDWICH AND CHIPS and took some obligatory 'bikini pics' as after my food poisoning and all the amazing healthy food I'm feeling slightly more of a skinny runt now.

International Women's Day

After 2 days of being stuck in bed, watching crap telly at either max or min volume (because I couldn't control it no matter what I did) and running for the bathroom, I was finally recovered enough to take some good old Imodium and the collection of pills the Vietnamese doctor gave me and face the world again.

First stop - International Women's Day! which is a really important holiday in Vietnam, everyone gets a half day off work to celebrate and all the men cook the meals, clean the homes and buy their women flowers. We arrived at the retired mothers house at the SOS village where women of all ages were dressed in their smart clothes sat on tiny plastic chairs in little circles under the pine trees. There was a collection of about 10 men who were waiting on the women hand and foot - much to everyones amusement! The women fell about laughing anytime one of the men served them tea or bought them more food.

We were greeted by the director of the orphanage, a short fat man with a firm handshake, and taken to sit with the secretary and some of the mothers. I (hopefully politely) refused the jellied squid, not sure my stomach could handle it at only 830am and instead had a lovely bowl of pho (why I am still not bored of this I don't know!).

It was a very powerful morning, even with all the laughter at the men, to spend Women's day with such amazing selfless women - most of whom had given over 20yrs of service to the orphanage. Just incredible. I certainly didn't feel I deserved the flowers I was also presented with!

Weasels, grubs and elephants

After a scary night spent at the military recuperation commune with the wind howling and doors banging Mr Tung met us at 8:30am for a ‘lovely jubley’ motorbike ride tour.

Sophie and I hopped on the back of some pretty cushy bikes (they had BACK RESTS!) with helmets with actual visors too. We had negotiated to have a personalised tour of the area and had chosen our top sights from the list of options we were originally  given to create a super awesome tour covering all the good stuff J

Our first stop was a strawberry farm where the local Dalat red wine is made using strawberries and mulberries.

                    

Up into the mountains we went until we were told to head up into the hills for a trek. The smell of pine trees was just overwhelming and there were even some beautiful wild horses right at the top. It was so peaceful and we felt so lucky to have the whole hillside to ourselves – not a tourist bus in sight!

 

Back on the bikes and on to one of the regions Flower farms. Dalat exports a lot of roses and orchids,  which you see being carted around rolled up in rugs on the back of motorbikes.

 

Next we went to a coffee plantation. Coffee does not look like how I thought it would and the coffee flowers smell amazing! They are sort of like jasmine but with a warmer bittersweet smell. We also saw the weasels who eat the coffee beans and then their poo is collected and roasted and ground into THE BEST sweetest coffee you have ever tasted. The coffee we tried here was out of this world. It was absolute Pip heaven – good coffee and animals… You would have loved it Rue. I wish I had room in my bag to take some home L

It was lovely going at our own pace and just hopping on and off the bikes as we wanted and not   to be governed by a schedule or other people toilet breaks!

Our next stop was a silk farm. Mum you would have loved it so much! The little silk grubs make these amazing really quite hard and plasticy cocoons which they turn into raw silk and then spin. Nothing is wasted – they even eat the grubs! We of course had to try them too…kind of tasted like sandhopper J (shrimps for those who haven’t even sandhopper before).

 

After a shared lunch of caramel cooked fish and some kind of meat and rice we wizzed off to a beautiful waterfall. We had to  climb through the jungle to get there – lots of big roots and rocks,sort of Indianna Jones territory.

 

Our next break was at a minority village. This particular culture had been banned by the government to live anywhere but the jungle until 30yrs ago. Now they have been granted small crappy patches of land in which to live on. Coming from the jungle they have bought many things to make this new land feel like home. Amongst which they brought monkeys as pets which they chain to trees near their homes. It was an eye opener, the treatment of the people in the minorties is really very shocking –they are not allowed even to send their children to schools..

 

The final stop was skip-a-heart-beat-amazing! We had a ride on an elephant! And then were left completely alone with her, just the two of us, for an hour. It was so powerful being with such a huge animal who was so totally not scary at all. I thought I would be scared like I am with horses, or at least wary, but I felt totally relaxed with her. We sung to her and gained her trust enough that she rested her trunk between us both and let us stroke her. I don’t understand how anyone could feel selfimportant enough to kill or hurt such a peaceful clever animal.

 

I was even lucky enough to have a go ‘driving’ her <3

Such a beautiful afternoon. Yet again I am blown away by Vietnam and all the surprises it has for me.

SOS orphanage, Monks, Cable cars, Roller coasters, Waterfalls. My 9am-5pm

SOS Orphaned Children's Village

Silence in the car for most of the way there.I felt very nervous and like once I’d stepped through the doors there was no going back. A whole part of this world that I’ve been sheltered from was about to open up, and I didn’t know whether that would be a good thing or not…

The village was beautiful. Little french style chalets housed a ‘mother’ with 7-10 children. But I’m jumping ahead.we pulled up and Duong greeted us shyly, he was goin to show us around. The village was peaceful and quiet and he explained as its Saturday they relax and wash their clothes and then play football in the afternoon. The village was amazing, communism at it’s very idealistic best really. Everyone lives in their own little chalet with their ‘mother’ and ‘brothers and sisters’, all ethnicities live side by side and all religions too. The children were shy and looked beautiful – like all the other children I’ve met here really.

We were first taken to Darh’s house. She has been here for the beginning – 1987, and has had 19 ‘children’. Duong translated for us that she is even a proud grandmother, and 3 of her children are now married too. She is inspirational.

The mothers are sort of like nuns. They give their whole lives to the children. They are not allowed husbands or children of their own but live in the chalets and care and love their orphaned children. Darh must have made this choice at about 21yrs old. I was overwhelmed by her selflessness. Even writing about it now is bringing me to tears. We had tea with her and just smiled and smiled.

We spoke to a few children and went to meet the newest mother who has the youngest children, it was to her that I gave my plastic bag of ‘gifts’ – nappies, wipes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, baby shampoo.
Next we were taken to the boys home. When the boys reach 14yrs they live in their own building with an ‘educator’. The boys were absolutely charming and delighted to have Spiderman interrupted it seemed! As they saw us approaching they run inside to quickly tidy up! They also spoke very good English. All the children go to school with the local children too, and the Village also sends them to university and helps them get jobs. A really fantastic and very established chariety. They obviously get very good funding.

 

I think this was a fantastically positive introduction to the orphanages here, but I know they are not all like this. And in fact they don’t really need our help too much. Having said that we are going back tomorrow to play some games with the children. I think it will be good to get my confidence up for working in a harder poorer environment.

 

Monastery

After the morning at the orphanage we took a taxi to a Buddhist monastery in the hills. It felt quite Greek heading up onto tiny winding roads with pine trees everywhere.

The atmosphere at the monastery was beautiful. It was one of the most fragrant places I have ever ever been. Surrounded by lush flower gardens and strong scented pine trees and then with all the burning incense.. The wind chimes and gongs were so quiet you could almost not hear them. Absolutely magic. I really want to spend some proper time with the Buddhist monks – they are so lovely and friendly (even yesterday as we were walking in Dalat in the evening, Sophie got chatting to a monk just on the street).

 

Next we caught a Cable car up through the hills…. It was pretty frikking scary! And of course totally cinematic and beautiful..

 

 

Waterfalls

As if we needed to top up the day anymore we then we to some local waterfalls. As usual the Vietnamese tourists were more keen to photograph us then the breathtaking waterfall behind them… This one little boy (age maybe 6yrs) even held his eyes open wide with his hands and looked at me and then fell about laughing! So funny!

By the end of the day we were the only ones left at the bottom on the hill (which we had caught a rollercoaster down to!).Again more stunning scenery… It must be getting a bit boring for you all now right?!

 

 

stepping into the unknown

Taken the plunge and am booked in to visit this orphanage in Dalat tomorrow at 10am. Spoken to a lady on the phone who had very good English and seemed really friendly. Not signed up for anything more than a look around.

Going to go and find a supermarket to buy some things to take with me. I’ve read a few blogs and it seems arriving with nappies, balloons/bubble mix always goes down well.

 

http://sosvietnam.org/userpages/intro/Storiesofdailylife/tabid/116/newsid/128/seo/My-big-day/language/en-US/Default.aspx

 

feeling really pleased with myself for researching this one on my own and being proactive in deciding something even if it is quite small at the moment. I am feeling restless to move away from more tourist activities.

 

Feel really nervous and anxious about it but also excited too....