Vietnam

on Sunday we went to Danang to do Easter on the beach with a bunch of christain pep's (yep! quite a commitment for a 45min service. Because Da Nang is a 2hreach way public bus ride, and you know how asia buses are!?, ....more about that later )

We had lunch with a HIV/Aids adviser of African/Kenyan decent.
He is such a sweet guy trying to make a difference, but struggling to handle the constant harrassment from the vietnamese, (Vietnam is obsessed with White skin. all the skin cremes contain whitener)
And he's under survalance by the government and such. so is looking to move out of Vietnam soon.

Anyway he gave us some insite into the HIV problem in Vietnam.
he estimates HIV rates to be as high as 15% and not helped by there being a complete lack of information,
In Danang city it was illegal to even buy or carry condoms in the city till 3 months ago. It also really common for husband to go outside of home for sex, as often wives will only have sex if they want to get pregnant (limited birth control/education avaliable) .
Other part of Vietnam are completely different with rules it seem to depend a lot on the local government.
It is often assumed that many of the orphans are HIV positive too, (i'm thinking of getting some gloves to wear when i treat their boils and skin infections and such) :-)

Now to the Bus ride back, travelling with a child works in your favour here sometimes, as i got offered a seat in the very back right next to the open window. (sweet)

Life's not so easy for the other volunteer who was harassed for more money, then told she was fat (she's a size 14 NZ) and told to pay for 2 people (which she didn't). then physically pushed and held back when a seat became available, so spent 2 hours standing.
Her Vietnamese was good enough to understand them telling her to get on a plane and out of their country , to which she swore back at then (hehe)

we are getting psych'ed for de-licing 30 children at one of the orphanages soon (hehe fun times .....not)
so stay tuned for the thrilling blog entry for that one.......

this is tien , he's so beautiful, and such a cruiser, just gets out there and follows the big kids around,

this boy never smiles. he's about 2yrs old but alway so so sad.

this photo show how skinny some of the children are at the baby orphanage. We've been putting money into giving them a more nutritious breakfast and paying for them to have afternoon tea , i hope this helps.

okay weve been hear for 3 weeks, and have sussed out the important things such as...

... how to order a coffee
Cafe Sua Da (coffee ,milk, iced) i've become quite addicted to the super strong brew served with sweeted condenced milk. yummy

Learnt not to take Lucy to the market becouse she gets absolutly swamped by vietnamese woman who have never seen a blonde child before and want to touch and pinch her. yes i mean swamped

Also been cruising about on bikes, learning the rules of the road (anything goes and be ready for anything) it's really full on.

Oh and today for the first day in 3 weeks in Tam Ky, i saw another westener. He was visiting the baby orphanage.

And it's now officaly hot in Tam ky 30*+

In a couple of weeks i'll be traveling down to Quy Nhom taking a boy Tien (18 mths old) from the baby orphanage for an operation to repair his cleft palate/lip. So it'll be a 6 hour public bus ride and a few days in hospital after the op.

i am still in love with vietnamese food.

let's start with a scenery shot.

for ages we have had overcast and rainy weather. Finally in the last week we have had sun and heat. It's getting up to 30 degrees already. This is one of the last days of rain.

right, last week we arrived at the Baby Orphanage and the kids were all fast asleep.

Each day we take them fruit. They were chowing down on pineapple right after they woke up.

this is two volunteers we are working with (Annick and Sophy) hanging with some of the kids.

lucy lending a helping hand with one of the babies.

one of the kids working hard.

another working hard.

and another.

and another even.

hello again.

Well, where were we?

This past Saturday, Vietnam celebrated International Women's Day. Apparently is an Asian thing rather than an International thing because I surely have not heard of it before! Anyways, everyone here gets VERY into it. All the men buy flowers for their female workmates, their mums, grandma's, wives or girlfriends. Then they take them out to a restaurant and then to Karakoe. I took our cook, translator, Carrie, Ange and Lucy out for lunch on saturday. Then a bunch of us volunteers and some adult students from the English Learning class we do Tues/Thurs nights went out to Karakoe in the evening. An interesting night to say the least. They were most impressed with my rendition of "I don't want to miss a thing" by Aerosmith. However it seems that the lunch on saturday was not the best as a number of us were attacked with a stomach bug which hit me the hardest. I was pretty much out on sunday and monday. Am back into things now though.

We are already able to tell the difference that giving the kids a piece of fruit and a multi vitamin tablet a day is making. There are fewer snotty noses and a bit more colour in some cheeks. There is still a long way to go with getting some good nutrition sorted for them.

Speaking of nutrition, it's dinner time and I've just spent 35 mintues uploading some new photos to this blog site only to find that for some reason it didn't work. So you'll have to wait till tomorrow when I get another opportunity to try again. sigh.

Some good news though, today we had blue sky. First time since we have been away. :-)

At the Baby orphanagetoday, there is a baby who is 3months old and had serious health problems in the past. Today he was crying and just wimpering, his face so pale and swollen, his stomach was huge and hard. We are trying to organise taking him to Hospital in Da Nang. (which is sometimes hard to do because the orphanage has no $$)

Update: he was taken to a private clinic who had him admitted into hospital with Pneumonia, and they are going to do more tests on his liver and such.

Also found out that when a doctor visited this particular orphanage 3 months ago he found that 16 of the children had tonsillitis, some had Pneumonia and all where mal-nourished.
There are children there who are 6 and 7 and the same height as Lucy. (so sad and scary no wonder they get sick).

We (the volunteers) buy them fresh fruit, child vitamins everyday and on fridays they get milk . Otherwise they just mainly eat plain white for breakfast, white rice with 1/2 an egg for lunch and rice and a couple of tablespoons of vege and meat for dinner, (not at all a balanced diet ). We are trying to get them sarted on a more nutritious breakfast everyday, i think it'll make a big difference.