Met the others at the coffee shop in the tourist information centre at 1pm. Met another Duong, who is the kindergarten teacher at the orphanage. From there went back to the orphanage with the others. Sara and Jack were also accompanying us. Jack had a meeting with Sally and the architect about the new building that Jack got the money for the other day, from the Intercontinental Hotel.
I don't really trust myself to describe the orphanage - to give it it's correct name, the homeless refuge - as it was actually better than I was expecting. However, it was pretty bad. It is one of three building complexes in a larger complex of a pagoda called Bo De. The temple/pagoda complex has a short tree lined drive. The temple is straight ahead. Unfortunately due to all the rain the entrance was completely flooded. The temple is run by a community of female monks, all in brown pyjamas with their heads shaved. They have a huge mess room with vast wooden furniture, TV and air fans. There is a shop. To the right is the refuge. It consists of a large corrugated iron courtyard area, with the rooms for the 'nannies' off to the left.
The nannies are older children or young women who have mostly been given shelter at the refuge at some point and grown up there. Some are the children of prostitutes. Most are prostitutes. They have their own children, who have clean clothes and live there too. They are mostly unkind or cruel to the orphaned children. They are in charge of 'pastoral care'. The reason Projects Abroad is here is because this shelter is unregulated. There are government ones, with associate rules and regs. Additionally the head monk 'super monk' as the volunteers call her, gets money from somewhere for each child she takes in. Consquently she will not allow any child to be adopted until 'they can go to court and say they wish to be adopted' . There are at least two kids who go 'home' to loving adoptive parents every weekend, but have to return to this ghastly place during the week as a result. The only child who is dealing ok with this is the one who goes home to his police officer father, because the other kids and the nannies give them hell.
Immediately on the left as you start walking across the courtyard is the disabled children's room. This has a number of cots and a couple of low beds pushed close together, haphazardly around the room. The cots have no mattresses except thin mats on the cot grating at the bottom and no bed linen that I could see. These children are looked after by a disabled 'nannie' of about 18 yrs. I had expected this room to smell but it did not. However, it was a cool day.
The Projects Abroad kindergarten is across the courtyard, out from under the iron roof at the end on the right. It is kept locked but unfortunately the nannies have a key, so thigns go missing. As you go there, on the right you pass the room where all 14 or so of the homeless children sleep in the same bed - a bed about the size of the one in my room at Ninh Binh. It also has matting, not mattress but looks relatively clean. The children have a nap at lunchtime. Kindergarten resumes at 2pm.
The kindergarten is air con and clean. About the size of a small British kindergarten. The children love it in here. Everyday the volunteers collect three or four of the disabled children to take into the kindergarten too. Today we had Bridget, who is a new,blind, baby who was found under a bridge; Penang who can see only peripherally and has a very high forehead with large eyes; and Angel Boy, who is about ten, autistic, has fits, wears a nappy and cannot really walk, possibly because he has been in a cot all his life and is autistic (so no one has been able to get him to pay attention long enough to teach him). He is Sally's favourite as she was with him when he had a series of bad fits last year. They receive no medical attention or courses of drugs for epilepsy. He has however got a walker (wrapped in duck tpe and bandages) and enjoys that before he gets tired or runs someone over. He took a fancy to me after I guided him round the room a few times in the walker and then slept on top of me for the whole period of kindergarten. He has the most beautiful chocolate eyes. When he woke up periodically he seemed to take a while to realise where he was, when he did he would give the most incredibly sweet huge smile, wicked and innocent at the same time.
The children came in and took off their shoes putting them away neatly. They played and raced around for a bit before being organised into sitting along the edge of the raised dias at the end of the room nearest the door and singing songs such as five little ducks. These kids are better at that song than the ones I teach at school. A line of small folding tables was set up down the middle of the room, with small plastic chairs that the kids eagerly got out (some bossing the others around) and a blackboard was set up by Jack and Duong at one end, a board propped on a chair. Today the kids were going to draw a pig. They had paper with special step by step how to on it, and Jack then drew the pig on the board as a demo. They learnt the word for pig in Vietnamese and English, though I'm not sure if that was intentional. At one point a few of the kids came over and sat on top of me and Angel to show me their drawings, including one very sweet little girl whose name I can't remember. I had noticed most of the kids liked to look at a few photos of themselves or volunteers put up on the wall so I showed them themselves singing on my camera, and they spotted themselves or their friends, the little girl ordering her friends over for a look. I also showed them a buffalo from yesterday's trip to Kenh Ga.
After school they played madly with everything they could find, including balls that went everywhere, some of the nannies children came in at this point too. Some of the kids were taken off to see Nate, a volunteer nurse from Brazil, who comes into check them over. He is a huge bruiser of a guy who is apparently very wealthy back home. Julia took Penang along as she was concerned about how hot she was. Sure enough she had a sore throat and fever. She perked up after a drink with an aspirin powder in it. I had been thoroughly sneezed on myself by this time. All the volunteers sniffle when they've been here.
They then noticed Trenang did indeed have scabies. A lot of the kids do as they are often in dirty clothes for days on end and they are not washed at all. The volunteers do it in the orphanage during kindergarten once or twice a week. After some cream was got from Nate, Trenang was given a bath, which she loved, standing up and stamping her feet in the water in the laundry tub while she was scrubbed down. The volunteers bring the towels and some of the kids clothes home for washing in the House washing machine regularly. However this is a cold water washing machine so a debate followed as to whether it would be a good idea to put the infested clothes into the machine. Apparently if you leave the clothes for 48 hours in a tightly tied plastic bag, the scabies bugs die. Julia had found this info online. It was decided to do this and then wash the clothes. (In the end I did my washing in a load straight after this one, so if I get scabies...!)
After that it was time to tidy up, which all the kids helped with and take the disabled kids back to their room. I carried Angel Boy back and put him in his cot, where he immediate started playing with the wallpaper. The cot was clean but it was all slightly heartrending; as Sally and one of the monks were present, talking, I could not stay.
We all took a handful of soap in our palms and on the way out washed our hands thoroughly in the sinks beside the toilets. We then took a taxi back home across the river. We were going out for some retail therapy this evening at the night market.
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