The longest blog post on earth

It's been a busy week, and I haven't had time to update. But the public (aka my family) has been demanding blog posts, so here it is:

 I spent part of this week at the BoDe orphanage, where I will be working for my remaining 3 weeks. I had originally intended to work in the disabled room of the orphanage, but only lasted 45 minutes in the room before I had to go to the bathroom for a proper cry. While the main orphanage isn't exactly the best place to grow up, those kids are at least given the stimulation and care they need to grow up healthily. The disabled room, on the other hand, is one of the most appalling things I have ever seen in my life. Not only do the caretakers not know how to give the children the proper physio they need for development, they are often actively cruel to the disabled children. Part of this is cultural: disabled people in Vietnam are seen as a burden that will never contribute to society. But to see a nanny slam a child with spine issues down on a bed like a sack of flour is something that will shake me to the core for the rest of my life.

The orphanage is run by monks who devote most of their time and energy to the pagoda attached to it. So they allow visitors to come in, see the desperate conditions of the orphanage, and then solicit donations which are then directed to the temple rather than the orphanage.

Most of their bullcrap publicity involves pictures like this, showing the monks "taking care of" the children

No one at the orphanage has ever seen a monk go near the children in real life

The reality of the situation is this: a disabled child tied to a bed

On some level, it's not the nannies' fault. They have not been trained properly, and they work 24/7 with no time off. They are understaffed and the pagoda won't hire more people, because that would take resources that they instead devote to the glorification of the temple. However, they will not allow children to be moved to a different orphanage. The worse BoDe looks, the more donations they get.

Without getting too specific, I and some other volunteers are initiating a project with the local NGO to contact the child protection services of Vietnam and get the disabled children taken from the orphanage and put someplace where they receive the care they need and deserve. The healthy children at the orphanage will at least have a shot at normalcy, but the track the disabled children are heading down is not a good one. Hopefully myself and the people I am working with will be able to affect some type of change in the 3 weeks remaining.

It's been strange going to the orphanage. Some of you may know that I have two disabled younger sisters. One of them, Georgie, recently underwent a very serious surgery to try to correct some of her disabilities in her legs. It was very painful and the recovery will be tough. On Skype yesterday I asked her how physical therapy was and she said "They do terrible things to me!" I know it's necessary in the long term, but it's all very painful and I feel terrible for her.

bravest girl I know

But the relativity I've experienced here is really messing with my head. Like I feel bad for Georgie having to go through these surgeries, and for the fact that she will always be a little bit different. But then I look at her compared to all these children in the disabled room who will probably never receive the full care they need and deserve. And in that sense, she is beyond lucky. It's very strange to look at the same situation in the context of two different cultures.

Outside of the orphanage, I have been having an interesting time exploring the city of Hanoi. The night life is not as terrible as I had originally imagined. There's a lot of clubs, with foreigners and locals alike. You meet so many people from Germany, Belgium, France, countries that are Western but still so different from America. It''s interesting to hear their take on Vietnam.

Of course, Hanoi technically has 11:00 curfew, where policemen come around in trucks speaking Vietnamese in stern voices. The other day I was with a Vietnamese girl and I asked her what they were saying. She listened for a second and said "They're saying you should go to bed."

Last night we were getting street kebabs at 11:30 after celebrating the fourth of July Vietnam style (going to an Irish pub and watching Australian rugby). We had met a Belgian guy and were standing around the cart eating when suddenly the kebab ladies starting pointing down the road and freaking out. Apparently the police were coming to shut down all the food stands and tell everyone to go to bed. The lady flicked off the light on the stand and started frantically waving us off the street, telling us to sit in the plastic chairs behind the cart. Everyone sprinted toward the tiny plastic stools, but there were 4 of us and only 3 chairs. So I ended up perching on my friend Paula's lap, on a tiny little unstable plastic stool in the dark, for several minutes while we waited for the police to pass.

fugitives from the law

the kebabs were amazing, by the way

BIG MAMA KEBABS

We also found an amazing store called Hanoisenberg ( a play on Heisenberg from the show Breaking Bad). The t shirts and posters at this store were hilarious, they definitely have a good read on Western humor.

"I am the one who woks"

Again, sorry for the length of this blog post. I will try to update more frequently to prevent monstrosities like this one.

Angela