The last couple of days in the centre have probably been the most re
warding. I was working closely with Swin the Physio; there are two kids with M.E down one side of their body and their main need is to be able to walk unaided. This means independence and ultimately a higher chance of a job after leaving the centre. These two characters are (little) Hoang and Chi (both their pictures are left from when they were hand painting), both around 3 years old and very cute. Chi can walk around holding someone’s hand and just really lacked the confidence to do it by herself. But with a little bit of guidance and a few distraction techniques we got her to walk by her self on Thursday and after that she was going it alone, a very proud moment! 
Unfortunately this achievement was marred by the news that Swin gave us; all government paid workers are made to retire at 55 whether they are able to work or not. The centre has half its staff paid for by the government (healthcare, carers, kitchen staff) and the other half are paid for by voluntary donations (administration, sponsorship team, directors etc). So Swin very soon will be told to leave her job, she makes around $80/month – yes a fully qualified Physio who has been working there for over 20 years only on around 11 pounds/month! Though there are other problems, she unofficially adopted a girl, now a teenager from the centre who lives with her and she believes that she will be taken away from her as she will have no stable income. At the moment us volunteers are trying to find a solution for this, as to whether her income can be paid for by CNCF or by fundraising and paid to her directly so she can carry on her work as a volunteer. As you can see by the achievements she makes daily like those with Hoang and Chi, she is a vital part of the organisation.
We had a few creative days with the kids, we made a big a footprint mural, which took me back to my Ottley Street Nursery days. Pick up child, put paint on foot, stamp foot, run to sink to wash and repeat… Very good fun if a little messy, me and Sophie made a display with the footprints and photos from the day to go up in the centre so they can never escape our ugly mugs!
Another creative day we had was to make masks for Halloween; honest
ly I’ve never seen so much glitter thrown around and I’ve been to Nottinghill Carnival! It was in hair, ingested and left stuck all over the floor which means the lino now has that expensive glittery marble look! But again it was all good fun, the masks were for our final day Halloween party, which unfortunately got rained off. (The picture left is of Vy, she's aged around 5 and has Cerebral palsy.)Halloween night itself didn’t go without a few shenanigans; the expat community here (mainly Americans) went crazy over the
day with us Blue Petering it up with a white sheet to make a ghost and a mummy outfit. A few lashings white facepaint, a heavy bout of food poisoning for me, a 630am stumble home for Sophie meant it was a memorable night had by all! (the picture left is of all the other volunteers from the centre, me, Sophie, Jamie, Caoimhe and Sarah)Back to centre life…. I requested a leaving interview with Helena to discuss our thoughts and feelings on the centre. The main point of the volunteers is not only to aid the carers but to also bring a fresh perspective on the centre with a few western ideas thrown in to the mix. One of my concerns was a need for a dentist, we had the joy of cleaning everyone’s teeth everyday, some like experience and use it as an excuse to eat as much strawberry flavoured toothpaste as possible, others absolutely despise it. I named a few of the kids who had awful teeth and we asked whether they saw a dentist. Helene’s response was that it wasn’t a priority and the kids that we had mentioned were ones from out in the provinces where there is no education about teeth care, so they probably hadn’t brushed their teeth until they arrived at CNCF. She mentioned that at the moment the government has campaigns on to advertise this necessity out in these areas. Sophie’s idea was to have a dentist come in twice a year to blitz everyone’s teeth, so if anyone knows a dentist with some spare time, a travel kit and a big heart send them to Vietnam!
We decided to fly north and work our way back south over a couple of weeks and then spend a few days back at the centre delivery the items we promised. One is a bike for Hoang (pronounced Wang, I think I’ve spoken about him before and his new white trainers). There are no larger bikes for the older kids at the centre and there isn’t one without stabilisers so we are going to get one of them for him and hopefully teach him to ride it before we disappear again.
There was some good news just as we left, the ban on going out of the centre has been lifted, very annoying just as we leave! The government have now placed the responsibility on establishments to control swine flu and CNCF has decided it is unnecessary to keep the kids quarantined in (and no face masks!) The kids are being taken to a water park on Friday and hopefully when we are back we can take a few swimming as that was our main wish when we started.
We spoke to Helena about Nhi’s wheelchair, one will have to be imported in from a more developed country so it will be higher quality as in Vietnam they are a bit dodgy. I’ve begun researching this, we can get a specialised children’s chair for a couple of 100 pounds but there’s quite a bit of red tape to get through, it all has to be approved by the head doctor of the facility, but my plan is to get it shipped in before mid December so we can pop back and see it in action before we head to Australia.
Also more news on Sophie’s little) friend (/Izzy replacement); Ngoc, from that meeting we found out she is one of 10 siblings and her mother couldn’t cope which is why she is in the centre. We are hopefully going to get her family signed up to the sponsorship program where they get an amount every month towards schooling and we should hopefully be able to help her. All this little girl wants to do is to go home and be with her family and hopefully we can help her achieve this. It’s around $15/month to support her and Sophie already has plans to send her to uni, she’s only 2! (She has already researched it’s around $1000/year in HCM, so Dr Gokky here we come!)
As I said before we have now flown to northern Vietnam, to see a bit more of the countryside and hopefully some spectacular landscapes. There is a big north/south divide, mainly due to one half originally being republican and the other communist. The southerners we met in Ho Chi Minh said that northerners were stingy with money, it was always cold and rainy and they all work in mines (I made that last bit up but it does seem to resemble home a bit!) If Sophie decides the South is better and I like the North it will be like we have never left!
Well hope everyone is well and thanks again for all the contributions we’ve received. We saw a lot of the medical supplies taken to the hospital the other day, most of our stationary and pretty hair clips etc were bundled up in preparation to be taken to the boys and girls shelters, so they’ve all found good homes, thanks again for that.
We started our adventure with 68kg between us, now unloaded with our CNCF donations we’ve had a bit of a blitz for our journey north and only checked in 10kg between us on our Vietnam Airlines flight. Dads are always right; you only need a t-shirt, pair of shorts and your swimmers and you’re away!
(I wrote the above a few days ago from Hanoi, since then we have been to the beautiful hills of Sapa and the coast of Halong Bay - pictures below)
We are now in Hue, after a monstorous 17 hour bus journey from Hanoi, it was only supposed to be 12 hours but its always good to add an extra 5 hours due to traffic in Vietnam. It was a sleeping bus so had beds so we did actually get quite a lot of sleep (picture right). But no rest for the wicked we have gin and tonic buckets calling and a 7:30am 6 hour bus ride to Hoi An.Hope that’s long enough for you Dad! Up the Clarets (10th in the table get in!)
xx
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