WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
I was so excited about this day that it turned out to be no problem at all to get up at 5am.. Today I went to four schools in a province called Dong Nai which is 100 km north of Ho Chi Minh City. I went there with Dahn (pronounced Jan), who administrates about 1000 scholarships for SCC, Kimberly who is head of fundraising, and Janie, who donated the funds to even go on the trip. Our quest was to give the children who are in the SCC scholarship program gifts for Têt, which is sort of Vietnam’s Christmas. The children got a bag with 20 kg of rice, a goodie bag with shampoo, toothpaste, Milo and different other things, and a new school uniform.
At the first school, the children were playing in the school yard when we came in. They all ran to say hello and were simply adorable! The second school was a secondary school where the children were a bit older. They were very polite and a class sang a song for us. The man who translated it called it We Wish for Peaceful – SO CUTE! I have it on video and will upload if the file is not too big. Just before we left, three girls tried to carry 3 bags of rice on a bike. The bike fell and they almost gave up. But then I saw that the bike had some straps attached and we managed to tie the bags to the bike, so that they could take the rice home to their families. It was so giving to see how the teachers were truly grateful for the help we were giving. They love the children so much and would simply hate to see some of them having to drop out because they couldn’t afford books, uniform and couldn’t get enough rice.
We had lunch and were ahead of our schedule, so we took a well-deserved break and a small café. Next school was sort of sad to see. The children we gave gifts to didn’t seem like that small gift made any difference. They needed a miracle to make them smile, which is really sad! We tried to make their day, but I guess they need more than free education and a school uniform! 🙁 Another pointer that things are not quite as they should be was that more than half of the children in the program were not even at school that day. This probably means that they are working in a field or have to stay home and help their parents in the house. This is what SCC is trying to get the children out of, but it is an ongoing project and may never be completely solved.
The last school was really big, but again, the number of children didn’t match the number of Têt gifts or school uniforms. The children were so cute and polite and we left with a big smile! I went home and had my first walk around the neighbourhood. I started out being unable to find a street that surely is on my map, but not there in real life. My walk therefore turned out slightly longer than expected. In the end I found the supermarket, did my shopping and walked back home.. All in all, I was gone for about 1.5 hours, which I think is pretty good……
I will put my sweet head on my pillow now and sleep like a baby.. Dead tired!