I have never been more at a loss about how to structure a blog post as I am now, with this one. The last three weeks have been a myriad of new experiences; smells, sights, foods. It has definitely been an experience! There’s so much to condense into this post that it may descend into chaos. I can only apologise. Xin Loi!
After a twenty-six hour journey, my jet-lagged ass landed in Ho Chi Minh city, my home for the next three weeks. This leg of my journey was to be spent volunteering with special needs children. My first realisation of the journey was that I am old! Most of the volunteers were on summer break from Uni and ranged from aged 18-22 years old. I worried that I wouldn’t have anything in common with my fellow volunteers but my roommates kindly consoled me that there had been other “mature volunteers” before me, including Ellen. Ellen was mature like me. Ellen was fifty years old! However after a few days, all of my initial reservations had dissolved and I even became a member of a sorority – The Oi Troi Oi Sisters.
Week one was culture week. We were introduced to Ho Chi Minh and visited all of the major tourist attractions including The Reunification Palace, Ho Chi Minh War Museum, Notre Dame Church, Ben Thanh Market and The Cu-Chi Tunnels. We also had some Vietnamese cooking and language classes, met with local students and got to visit our placements.
I was working in a Day Care Centre for children with special needs which was a part of one of Ho Chi Minh’s hospitals. There were around 20 children in the main room with varying disabilities including Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Cystic Fibrosis and Autism. The role of the volunteers was to help with exercise and physio, feeding, facilitate different activities and generally keep the children entertained.
Volunteers had the weekends off and most used the time to explore different areas of Vietnam. For our first weekend, the student accommodation even arranged a trip to La Gi, where for $22usd, we would visit the local orphanage and then be free to lie on the beach and relax for the weekend. It seemed to good to be true. We were about an hour into the 4 hour drive, when the driver handed out our weekend itinerary, for which every hour had been accounted for. We were to teach English for pretty much all of the weekend, even having meals with students so that they could practice their spoken English. We had around 2 hours of free time each day, on Saturday at the beach and on Sunday at an ecotourism site. The two hours that we did have on the beach on Saturday was spent sheltering from the rain!
La Gi is not a very touristy area so a group of seven westerners stood out by a mile. Everywhere we went people stared and asked for pictures with us. On Sunday whilst we swam under the waterfall, fully dressed women crossed the water to hand us their terrified babies so that they could get a picture with us. The rest of the crowd took pictures and videos from the banks.
The children that we taught asked us lots of personal questions and took everything that we told them as gospel truth, including that I am forty six years old and that Charlotte, aged 19 is my daughter! They did tell me I was very beautiful for my age so I guess that’s not so bad, right? RIGHT?
By our second week, we were well in the swing of things and had become accomplished in crossing the road, which is one of Ho Chi Minh’s biggest challenges. There are over 4.5 million motorbikes and scooters on the road and not one driver seems to have even heard of the rules of the road. Footpaths are used to avoid heavy traffic and one way systems are regularly ignored. The key to crossing the road is to keep a steady pace and that way everyone should avoid you! In the evenings, after placement, we ventured to the markets or to European restaurants in search of mashed potato to break the monotony of boiled rice for every meal.
On Wednesday evening of our second week, we met with some local students who took us out for dinner so that they could practise their English. They ordered for us and we were given steaming bowls of Pho, with assorted mystery meat, one of which we determined to be tongue. After dinner, we went for coffees to avoid the monsoon and played music, danced and sang until it was time for us to go home.
Thursday night is a big night out for all of the volunteers. Everyone goes to the Sky Bar for ladies night, where all the girls can avail of free booze up to 10pm. Unbeknown to us videos of our previous night with the students had been circulating online and one of the girls, Charlotte, had become a Vietnamese rapping sensation, getting recognised by locals while we were out. Whilst Charlotte gained fans, all I gained was a leg covered in mozzie bites. In all of the excitement of having a night out, I’d forgotten to bug spray my legs!
For our second weekend, we went to Mui Ne, a small coastal town, with Russian influence, 6 hours north of Ho Chi Minh. This time, there was no teaching, just relaxing and letting our hair down. The salt water helped with my mozzie bites but all good was undone when I fell asleep on the beach only to get burnt on top of my bites. By the time the weekend was through, I had already used two bottles of aftersun.
Our volunteer team was slightly depleted in our 3rd week. I was unable to move on Monday because of my sunburn and Zainab had a stomach bug. I went back to placement on Tuesday, although I’m not sure that I was much help, given that I couldn’t bend to lift any of the children. By Tuesday evening, Zainab was still no better so we brought her to get checked out at the International hospital. As we stood by her trolley, I could feel my leg swelling under my trousers and knew that it needed checking out too. While the rest of my sunburn had been healing, my left leg had been turning a more purple colour. So back out I went to reception to try and talk to the nurse with no english. Eventually I figured that showing her my leg was the easiest option. Within seconds of pulling up my trousers, I was ushered to the bed opposite Zainab.
Nurses and doctors came and looked at my exposed leg, making screwed up faces and giving it a pinch for good luck. I could see the doctors through the glass office wall arguing over who was to get the pleasure of having me as their patient. Eventually. A reluctant doctor came out and started to examine my leg, assuming that I had been scalded in hot water. After much prodding and poking and some yelps from me, the doctor announced, “I go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
“I go.”
“Where?”
“I go!”
Eventually Charlotte was able to interpret that he was saying echo and wanted to take a scan of my leg. A sonographer was beckoned over to my bed, took one look at my leg and muttered to the doctor in Vietnamese before turning on her heel and walking away. I can only assume that she told him to F*ck off!
So I was left lying with my hideous leg out, until a younger doctor came over with a wheelchair and beckoned for me to get in. Without a word, he rolled me straight out of the hospital, into the pouring rain and across the road. I was brought into another hospital building which had obviously been closed for the night. Eventually, I was rolled into a treatment room and aforementioned sonographer was sitting stony faced waiting on me. I was given a sack and motioned to take off my trousers and lie on the bed. The young doctor handed me a sack for my clothes and I did as I was told. I pulled off my trousers and threw them into the sack. They fell straight through. The sack was bottomless and was designed for me to wear to maintain my dignity. At this stage the sonographer and doctor were looking at me as though I had just landed from Mars and any remaining shred of dignity was long gone!
The scans showed that blood flow in my leg was normal and therefore there was no need to be concerned. Zainab and I were both discharged and given prescriptions to help with our recovery.
The next day, we were miserable to be missing another day of placement, but the world has a strange way of showing you that things could always be worse. As I lay on my bed on Wednesday afternoon, I said goodbye to my roommate Susan who was going back to placement for the late session. Only 15 minutes had passed, when Susan returned carrying with her the most horrendous smell. While walking to the bus, Susan had failed to see an open sewer and disappeared into the ground! Her life had in a matter of seconds become shitter than mine, literally!
After she had showered, I did my best to cheer Susan up. But I fell apart when she told me that she had come travelling to find herself. I just about managed to hold back from asking whether she’d had any luck at the bottom of the sewer!
By Thursday, the meds had started to take effect and my leg was on the mend. I was back at placement and was determined to not miss out on a minute more. I’m just three weeks, I’d made some great friends and built strong relationships with the kids. It was very hard to leave Ho Chi Minh on Friday night! Now, I’m travelling north looking to see what other mischief I can get myself into! X
anitamaguire 