VIETNAM - DAY 5

Stephen, one of team members, has been to this area of Vietnam before. He remembers going to another orphanage close by and suggests that we check it out. Vanessa finds someone in town with a car who will act as our driver for the morning and we head out first thing giving Thao a much needed break. The orphanage is only about a 30 minute car ride away. The first thing I notice when we pull up to the building is that there really is no building. It would appear to be just a small little shop sandwiched between a couple of shed like structures on a sparse bit of road. We are greeted at the door by the woman who runs the facility. She remembers Stephen and is very glad to see us. We walk through a couple rooms, down a hall, and into a corridor where children are everywhere. We walk down the steps as she leads us to an open room with slotted metal cribs. We are asked to take off our shoes and leave them at the entrance before stepping across the threshold. I do as I'm told.

The room consists of two rows of metal cribs, each crib is occupied and the child in the crib is tied to a metal bar with heavy string. There are deep moans, crying, laughing, and heavy blank stares emanating from the room. I am immediately drawn to a woman in the corner holding a fragile little girl whose legs appear to be misshapen. The woman is rocking the girl back and forth as tears stream down her face. A man looks on. Vanessa tells me that this is the mother and father. They have brought their daughter here today to give her over to the orphanage's care. This is a pain I have never seen before and wanting to give the mother some privacy, I move to another part of the room, glancing from time to time in the family's direction. When I look back the mother is gone, and the father is left holding the child. He appears somewhat detached, almost angry, yet still going through the rocking motions. He, too, eventually places his daughter in the last metal crib at the very end of a row and leaves. There is a significant amount of noise in the room, riding over it all are the little girl's deep guttural cries. Vanessa looks at me and says, "She is crying for her mother, she keeps calling out for her mom." The women who work in the facility are very busy, constantly taking care, bathing, preparing food. No one is with the girl.

I see that due to her disability, the girl's movements are limited, and she is not able to look around. I'm sure she's very confused as to what is happening and she knows that her parents have left. I approach the crib and stand over her. My presence alone is somewhat shocking. I'm sure she's never seen a white person before. She looks at me, silent. After the initial shock, she begins to cry again, looking directly into my eyes. I bend down and stroke her face, her hair, her fragile hand. In time her cries slowly begin to fade as I whisper, "It's going to be ok sweetheart, it's ok, it's ok. I love you baby girl." I repeat my whisper over and over and over again. She looks at me with tearstained eyes. Confused, not understanding why. I don't have an answer. I don't know what to do to fix it. All I know to do is to hold her hand and tell her how much I care for her and love her. That's all I can do, and in the moment that is enough. She eventually is calm and peaceful, never taking her eyes off mine and she drifts to sleep. I continue to think about her every night since . . . haunted by a moment that I am grateful to have shared with her. I think about her parents, especially the mother, and the tremendous heartbreak I had witnessed.

As if on cue, a little boy comes running into the room, right up to me and begins to point at the pamphlet I am holding, the one that the orphanage director gave me when I entered the facility. I look at it more closely and see that it is the little boy's picture which is on the front cover. He is absolutely adorable, bursting with energy and personality. There are other children at this orphanage who have no physical or mental disabilities but have been either abandoned on the streets or dropped off at the door step. All of the children live, eat, and sleep together whether they have disabilities or not. I see some of the children whose mental and physical disabilities are less severe helping out the more severe cases. My little guy leads us out into the main corridor where the disabled children who can walk and communicate on some level reside. The little boy has just returned from his lesson and is ready to play. His is roughly 4 years old, with a shaved head and a little patch of hair front and center. I am in love. He is just busting out of this place! Sharp as a whip, he is the best non-English speaking communicator we've met on the trip, easily showing us around using very elaborate hand gestures. He notices that I have a camera on my phone and begins posing for pictures. His boisterous spirit attracts a small crowd of children who all want their picture taken with us, in groups and one at a time. Everyone is having a great time, laughing and joking around.

It is finally time to go. I am sad to leave this place. Again, like the other facility, it is not scary. It is clean and run efficiently - these children are cared for. The sadness comes from the situation and how these little ones got here. The head of the orphanage walks us out after we stop by a small gift shop where she shows us beaded purses, key chains, and figurines, all on sale to help pay for the facility. There is a baby rocking back and forth in a hammock. She tells us he was left on the steps just the other night. We head back to Thao's

I think about Thao, I think about Lynn, Loc and all the children I've met at Thao's library and I think about all of the children in the orphanages that we visited.
What can I do, how can I help? The children with profound mental and physical disabilities at the two orphanages we visited are being cared for with love and dignity. The question is . . . why and how is this happening? How is it that within a 20 mile radius there are two homes filled to capacity with children with SEVERE disabilities. And as I found out earlier, there is no more room to take others and there are others. Where do they go? Where will they go? Thao tells me many die before making it to the orphanages. The nuns tell me that there is no adult care because the children don't live that long. These children are dying and yet there are always new children arriving regularly. What is going on? Obviously there needs to be a tremendous amount of research done. Could a comparison of the number of severely mentally and physically handicapped children before the war and after the war reveal anything? Those results could give clues as to what might be happening. Testing must be done to the soil
and water supply. More research needs to be conducting in regards to Agent Orange!!!

In regards to Thao, she needs to see a proper doctor. There is no cure for her condition, but maybe something can be done to alleviate some of her pain and prolong her life.

As far as the children of Thao's village, they are of the first generation to read, write, and go to school. WE CAN"T STOP NOW. They are at a crucial point. They need proper school supplies, books, and a reading center to continue their progress and have a fighting chance. I know there are many communities in the world that could benefit from a library, but who will run the library, who will take care of things after it is built and we go home? Thao is the key, the facilitator. It just so happens that it's her dream! We give the community an amazing learning tool, and we make a very deserving, incredible, young woman's dream a reality. Its a win win!! We give these children the AUDACITY to want to thrive, to be able to say I'm going to college. We continue to give someone like Loc, the AUDACITY to say I'm going to be a doctor, and find out why Thao is the way she is. Thao has already planted the seed, she has created something form nothing, but she has reached as far as she can given her circumstances, and she needs help.

Thao couldn't go to school because of her medical condition, but she was so eager to learn, and so her mother bought a couple books to teach her. Thao's mother made it to the 4th grade and she taught Thao up to the 4th grade level at which point she couldn't teach her anymore. That was not enough for Thao. She thought, instead of feeling sorry for myself that I can't go to school, I'm going to do something about it, and she hounded her mother to purchase the next level of reading and writing lessons, and from there on out, she taught herself. Thao has taught children Vietnamese and Math at the local school and now continues to tutor children on these same subjects in her library. She is self taught from the BOOKS her mother saved up to buy.

I am struck by this 'angel' in a misshapen body. Her uncommon intelligence, her depth of compassion, her unending fortitude, the love she brings to those around her. She has brought hope to her community, to her part of this world and she has brought hope to me.

It is our last evening with the family and we all sit around the kitchen table sharing a dessert that consists of a tapioca like pudding with banana and peanut. Thao then presents us all with gifts and cards that she requests we not read till Christmas. We are going to take family portraits tomorrow before heading back to Ho Chi Minh City. She also tells us Loc is coming by in the morning, he has a gift for us and wants to say goodbye. I miss Thao already.