juliefranck

So last weekend a group of us went by bus to a small town a few hours south of Hanoi, to help clean up the area after having been severely flooded a couple of weeks ago. After a three and a half hour bus ride with way too many people and way too much puking (yes I know, disgusting, but I guess the Vietnamese suffer more from motion sickness than we do..) we finally arrived in this village which I do not remember the name of. We started off with a lunch which included snail, pig intestines and weird looking fishy things, and got a chance to use the excellent toilet facilities - hole in the ground. After this first impression I was somewhat demotivated and not very excited to see where we would be staying. ... read more

I have now been working at the hospital for 2 weeks, and it is not at all what I expected. It has actually been kind of a let down. Although I was told I would be teaching English, our job consists of playing with the kids. But there are not enough children, and the ones that are there are either too young or too sick. On a typical day we are 8 volunteers who sit and look at three 4 year old kids who are sitting and drawing with their parents. The main problem is that we cannot communicate with them, neither the kids or the parents, and it feels strange to just sit and stare at a kid who is playing with his mother. So I have asked our coordinator to arrange a meeting with ... read more

At the mid-autumn festival party on Thursday I met a woman who invited me to a 'toy fair'. So on Sunday night we met up with her and her sister and went to this fair. There were SO many people, it was impossible to move, but the atmosphere was really fun to experience and Anh (the woman who took us there) bought me a key chain :) When we finally managed to walk through the whole market we sat down and had the traditional fruit salad drink, which was very good. Because of the mid-autumn festival (which lasts all week apparently) there is so much going on in the country right now. Monday morning we were told that we had to organize another mid-autumn party at the hospital, and that the Danish girls had to perform ... read more

This week was spent at the Youth House (house for short-term volunteers) making masks. Because of the lack of communication and SJ's organizational skills we didn't really know what we were making them for, but we made about a billion and one masks each! Thursday we started realizing that we were celebrating the 'mid-autumn festival' - a national Vietnamese holiday for children. All the SJ volunteers, Vietnamese and international, went by bus to a centre for disabled children in the "country side" (looks exactly like Hanoi) to celebrate this holiday and help set up for the party. The bus ride was highly entertaining as everyone was singing songs from their own countries. We managed to get out of singing a Danish one though. Before going to the centre a group of us went to a kindergarden ... read more

Hello everyone! I'm sorry that it took so long for me to write, but we have been quite busy the last few days. We had three days of introduction, where we went on walking trips around the city. Our work at the hospital doesn't start till tomorrow. I can't wait! The house we are staying in is quite nice. It is in a quiet, fairly rich neighbourhood so it is safe to walk around at night as well. We are about 15 minutes from the centre by bus. The only problem here is the heat! I had to stay home today because I did not feel well. There is absolutely nowhere to go to cool down and our room is boiling! So my new favourite place in the whole world is the pool! Being forced in ... read more