{"id":71,"date":"2012-08-07T19:07:49","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T19:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/?page_id=71"},"modified":"2020-12-06T18:09:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T18:09:59","slug":"vhp-2012-project-day-1-7-orphanages-in-ho-chi-minh-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Day 1-7, Orphanages in Ho Chi Minh City"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We braved a 20+ hour flight from Chicago O’Hare Airport to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; so by the time we got to our hotel, we were exhausted. The first few days were spent adjusting to the time changes and humid weather, as well as sight-seeing some popular tourist locations in the city.<\/p>\n

What a great culture shock. Narrow, uneven streets. Busy street vendors everywhere you go. Crazy, congested traffic filled with moped riders, taxis, and cars who rarely stay in their respective lanes. In fact, the main mode of transportation in Vietnam are mopeds seeing that almost everyone has one. Crossing the streets in the city was quite tricky with mopeds and taxis passing around us, but by the end of the trip, we were pros at it. We visited the local marketplace, Ben Thanh, where a few of us bargained our way for cheap dresses, keepsakes, bags, and shoes. The food in Vietnam is absolutely delicious: it is better than Madison’s own popular Saigon Noodles Restaurant but a quarter of its price.<\/p>\n

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Our volunteer efforts truly began on the fifth day when we visited the location of last summer’s project, Mai Tam House of Hope. This three-story house shelters young individuals who are, or whose parents are, affected by HIV. About 80% of the children in this shelter is affected by HIV. There is another shelter that houses more serious cases of HIV, and this Mai Tam house is the only orphanage that allows volunteers to stop by. The shelter is ran by volunteer women who provide around-the-clock care for these youngsters; they are not paid and their efforts are completely voluntary. VHP visited a Co-Op market in the city to purchase a few materials such as diapers, milk, and rice which was donated for the orphanage. This shelter is quite equipped with aid and support, having connections to volunteer doctors  and hospitals to sustain the children’s health. We spent a few hours playing with the energetic, adorable children before heading back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s visit back to the Mai Tam House and another orphanage in District 3.   <\/p>\n

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The next day, we visited an all-boys orphanage called Diem Tu Van Cong Dong. Same as we did with the Mai Tam House, we stopped by the local Co-Op to purchase supplies for the orphanage. Here, the children are older than at the Mai Tam House, ages ranging from 7 to 17 years old. We were able to interact with the children, and most of them knew basic English. The boys knew how to count in English and spoke basic, conversational English. The children at this orphanage attend school and the older boys have vocational education. We played interactive games with the boys before ending our day at the Mai Tam House. <\/p>\n

We spent our last days in Ho Chi Minh City visiting one last orphanage in District 2, which is ran by the Dieu Giac Temple. This four-story orphanage shelters infants to young adults. In comparison to the other orphanages we visited, this one is much larger in size and capacity. It is tucked away from the crowded city, located in a district that is currently being rebuilt.<\/p>\n

Next on the schedule: a day in Da Nang and Hoi An before arriving at this summer’s project location!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/68"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietnamhealthproject.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}