kids day in ho chi minh

Volunteering with the children in Ben Tre is very rewarding and I really enjoy the time I spend with them. I was asked, along with Krista, to help with a kids day in the city. I thought that it would be a lot of fun - and it was- but it wasn't without its Vietnam charm.

Sixty children from the countryside were being brought in to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time ever. What an exciting event. The children were going to leave their community center at 04:30 to arrive in HCMC at around 09:00. A collection of volunteers including myself and Krista were to meet them at the zoo at that time. All volunteers were asked to bring something for the children that day (a snack, an activity etc...). We were asked to provide water bottles for all of the children (a seemingly small task). Krista and I arranged for water bottles to be brought to the zoo for all of the children. We wanted each child to have 5oomL of water to carry with them at the zoo. Simple, right? Nope. What was delivered to the park were two giant 10 L water jugs (Very portable - exactly what you want to walk around the zoo with). Needless to say, there was some sort of miss-communication and it wasn't going to be possible to walk around with the big jugs all day. This meant that we needed to send someone who spoke Vietnamese to get the type of water bottles that we wanted and we also needed a volunteer to babysit 20L of water while we walked around the park. Brilliant.

The zoo itself was hard for me because I have mixed feelings about creatures in captivity (I've been known to cry at marineland...) but I thought I would be a good sport and suck it up for the kids. It definitely wasn't a great experience for me but the kids seemed to like it. I will not get into the small ponds with too many crocodiles, or the elephants on chains...but I will discuss the barfing children because it brings a perplexing topic to the surface for me.

We are at the zoo and there are several children who are not feeling well, one of which is in my smaller group. As we round the bend to the 'petting zoo' (I think 'crazy-little-goats-running-around-in-an-enclosed-space' would be a better name) this little girl turns and barfs in the grass. I am concerned so I stop and ask her if she is okay - she stares at me blankly because she doesn't speak English. The other guide who speaks Vietnamese comes up and says, "She's fine, just go." Clearly she was not fine but I started to leave just as she started throwing up again. I suggested that maybe she take a rest and get some water but the other guide was bound and determined to get this poor child in the pen with the crazy goats. It took the child two more rounds of being sick in the grass before the other guide would take her to rest in the shade! I don't get it, talk about tough love! Anyway, I started to think about it and even at school the children come when they are sick...they never seem to stay at home...and then people walk around with face masks on...it just seems so bizarre to me. Anyway, she rested and got some water and joined the group again later in the morning.

We had a picnic lunch at the zoo (chicken, rice, vegetables and soup in a bag - yup, soup in a bag folks! They serve everything in a bag here! I've seen coffee in a bag, curry in a bag, soup in a bag, milk, tea, juice...you name it and you can get it in a bag. It is weird to see people drinking coffee through a straw from a clear plastic bag - I have yet to try it, but I have had soup from a bag and curry in a bag so I am not far off). Then we did a few activities with our groups and headed to the water park.

In my humble opinion combining mass groups of children and a water park is never a good idea. I am a teacher and my safety alarm goes into hyper space when I think that my students might even think about beeing near a possible safety hazard. You can just imagine how stressed I was about taking a large group of kids, who may or may not have ever been in the water before, to a water park in HCMC.

Now, I am not sure if anyone understands the difference in safety standards in Canada vs. Vietnam but I will admit they are vast. Gaping. Not even on the same spectrum. Coronary would be a good way to describe this phase of the day - BECAUSE I ALMOST HAD ONE!

I should also mention that most of the other volunteers on this trip don't manage large groups of children on a regular basis. There are only two of us teacher types and the rest are just kind souls.

First, unleash the kids into the change room to get changed (no one supervise this phase please, just let Cheratien panic because any child could be taken at anytime and short of counting every last one no one would really notice).

Second, tell the children to put their name lanyards around their necks before they go on the slides so we know who they are (watch Cheratien argue with other volunteers that this idea is insane because the kids might get the name tags caught on something and choke to death or get sucked into some sort of underwater filtration devise). (It was a hard battle but Krista and I finally convinced the supervisors this was a bad,bad,bad idea).

Third, tell the kids to take off the lanyards...and then go have fun! What the hell? No they can't just go off into the water park! You can't just let 60 kids, from the countryside, who might or might not know how to swim, go into the water park by themselves! AAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhh!
We need a buddy system! We need small groups! Make this nightmare stop!

Don't worry Folks, after some quick convincing the children were divided into small groups, put into the buddy system, given times to check in and then guided by their leaders into the water park! Phew!

The water park itself was an interesting place. Apparently there are no rule about what you wear at a water park here in HCMC. I saw people in jeans and hoodies, skirts, dress shirts, shorts and tops...you name it and they were wearing it (another safety hazard - but not my concern, all of our kids had appropriate attire which we provided for them). Now, there were some swim suits, but it definitely was not mandatory! I guess it is a good way to have fun and wash your clothes all at once. Multi-tasking in a whole new way. Also, there was live entertainment, think boy band feat cheesy karaoke, only entertaining because it is so bad you can't believe it is happening.

The day ended with a photo shoot. Now, we all have our idea of what a photo shoot is like but it is nothing like a photo shoot here. Add a tremendous amount of picture taking to what you are imagining and then add really silly posing now drag it out for an hour longer than necessary and you might be close to what it is like to be part of a photo shoot here in Saigon. After that the kids were on their way back home as happy as clams!

I am glad that I had a chance to be a part of this experience, although it was stressful at times, it was really rewarding and soooooo much fun to see the kids having fun.