They are leaving!

This picture is of me being happy...with my girl Huong. This will soon change. Why? Because the kids are leaving! I'm just building up my relationship with the older kids at Baby Orphanage (Including my girl Huong) and now all the kids over the age of 6 are leaving. I am seriously upset about this. I'm totally going to miss her.
I didn't expect to fall for a kid so quickly here, especially since communication is limited, but seriously, when you spend your whole day with them, and they give you hugs, kisses and hold your hands you start to get attached. The last few days since school ended we have spent almost all of the day together. She gets me to sit on the steps while she puts my hair in pigtails, pushes my bangs back and slicks them to the side, tries to steal a comb from the 'mothers' to comb my hair smooth, and fails. (Also tried to find a nail clipper to give me a manicure... also didn't turn out as she wanted) She's 8, she gives me hugs, and she's beautiful.
They all leave on Monday. MONDAY. We are planning on doing something for all of the kids on "International Children's Day" (hear that mom? There IS a kids day... not just Mother's Day and Father's Day, haha). Now I guess we just need to make their special day bigger. The kids never get a chance to see outside the orphanage (I guess they freaked when they saw the ocean last month). I don't know what we are going to do, but it's going to be BIG.
Carrie (the volunteer who has been here for 8 or 9 months) is very upset too. The kids aren't just going to another orphanage in the area, they are going all the way to Hoi An (where we sometimes vacation on the weekend.) She has one girl that she absoloutely loves, and now she will have to travel for 2 hours on a bus and stay in a hotel to see her. Maybe I'll get a chance to go with her. Oh man I am very upset. I just am.

Smoothies

At home I enjoyed the occasional smoothie. It's cool, refreshing, and full of tasty fruit. Here in Tam Ky, every lunch is accompanied with a new fruit and ice concoction, some which are wonderful, others are just an adventure.

I enjoyed the following smoothies:
Banana and Yogurt
Grapefruit and Jackfruit
Banana and Pinapple
Apple and Pineapple
Orange and Pineapple
Carrot and Pineapple

I did not enjoy the following smoothies:
Banana and Tomato
Grapefruit and Tomato
Anything with Tomato

Note for those at home, do not put tomato in Smoothies. It may LOOK like strawberry... but it tastes very different.

Sweating

Last year at work when putting away the chairs with the bellstaff boy Jeff, I was complaining about sweating. He replied: Girls don't sweat Danielle, They glow.

If only Jeff could see me now.

The following is a list of the places on my body that sweat in Vietnam that dont usually in Canada:
Inner Forearm
Calves
Backs of my hands
Ear Lobes
Eye lids (eyebrows are only kinda useful)
Between my toes/ fingers
Under my Fingernails
Tops of my feet
Behind my ears
My Belly Button


Things that make me sweat that don't when I'm in Canada:
Waking up
Brushing my teeth
Drinking water
Drying off after my shower
Putting on my Bra/ any of my clothes
Walking down the stairs
Eating a snack
Hanging up laundry on the roof
Writing in my journal
Playing Cards
Typing at the computer

Althought I look forward to returning home and this excessive sweating stopping... I'm having a fun time in the moisture of it all.

Nha Trang

Nha Trang was a load of fun. It was our last weekend with the volunteers that are leaving this month and we wanted to make the best of it. We took a sleeper bus for 10 hours from Tam Ky all the way to Nha Trang. There was one bathroom stop, and some guy stole Carrie's shoes, she had to go up to him and take them back (with the rest of us cracking up in the background).
We arrived our hotel which was called "The Nice Hotel" at about 6am, found a room, crashed for about another 6 hours, then spent the day at the beach. We parasailed, improved our tans and had a nice relaxing evening.
Our second day, we went to a water park. We went in a cable car over the ocean, spent most of the day sliding down slides as "our own little family". We all seemed to walk out of the water park with injuries, I bit my lip, Jenny had a million bug bites, Cat smashed her head off the slide... and I think we all had perma-wedgies. It was a good time.
From there, we got to go to the 'dry rides' which were like, roller coasters, carosels and other amusement park rides. Bumper cars were my fave! I also rode the mechanical bull successfully but I'm sure I looked petrified. Tam seemed bored, Rosie laughed her head off and I think my eyes popped out of my head as I repeated 'I dont want to jump off... just stop, PLEASE'. The bull took a minute and a half to listen.
We went to a fire show on Saturday night, which was pretty cool, danced to an obscene amount of techno and got home to the Nice Hotel pretty late. Shopping and getting my haircut were the plans for the next morning. Big goals, which I did accomplish.
Getting my hair cut was an interesting process. I mean, I know its just hair, and mine grows fast enough but I was still a little nervous. My hairdresser pulled out a few pictures until I found one I moderately liked and told her 'please dont cut my bangs too short, I have a cowlick and It will stick up funny.' (or I pointed at my bangs and said 'not short, sticks up! sticks up!) she laughed and said 'same same' and made her cowlick stick straight up. This reassured me that she understood. I had the longest, best head wash of life. She scrubbed, rinsed, scrubbed, scratched and (weirdly enough) washed inside my ears. I'm not sure what I think about the ear scrub, but it was kinda funny. My hair turned out just fine (all of you that were so concerned for me).
It was a nice break, but today we are back to work!

Orphanage Time

Kids are cool. I'm learnign some new clapping games from the older kids at Home of Affection, learning to deal with rejection from Kieu (from Baby Orphanage, aka B.O.) and starting to make a bond with a few other kids. I had a hard day on Tuesday with Kieu as she was totally ignoring me and pulling away if I tried to hold her hand or anything, and that was very tough for me.
Wednesday was a totally different thing altogether, I went back to where she stays and we were having a great time. The 4 of the little orphan girls and me, running around, laughing; I was chasing them and tickling them and they were just laughing their heads off at everything I did. It was a great feeling. Even the little girl we call 'the non expression girl' (Kieu's friend who is new to the orphanage and still finding her place) was giggling as I wiggled my fingers at her, threatening to tickle.
The next day I hung out with my friend Huong, who I think is realizing that she is my fave. I was talking to Carrie about her, and apparently she doesn't get a lot of attention from the volunteers because she is older (hence, less cute) but I think she's amazing! She was helping me put away toys when I had to leave, and gave my bike a push to get me going as I peddled away.
I'm very excited that starting this week, the kids will be on their summer break so I will get to see her and the other school children every day. I'm sure it will get tiring, but I'm very excited.

Here is a random compilation of some pictures from a few of our trips, Patrick's haircut and lot of the children.

Howdy Strangers!

I know, I know its been too long, but it's hard when you are as busy as us. We started out the week on Tuesday with a crazy free trip that ended up being just about opposite of what we were expecting. The travel agent said there would be mountains, waterfalls and that they would be taking pictures of us to put in some sort of magazine (hence having it be free), but in reality we had to get all snazzy-ed up to drive a few hours up a mountain, drink some tea, get rained on and eat some crazy food with the local tribe. I found out later that the 'getting rained on' was during an opening ceremony so that the tribe's home would start inviting tourists to come and experience their life. We got all snazzy-ed up because the people we were eating our dinner with were the local leaders and very important people.

A few emotions I went through:
I was very pissed that when the tour directors gave the rest of us rain gear (plastic bags with hoods) they neglected Tam, because he looks Vietnamese and they assumed he was our translator. He said he didn't care, but it fully bothered me.

The food was interesting. We drank some really strong wine made from mulbery; I ateg some sort of beef, found out later it was wild boar; and ate some sort of white meat, guessed it was chicken, my suspicions were correct... which I found out when I nearly chomped down on it's foot, talons and all.

I'm off to make up some photo albums and see if I can upload them to here.

Parade Day

We got a chance to get to know the volunteers in Da Nang a little better this weekend. We drove up to visit them, spent a night in Da Nang then went to Hoi An and spent a night there. We just got back a few hours ago and I'm very tired. I ate a lot of Western food this weekend. They do fries very well but burger's aren't always the best (so salty that I now have canker sores) boo. I know branching out and eating new things is what I'm supposed to do, but you really start to crave familiar things sometimes. I would do some extreme things for a good plate of nachos right now.
We visited Da Nang's Social Support which was a really neat orphanage. Basically, since begging is illegal in Vietnam, they take beggers and put them in a place called 'Social Support'. It's pretty self sustainable, with gardens and stuff, and the people look after each other a lot. It was a very hard place for me to be though because it was drastically different from any of our orphanages. Most people there had mental and physical challenges and they didn't have a lot of people to take care of them. I was very shocked and a little upset at first, but when I saw them taking care of each other, I was comforted.
We left and went to Hoi An, spent some of the night at the beach where I played rock, paper, scissors with a new friend. (The kids at the orphanage have an extreme version of rock paper scissors, I appreciate it). Today we woke up, went to the beach and stayed there till it was too cloudy and looked like it might rain. (Rosie got a great tan and I'm a touch jealous).
We came home and there was a big parade going right in front of our place, I was too lazy to go downstairs but Catrina and I sat on the balcony doing Sudokus and watching the parade from above.
I'm off to bed as I must work with children again in a matter of 8 hours and I need to wash some sand out of my hair and other various places.