In the midst of the tornado that is my life in Vietnam, I have found that it is really difficult, after long days of classes and various forms of helping others, to express completely my thoughts on the volunteer work that we are doing here in Danang. Thus, apologies in advance if blog entries of this nature seem fragmented or incomprehensive;I think that I am learning by experience that such is the nature of service oriented work--for all that you think you know, or that you think will work to help others attain their goals, you are most likely misguided although well intentioned, perpetually unprepared after time spent meticulously planning. At the end of each day, it is impossible to gauge whether or not it was a good one or bad one in terms of the quality or the impact of the work that was done. As a means of staying sane and motivated while volunteering, I have found the yin yang theory, an aspect of Eastern philosophy we learned about in our culture class, to be very helpful in recognizing distinctions of this nature (good/bad, right/wrong, success/failure) as fluid and interdependent categories. For example, when the lesson we chose for our English class happened to be a bust,I found the informal conversations I had with students after class to be extremely gratifying and overall, a much more effective means of teaching the skills they REALLY wanted to know, such as proper pronunciation and the contextual meanings of certain words. After class, I realized that this amazing teaching/learning experience could not have happened without having the preceding disaster class to compare it to. While I think that Kate BV (Before Vietnam, am I allowed to make titles of distinction like this for myself? Because I am going to, whether or not it is acceptable) would have over-analyzed and lamented over every aspect of the class that was not perfectly executed, Kate IV (In Vietnam, if you have not caught on...) is satisfied and proud of any victories, be they small and/or partial, that come her way. I recently read a great article and I think that the author, Courtney Martin, states exactly what I am learning about service better than I ever could: "We must accept that we will fail and try anyway, try to fail always more exquisitely, more honestly, more effectively. We must wake up in the morning naively believing in the power of our own dreams and the potential of our own gifts, and go to bed exhausted and determined to do it all over again -- with maybe just a bit of a different tactic, a little less ego, a little more help."

Before coming to Vietnam, I was very apprehensive about how I would act as a volunteer, as I have no experience working with the elderly or with children with disabilities.I was also worried about how I would interact with the women at the Loving House and the children affected by Agent Orange without knowing their language. Although I try my hardest to be a very loving and caring person regardless of the challenges with which I am faced, I know that remaining patient and compassionate can be difficult when there is a significant language barrier that complicates(okay,let's be realistic, completely impedes) traditional forms of communication. However,as soon as we arrived at the Loving House for the first time, I knew that I had nothing to worry about or to be afraid of. The atmosphere of the place is very peaceful and made me think a lot about the eldercare facilities that I have visited back at home, most of which are filled with men and women just sitting around waiting to die. It really inspired me to know that the residents of the Loving House must work to support themselves; having a feeling of purpose in society is always important for reinforcing one’s self esteem, regardless of age (it was also comforting to know that the elderly would not be abandoned or forgotten when they could no longer work). Respect for older generations is an aspect of Vietnamese culture that really appeals to me and strikes me as very different from the way in which we treat our elders in the United States. We tend in America to treat the elderly as if they are children rather than as adults who have many more years of experience and wisdom than their caretakers. When I was painting one woman’s nails at the Loving House, she changed her mind about the color of nail polish she wanted about three or four times and did not hesitate to reprimand me when she thought I was doing a bad job. Her forthrightness reminded me that although I was doing her the service of painting her nails, my job was to do the task just as meticulously as she would have done for herself if she could. I hope that when I am older, someone will be around to humor my wishes and desires just as I found myself doing for this particular woman!

At the Agent Orange group home, the challenges faced by the children are much more shocking and readily apparent than the private troubles of the elderly men and women at the Loving House. However, despite the wide range of physical deformities and mental disabilities of the children, they greet us warmly each time we visit with big hugs and even bigger smiles. One of my favorite things I have noticed about Vietnamese culture is the willingness of the people to accept things as they are while also trying their hardest to make the best of the situation at hand.I have noticed this tendency time and again in both the way in which the children at the Agent Orange home act,for the most part, just like average kids, as well as more generally in the way in which the Vietnamese people are so friendly to Americans despite the relative historical proximity of brutal conflict between the two countries. While life might not always be perfect, the Vietnamese seem to always know how to emphasize the good parts instead of focusing all of their energy and attention on the more difficult or painful aspects of existence.

Below are some photos I took this past week at the Agent Orange group home. Each time we visit, we prepare some type of easy activity for the kids, such as games or simple arts and crafts. This past week, we helped them make and decorate paper lanterns in preparation for the party we are hosting at the group home next week in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the future, I hope to take more pictures of our activities at the Agent Orange home. However, it must be recognized that this is an extremely difficult task, considering that every time I take out my camera, gaggles of children want either to be photographed or to take photos themselves!

This girl was new to the AO group home and was hesitant about getting involved in the activity. After we started working on her lantern together, she got really into the project and started interacting with the other children for the first time.

An Artist Hard at Work!

Lanterns!

I thought my Dad might find this interesting...who knew the Prime Minister of Ireland came to the Agent Orange group home in Danang!

I hope this picture gives you some idea of the level of chaos at the AO group home...