Vietnam Day 1 – A visit to the orphanage

Arrived in Vietnam and spent the first day at an orphanage and living facility.  It was quite sad to see the faces of the children, the mentally ill and physically disabled that called this place home.  They live beyond poverty in some of the saddest and most barren places you could imagine.  The place used to be a jail but now it houses babies, kids, mentally and phyiscally handicapped people.  The only thing they have to look forward to are infrequent meals and the occasional visitor.

This little boy has aids.  He is kept alone.  He cannot play with other little boys or girls but he is always very happy and smiling.  We gave him this candy and he did not know what to do with it.

This little boy sits behind the steel bars in his crib.  The walls are white and there are no toys here.  Just the cribs, a little food.  Many of the babies sleep right on the floor.

 

This cute little girl is the youngest in a family of four.  All the kids are left here in the orphanage but they were so cute and happy.

Happy faces.  Happy times in a  very poor place.

This was the oldest brother of the family of four that was left abandoned.  You could tell he was the oldest brother because he kept taking care of his brothers and sisters.

Here they are.  They are all so cute.  I wonder if anyone will adopt all of them.  I hope they don’t get split up.

Sometimes it is hard to tell the little boys from the girls because they give them all the same hair cuts.  They just shave off all of their hair.

There are three parts of the facility –  one for the mentally instable, one for the physically disabled and one for the kids and babies.  As we drive up we saw the mentally disabled jail that they put the mentally instable people in.  This guy was intently staring at us.  He was very nice and waved and was very happy with the very little we gave him.  It’s sad that he must live like a prisoner everyday for the rest of his life and he did nothing wrong.

This is a lady.  She sits on the hard cement everyday.  The only thing she has to look forward to is meals that come all too infrequently.

This was the happiest boy there.  He came up to us immediately and smiled the whole time.  He could not walk but dragged himself along the ground.  When we left he dragged himself across the building to thank us and wave goodbye,

She asked me to take a picture of her.  When I showed it to her, she asked me to give her a copy of it.  I need to make sure I do that.  In fact I should give them all the pictures.  They probably have no pictures of themselves in their lives.  Imagine how that must feel like.

Overcome with grief, or perhaps because a respite in it this lady broke down in tears when she received her small gift which was just a little bit of candy.  She will never leave this place.  There is no where else for her to go.

No matter what we did, we could not get this boy to smile.  He had a sadness inside him.

This baby sat in her crib behind barred windows and the steel bars on her crib.  So many barriers between her and others.

The kids cheered and sat in a row to greet us when we arrived.  They were cute and so well behaved.

 

This little boy was shy.  Very shy but he finally took a photo for us.