THE TUNNELS

Wow. Today has been such an eye opener for all of us. This morning, we visited a care center in Saigon. The care center was built to take in autistic kids during the day, because there aren't many places care places in the area with workers that know how to take care of special needs and autistic children.

  The children ranged from babies to around 12 years old. Many of the children that came to the center come from poor families and some come from lower middle class in Vietnam. 

  We had the opportunity to visit the different rooms and interact with the kids. They were so precious and they loved the attention that we gave them. 

  One of the children that I got to interact with was an eight year old with cerebral palsy and was also severely malnourished. She was so bony and was so weak that she couldn't keep her head up. I had to hold her head. It was so heartbreaking.

As I said before, seeing the need for centers like this in Vietnam...it just makes me wanna drop everything and give my help everyday. 

  When we got to see the older children, they were hanging and climbing all over us and were all so interested in our cameras! They loved seeing their faces. 

When lunchtime came around, our group volunteered to help feed the children. We were all surprised at how much food that they were served. It was a fairly big bowl filled with rice and meat or a meat soup. We were told later that that usually was the biggest meal they would get that day, so that's why they were served so much. 

As you can see, from the expressions of the children...it was a fight to get all that food in them. Bethany's child was so frustrated with her that he threw his bowl 3 times. She had a lot of rice on her after that. 

  In the afternoon we visited The Tunnels. It was a tourist site that gave you information about tunnels underground that were used in the Vietnam war. It was so scary inside. The tunnels go for miles underground and mostly the kids did it. I never want to do that again, I literally thought I was going to pass out. We were underground in a small tunnel so small that you had to crawl and it was so hot and humid with no air down there. 

  For dinner, we went to a restaraunt where everyone had their own hot pot and there was a conveyor belt with meats and veggies to put in. It was fun! I put ramen, crab and other stuff in it. Very cool...

  Tomorrow morning we have to wake up at 3:30am to leave at 4:00am. We are flying to Nha Trang I think in the morning...its about a two hour flight. And once we're there we are going to visit another orphanage!

Here's a Pho picture. The mainland food of Vietnam. Despite Americans prononciation it's pronounced FUH. 

Talk to you tomorrow!! Comment and leave a little love =) 

Blessings!!