From: Christina_N._Tran.LAX1B@xerox.com
Subject: Nhu'~ng -die^`u tro^ng tha^'y ma` -dau -do''n lo`ng...
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
X-NS-Transport-ID: 0000AA00AA317A112EE3
Date: 7 Jan 93 21:45:07 GMT

 Hi everyone,

A friend of mine  just came back from VN.  Her trip report is so touching that
i've asked her permission to share it with you.

/tn

ps. ma^'y ho^m nay tro'`i cali buo^`n qua'.  Co' le~ tro'`i cu~ng -dang kho'c
cho tha^n pha^.n cu?a ca'c em be' mo^` co^i ta.i VN.

---------- report begins-------

 f As we (...) have seen , life  around Saigon is  much  better than in the
Central parst of the country . People make  money  faster and  easier .
Children in the Saigon streets wear better clothes , they look heathier than
the kids we saw  in Hue . We thought that the children in Hue  needed more help
, that's why we gave  the money to  Co nhi vien Duc Anh instead of  co nhi vien
Bien Hoa.

 f The address of " Co nhi vien Tay loc ..." that you  folks gave us , now
is the  Training School  for  The Party member. It took us about 3hrs to find
Su co MT . She  now manages  an orphanage  with about  35 orphans and a
preschool  with 200  children   in  an old  small  pagoda , near  lang Khai
dinh .  Some one offered her  few ounces of gold to by a Honda motorcycle , she
used the gold to buy  building materials , and people around there  are helping
her build another buiding to expand the orphanage .
  f Vien  Duc Anh was  a big  orphanage  ,  the biggest in the Central
with  many  well  equipped   facilities . Many  hundreds of homless  children
nested there . Now , 3/4 of the  place has been taken away .  All the nuns were
sent home.  Children therefor not much left , most of them  are handicap . The
nuns ( about 7 ) now earn their livings by embroildering . They also have  a
preschool with about  150 kids.
 	Both   Preschools (... )  can only  accept children under 5 years old.
The Government worries about  their  "influence" on the  ""chau ngoan Bac/  Ho
""  !. Su co MT and Soeur C.     send  their thanks to you folks for helping
them  help the children . They promised to send some pictures of the kids . To
me , they are truly Angels . Your money sure  brought some  warmth to our
little friends in the cold winter of Hue .
  BUT ,  visitting those orphanages still  gave us   smiles and warm
feelings . When we came to Quang tri ,  our hearts were broken .  I would like
to share  with you some " scenes " that I 'd seen . I'm sorry if it bothers
you.
Well , we came to Quang tri  in the  afternoon . It was cold . It was raining
heavily. On the road , we saw 2 children  about 6,7 years old  carrying (
khieng) a bundle of firewood , perhaps  they headed to the market . Their
clothes  were torn and dirty . When we came to the village of Tri Buu , we met
a group of  kids coming back from school , they walked bare foot on the  red
muddy road .They  covered themselves from the rain with pieces of  nylon .
Their clothes were dirty  worn out pyjamas . No sweaters .No shoes. No
umbrellas.
That 's only few of them that we'd  seen. How many hundreds -or thousands more
?!
   Perhaps most of us remember that Quang Tri was flattened in the Summer of
1972 ( mua he do lua ) . Many people  moved to other better places . Many did
not want to leave the homeland . They came back and rebuilt their homes from
dirt . The communism is still very strong there .That why their lives are so
hard .
 Talking to my brother , who is  the Pastor of the villages , I learned that
many  kids  quit school  after 5th grade- even the highschool is only 2 km
away. , they have to help their parents  earn some money (  catch fish , birds,
frogs ;collecting firewood ; planting vegetables ) .  Even my brother , he has
a "family of pig ", he plants hundreds of banana trees around the church ! (
isn't it funny ?  ).  He said a few dollars mean a lot to those poor kids . 1
dollar a month can encourage  a kid to  keep going to school . A set of cloth
costs about  $2 , and a kid needs only 1 or 2 sets a year .
 The trip back to my hometown  gave me quite a few sleepless night . It also
gave me the courage  to ask you all  a  favor :
  On our next charity meeting, please  share a few of your spare changes to the
kids of my brother's  villages ' kids .  Again , I did not ask for help for the
churches nor for my brother .  I only want  us to help the  kids , through my
brother .
  If your kids want to put away some good clothes, shoes , please keep it . I
plan to  make another trip next year .
...

 	Thanks for reading and sharing .

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