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My second day at Peace House consisted of some orientation sessions to introduce us to Vietnam and our volunteer projects. We were given a Vietnamese language lesson which was really helpful but absolutely hilarious as the pronunciation is really difficult so we all just kept continuously repeating the same word until we were given the nod by the teacher. Bao Nhieu (how much?) has been the most useful phrase I have learnt so far, although we accidentally asked a taxi driver a similar phrase- Ban bao nhieu tuoi? Which mean how old are you!! He actually gave us his age!
We were also given a lesson in Vietnamese culture- there are so many rules! For example, you should never leave your chopsticks in your rice as it is a symbol of death, as is wearing a white headband. You should never take a photo of a pregnant woman or a group of three people as it is considered bad luck, and you must not wear sleeveless tops to a temple... etc!
I was then given an introductory talk about my volunteer project- I will be working at a day care centre for children called Peace Village. The children all have disabilities resulting from second or third generation effects of Agent Orange, a form of chemical warfare used by the Americans in the Vietnam War. I will be there 8am-4pm, but with a 3 hour lunch break- so the staff can sleep!! My role will be to play with the children, help out at mealtimes and help run various activities. I am really looking forward to starting, but I have heard from some of the other volunteers that the staff at the centre can be disinterested and ignore you :( I have also been prepared to see some rough handling of the children; I hope this will not be the case but I'll have to wait and see...
We also walked to the market at the local village of Toy Mo. It was, umm.. interesting! The animals all looked a bit mangy and were crammed in cages together, and there were fish in a very shallow pool of water, accompanied by a huge bloody chopping board with fish guts everywhere! All the stalls were together under a low sheet of tarpaulin, so the smell was stifling- we got out pretty quickly! The were loads of strange looking fruit and veg which I'd really like to find out about. For example, there was a vegetable about 1.5m long, which looked like a cucumber on steroids! Being a bit further out of Hanoi, we attract a more attention in Toy Mo; wherever we walk we get shy shouts of 'Hello' from the village children, which is really sweet.
Everything is so cheap in Vietnam. One of the volunteers bought a packet a cigarettes from a shop in the village for the equivalent of $0.25!
In the late afternoon we went to the BigC, the Vietnamese equivalent of Walmart. It was really interesting experience. For starters, you had to take you purse out of your bag and then have your bag heat-wrapped in plastic for security, and you couldn't leave the store without having your purchases checked and your receipt stamped. Some of the food on offer was quite unusual- for example, we found some seaweed flavoured pringles!! I couldn't resist my curiosity so I bought some! Will let you know how they taste!
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