my vietnam reflection


The 8days, 7 Nights of Service Learning trip to Vietnam definitely did not begin and end just there. Many preparations and pre- trip trainings were done, simply to ensure that all the participating guides were prepared and ready for what we could expect there, what we were going to do and what the short change of lifestyle would be like. These preparations definitely helped us and kept us prepared for the challenging, yet fun and enriching trip that was to come by.

The learning outcomes of this service learning was for us to understand, and experience the Vietnamese culture and lifestyle, develop a greater sense of compassion for the less privileged, foster a stronger bond between the participant through shared experiences and powerful visuals, ingrain a deeper aspect for character development, and reinforce on core values such as responsipility, compassion, perseverance and integrity. This service learning trip also served as a platform for the guides to bring out the leadership talents in them.

The four days spent at the Hy Vong School were truly meaningful. Hy Vong School provides hearing- impaired children with bold cultural and vocational education to help become skilful, confident, well-mannered adults capable of performing their roles in society.
For the first day, we had a mini tour around the school. During the short period where we were allowed to sit and observe the classes, I realized how much the teachers had to patiently attend to their students. Most of the students aged about 5 to 18, had difficulty speaking or hearing.
The classes were much smaller compared to Singapore’s normal school. They had about 5-10 students per class, and I believe that it’s because the teachers needed to spend more attention on individual students due to their special needs.
We also carried out our lesson as planned however, made lots of amendments to suit the situation. This was because, majority of the kids did not know English at all; not even a ‘Hello’. This made it really difficult for us to communicate with the Vietnamese kids. Still, we did not give up! Thankfully, our translators could help us translate almost accurately and with little complications, our lesson was successfully carried out.
For the subsequent days, we went to the supermarket in the morning to purchase food items for the school’s lunch. This was a rather challenging, yet fun task as we had to search for the items given to our individual teams. Being unable to understand Vietnamese, we had to ensure we did not pick the wrong items. During then, we learnt simple words in Vietnamese like pork is ‘heo’ and chicken is ‘gha’.
When it was our turn one of the days, we carried out the game we planned. Knowing that it was not easy to communicate with the kids, we simplified our game to ‘London bridge’. I believe that many of them did enjoy the game as laughters and smiles were filled at the moment.
During one time there, we were allocated to do area cleaning too. I felt that area cleaning was rather fun as we got the chance to communicate with the kids there. We swept and mopped the floors and wiped the windows. I was rather satisfied cleaning the windows to my best.

Our team was allocated to help out at the kitchen for a day. It was really fun working in the kitchen as we did different roles of cutting and peeling, and the staff were really friendly. We were to prepare food to cook chicken stew. However when we were to clean the chicken, we realized that we had bought duck instead! A moment of panic among us soon calmed the moment the staff said (in Vietnamese), ‘it’s ok, we can cook duck curry instead. Being able to make quick changes is something that we should learn and apply in life in cases necessary.
After meals, the Henderson team washed dishes for 2 days. At first we were giving looks that assured everyone the job was disgusting and horrible. However, working as a team, we sang songs to let time pass and we started enjoying our job. Before we knew, all the washing was done!
Other than the duties allocated to us, we helped the other teams by cooperating and helping the kids during the other activities. As we had only 2 or 3 translators, we often managed the communication by ourselves by using hand signs.
Through those four days, we made lots of knew friends, and enjoyed ourselves very much. I am rather sure that even if the kids can’t remember the English words we taught them, the happiness we brought to them was far more appreciated and satisfying.

One of the days, we visited the Dieu Giac Orphanage which shelters and cares for over 120 abandoned, orphaned children. The kids range from several months to 18 years of age. The children of the orphanage are taken care by a group of Buddhist nuns. Upon arriving at the orphanage we had a short tour around and then interacted with the kids. After lunch, the books, that we had shopped for earlier, were ‘loan’ out to the kids and we helped them with the readings. Many of them were entertained by the colours and pictures on the books. Later, the books were given out to them. The short few hours spent there was a joy to me as I met up with my buddies and the buddies of the guides who came last year.

After visiting the Dieu Giac Orphanage, we went to the Phu My orphanage. This orphanage took care of kids who were mentally and physically handicapped. They took care of about 600 kids where about 200 of them were bed ridden. As we took a tour around the school, many of us were heart broken by what we saw. Out there, there are so many people struggling just to live. At that moment, everything seemed so unimportant and useless to me. Buying the latest handphone? Keeping up to latest fashion? Buying a brand new sony camera? Everything seemed so unnecessary to me. Out there where people are struggling to live, here in Singapore people take their lives for granted and attempt suicides for meaningless reasons such as losing your boy friend, having attained bad results, being cheated by a good friend.
I realized the importance of life and that we should treasure every moment of it. No one chose how they wanted to be born. So why look on the negative sides, when there’s always a brighter side of life? (:
Though the kids didn’t really talk, but just their stationary motion has made me think through and realize a lot.

During our stay in Vietnam, we did some city tour to the central post office, nothedram cathedral, war remanants museum and cu chi tunnel. Saigon had a rather big central post office. The Notherdram cathedral was rather crowded at service hours and the church service in Vietnam was only 45 minutes, much shorter than that in Singapore, of 3 hours. The part of the museum that impacted me most was reading on the Agent Orange. Till today, many people are still affected by the Agent Orange that occurred during the war. It was a toxin released in the air that affected the people. It causes them to be born deformed, causes illnesses and diseases. I do believe that some of the kids in the Phu My orphanage were indirect victims of the Agent Orange. The Cu Chi tunnel was a tiring drive there, but fun experience crawling through the tunnel.

We also did shopping at the famous Ben Than market and the night market, where everything was so cheap and we could bargain for even lower prices. I felt that bargaining was fun as we do not really get to bargain so much in Singapore. I also felt that bargaining helps increase our self confidence in talking to people we have never met before.

I really enjoyed and learnt a lot from this trip, not only through the activities but also through my peers. I would really like to thank everyone for making this trip a meaningful and enjoyable one for me. Not forgetting the teachers, instructors and of course our translators!



honestly, last year's was more enjoyable(:
still, learning always goes on.



i miss pretty mamma and nhat ):

Labels: vn reflection