Life in the Orphanage - Vignettes

This is a playground inside the orphanage grounds. Behind the trees are the buildings where the older kids live.

Early morning, the babies are starting to wake up. The floor has just been washed. For now, it's quiet.

This is the courtyard. The door to the baby room is in the top right hand corner. The plaque in the middle says that the building was built in 1997 by an organization of Australian veterans from the Vietnam war. Australians and New Zealanders were stationed in the Ba Ria area during the war.

An Australian gentleman was here in Ba Ria during the war, and has since spent much time and effort on charitable works in this area. He has recently come to Vietnam with a container full of supplies for orphanages all along this coast. He has a blog: dennisedwardsvietnam.blogspot.com chronicalling his trip. At the bottom, he has posted pictures from 1969, plus a few pictures of the baby room from a trip in 2006. If you poke around his postings, you will also see a picture of Molly and I.

In the afternoons, we often sit in the corridor. A breeze flows through, and feels cool. A nanny will bring the toddlers out for some fresh air. They love getting out - they are always trying to escape out the door!

There is lots of laundry to do every day. Hoang said that she would miss us when we go back to Canada, because we helped fold baby clothes with her.

Here is the entrance to the orphanage grounds. It is surrounded by a wall, and there are two caretakers that man the gate. Sometimes babies are left at the gate, so the two gentlemen are often the ones who find them first.

Uncle Nathan sat down on the mat one day, and got MOBBED by babies. They love him. Molly loves him.

This is a picture from nap-time. Hanh relaxes against the wall, while rocking one crib with her foot, and pulling on a tether attached to another crib. Molly is in the crib under her foot.

An afternoon Vietnamese lesson with Thuy and Merel. Nhan is just auditing the class.

One day in early April, some volunteers showed up and took everything out of the baby room, washed the floor, and scrubbed all the cribs down in the courtyard. We moved all the babies to a meeting room next door for the morning. Spring cleaning!




Often, some of the older girls will come into the baby room to help out. Other times, both girls and boys will come in just to hang out and play. The babies love the attention.