Free Weekend in Hue

This weekend the group is enjoying the first of two "free" weekends. Folks are catching up on their independent projects, reading for Monday, going out on the town, and today just hanging out inside as its pouring rain. Saturday was the beach day it seems. From the hotel, it takes about 20 minutes by cab to get out to a quiet, peaceful beach. Shop owners have set up little shelters like this one that they rent to beach goers for about $1/hr. They also provide cold beer, fresh grilled squid or crab and other seafood, and inner tubes for floating around in the sea.

On Friday, a smaller detachment headed out in the morning to an orphanage run by a famous Buddhist nun at Duc Son Pagoda. Thich Co Minh Tam has been helping both orphaned and disadvantaged as well as disabled kids through her network of orphanages for over 45 years now. She started caring for sick and poor children before the end of the war in 1975 and has continued her work despite some resistance just after 1975 from the central government. That resistance has faded now, and she is growing full steam ahead, having also just started a series of Head Start programs for poor kids in the countryside so they can perform up to par with more advantaged kids when they enter first grade. Anna Nguyen is going to devote her project research time at Duc Son with these orphans. Some, such as this baby, suffer from illnesses related to exposure to dioxin while in the womb. Two generations now since the end of the war, and this byproduct of the chemicals sprayed on Vietnam's forests continues to affect prenatal development, especially in central Vietnam. Co Minh Tam says this child will receive a surgery to fix the cleft palate in another year when she is a little older.

Here is the cafeteria for the children. Children here get three square meals a day and before eating sing a kind of Buddhist blessing very similar to what you might expect in a Catholic or other faith-based school before every meal. We didn't stay for lunch but instead headed back to the hotel. The children seen here are the largest group at the orphanage ages 7-9. About one hundred children were orphaned when massive floods hit the area in 199. Flood waters reached to the second story of the pagoda and orphanage. Their parents brought them here then tried to go back and rescue others.

On Friday afternoon, Hong Anh, John Lam, Connie Chu and Hue Pham attended the first of four cooking classes at a nearby restaurant. Hue is focusing her independent project on the history of Hue's special dishes. Week Three is the second of our three "middle weeks" where are basically sticking around Hue, having classes, and working on projects. At the end of Week Four we'll head north to the former demilitarized zone and visit sites most heavily damaged by the bombing and fighting.