Nghệ An

Beside the long bus ride, nghe an was freaken awesome. The city had a meeting with us to thank us and we came to thank them for giving us permission to visit the schools. And when the “wreckless” bus driver was speeding and we got pulled over, co giang called the mayor and the mayor told the police to let us go. THAT ITS SELF WAS PRETTY SICK! The power of networking :D

Although the city was pretty small, we got to visit some really cool places. The beach was awesome. At first I thought that all this white spots on the beach were Styrofoam and I was so disappointed but I took a closer look and it turned out to be shell :) hehe the boys played catch with an orange and all the girls just took pictures hehehe.

But the next day, we got to visit the schools and the kids are to die for. We went into groups of 3-4 to each classroom and played with the kids while others were counting how many jackets each classroom needed and passing them out. And in the classroom the kids sang for us and the teachers let them play this game called something dragon where the kids stand in a line and hold each others shirt and theres one kid who has to get through the first kids and tag everyone else. It was soooo funnnnnnny!!!

And finally the jackets came and the kids were so excited. We gave it to them, they tried them on and the took them off again cuz it was too hot during that day. Then we went in groups to visit 32 of the poorest families in the village and the pretty emotional hearing their hardships. And you will learn that the village is mostly populated by women because men have to go to the coal mines to make money. I am so glad that I was able to visit the families :)

Through all of our hard work and dedication, kids from nghe an are a little warmer than they were yesterday. The only thing that I wish was better was the quality of the jackets. “made in china…” no wonder. Some of the sleeves were sewn together so you cant even pull your arms to the sleeve, some of the zippers broke while we tried to zip the kids up, and some of the jackets were too big on the kids…but in an asian family, that’s good because itll last longer because you can ALWAYS grow into them. Hehehe