Posted by Nhi, the group's guide while in Vietnam
A new day came. Everybody looked refreshed. We all were ready for a day full of children�s activities as June 1st is �Children�s Day� in Viet Nam: visit the children�s painting festival in the morning, celebrate the Children�s Day Party with sweet children at Street Children House in the afternoon, and take part in the music performance for children at Province Children House in the evening.
Leaving the hotel at 7:45 AM, we turned into the poetic Le Loi street riding merrily under the shade of trees, enjoying the fresh air. I drove my �steel horse� (meaning a motorbike) and the rest of the group was on their bikes forming a long line on the street as a group of working �aunties� traveled side by side on their way to work. Sometimes, people on the street looked at us with surprise and wonder and then gave us a smile.
Where we stopped there is a greenery park by the side of Perfume River. Hundreds of kids were sitting in groups on the grass. They looked so cute with one hand holding the paper while the other was running the tiny paint brush up and down, left and right as the pro painters do. Here and there, the US students were walking around. Jill, Angie, and I (three big babies) quickly joined a group of �tiny painters�. Sitting under the tree in the middle at the park, Caroline, Tara, Laura were chatting gaily. Further along the path, Galen and David were taking a walk around several groups of children. The theme of painting festival is �free the children�s imagination,� therefore the kids chose to bring the spaceship, star, sun, moon, and even the whole planet into their painting. Many of them picked up blue to paint the sky, earth, and the ocean. �You chose a very nice color, why don�t you choose the other ones?� I stopped, sat down by a young boy and asked. �Blue is a very pleasant color and it symbolizes peace and dream of discovering the world,� he replied and smiled. Leaving that boy, I stopped and kneeled next to two little cute girls working on their painting. It looks very simple with 2 colors: black and white and so many number tens. Trying to interpret the meaning of number ten, I was hardly successful with that. �What do the number tens mean?� I asked. �An excellent mark at school is ten: I want to be an excellent pupil and this is my dream.� Oh, it turns out simple but a 23-year-old person like me could barely find out.�
We left the painting festival when it was still going. Back at the hotel, we met to prepare for a singing performance with children in the evening. There were so many ideas that we hardly knew which songs should be chosen. However, we finally decided the introduction of each member�s name in Vietnamese. �Toi la...� means �I am�.�. We decided to start there first, and then sing three songs.
Time passed quickly and we were at Street Children House. There the kids sat neatly in rows. They could not cover their eagerness to see us coming. Some of them even got out of their seats, running to sit next to their favorite American teachers. The celebrations began with a couple of speeches by government officials and teachers, and then the teacher honored the kids who had achieved excellent study results in the year. As planned, we came to bring gifts and candies for the kids. But you know what? It actually ended up as a singing performance. The US students stood against the children audience and as usual, I was moving around to make sure the kids pay attention to our performance.
�Old MacDonald� was the first song we sang. Amazingly, this song made people laugh their heads off, especially when Jill, Caroline, Christ, and Angie imitated the sounds of a dog, goat, cow, and pig. A small game came up after the song. Children had to say the names of the animal they recognized in the song and imitated its sound. Who did it correctly would get a small gift. All of them were fighting to answer the questions and it took me so hard to pick up some. The Street Children House seemed to be bath in the laughing, chatting, and singing. I have never had such a day in my childhood so to see the kids laughing and being happy on the Children�s Day meant so much to me. Another game came up. The kids would listen to one sentence of the song �Row, Row, Row Your Boat� sung 3 times by the US students. Then they had to repeat that sentence and the one who did the best job got a nice treat. Ten children were in a row and started singing. �Ro, ro, ro yo bok�, sung the first child. �Ro, ro, so, cro...ha...ha (laughing)�� sung the second one. They continued to sing and everybody burst into laughter till the last one ended up his singing like this: �Ro�.huh...huh�ro�hi...hi...hi (laughing)�. So, what should we do? Laughing, we laughed from ear to ear from the beginning till the end. That was such an incredibly wonderful time to be with street children.
Despite of the singing in front of the street children house in the afternoon, we could not resist our anxiety to perform it again tonight on a real stage with a huge audience. By the time we got to the Children House, it was already full of children and parents. I tried to calm down myself, but still felt my heart beating like drum. We all were the �special� guests and proudly sat in the two first rows of chairs for VIPs. Surrounding us were easily one thousand children. The program started with lots of games, singing, dancing, and kung fu performance. Our eyes stuck to the stage upon the appearance of the kids in the beautiful kung fu uniform. Wow, their moves were so smooth and gentle sometimes, then quick and strong at other times. It was the most impressive show I had ever seen in my life. Also another extraordinary show was dragon dance. It is always the favorite show of the children in Viet Nam. Just before our singing, it started to rain slightly. Angie and I were almost happy to think that we could escape from our singing if it rained harder. Hence, it stopped. Our wish was not fulfilled and the consequence of this was we had to get up on the stage in front of our little angel audience.
�Um�blah�um�blah� �Be calm, Nhi� I talked to myself. Taking a very deep breath, I finally could open my mouth and to briefly our group and our performance. After that was the name introduction of the group in Vietnamese. They did a good job, I think. Then the group sang �Itsy Bitsy Spider� doing the hand illustration. Next was �I�m a Little Teapot� and then �Old Mac Donald.� Again, the animal sounds for this song really stirred up the atmosphere. Lots of laughing from the children, especially the game going together with this song: thank God, we finally can have a minute to breath easy when Chris came up to sing a Vietnamese folk song �Ly Cay Bong� to close our performance. This is his fourth time to sing it and he�s no doubt the right person for this beautiful song.
What a day! Extremely exhausted but my heart is blooded in the joys and happiness of being with the little angels. A day full of laughter and happiness, I hope everyone in the group entirely enjoy it. In my dream that night, I was singing with somebody and we were both very happy. Children�s Day was over but the rhythm of the songs, the sound of laughter, and the smiles on the bright faces of children will stay with us forever.
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We do not have a photo update yet from the group, but in honor of Children's Day, please click this link to see CPI's Photo Archive of children we have met on our journeys.
NHI!
ReplyDeleteClearly, you are an angel, meeting little angels! It is so good to read of your adventures; thank you for all that you are offering the JSC students.
With much respect,
Ellen