During the weekend of the fireworks I loved having the children from the orphanage stay with us. It was hard sleeping on the floor and standing in the rain but it was all worth it to see their faces and hear the shouts of joy.
One very special thing happened to me that weekend. It was rainy Sunday morning. We all sat down to watch Chicken Little. It is a weird cartoon, but funny. Then a lot of the kids wanted to go to the beach because it stopped raining. I wanted to go but Marissa and the caregivers wanted to go with the little kids and there were 4 teenage boys that wanted to stay. So I stayed to finish the movie. I can't speak enough Vietnamese to really hold any kind of conversation but the movie was in English with Vietnamese subtitles. So the five of us were able to hang out, laugh and just enjoy each other's presence.
Now there is one thing that I'm not too comfortable with here in Vietnam and that is how affectionate the men can be with each other. It is all pure and good intentions but it is still something I'm not 100% comfortable with. Men in the U.S. are... well... men so they subconsciously do whatever they can to not touch each other. In the U.S. if I sat right next to a buddy on a park bench when there was easily enough space on the end I would soon get a punch to the face. We all clearly see why.
Well, I'm starting to think part of the preparation of going on all those short term trips before Vietnam might have been that one day I would have to learn to accept this expression of friendship here in Vietnam. Many men in other countries express friendship in this way. The U.S. might be one of the very few that don't.
So while we were watching the movie one boy just put his hand on my back. It startled me at first but I knew what was going on. It blessed me that he saw me as someone he felt comfortable enough with to do that. Before that moment, I didn't think the older boys thought much of me. They are teenagers that speak a different language. They are too cool to just jump up and run to me when I show up at the orphanage. The little kids do that and so it is easier to get know them better and have fun. But in that short moment of time I saw that maybe I don't speak their language and maybe I don't have the same likes as they do but maybe they see the love that I've been trying to show and THAT'S very encouraging.
The next story that I would like to tell you is about a little boy with Down Syndrome that lives next door to us. I have mentioned to some of you that one of my favorite things to do is go to the end of the street to a store and buy a box of cakes. Then, on my way back up the street, I pass them out to all the children that live close to us. I always buy 20 and most of the time I pass out every single one.
Well this boy that I’m talking about is one of the 20. I’ve liked him and wanted to show him that I care about him ever since we first met. Sometimes I talk to a neighbor who speaks English; when she sees me with the boy, my neighbor says, “He’s stupid. Yeah. He can’t learn. He’s stupid.” This hurts me and makes me want to interact with him more.
Every day when I come home from the office, I go over to the gate that divides our front porch with theirs where he is always waiting yelling, “Hello! Hello!” so that we can shake hands. He is usually locked up on the porch so that he can’t get out to the streets where the other children play. One evening when we showed up from work, the boy wasn’t locked on the porch—he was out on the sidewalk. I parked the bike and walked over to see him. The first thing he did was run up to me and give me a big hug. I was stunned but was so happy at the same time. We hugged for what felt like a whole minute. What a great feeling.
When he was done he went right back to what he was doing: tearing up a poor little palm tree out close to the road.
For the next 30 minutes we played outside. Well, he threw rocks and I had to dodge them but I knew he was having fun and that’s all that mattered to me.
