Exploited

Yesterday was by far the hardest day for me. We brought Carlos with us who will be with VPV for a year, and his role is to try and improve the projects volunteers are working on, improve the relationship between VPV and the volunteers, act as a kind of middle man.

We have been working on a mural on the front gates of the centre and already it’s looking great. As there was now five of us, plus the local volunteers I decide to go to my favourite classroom and spend the morning with my kids.

It starts of fairly standard; the kids are bored and restless. Previously I spoke of a girl of nine years old who throws herself on the ground and punches herself repeatedly in the throat and face. Her name is Tanh. And this morning she was in a state. I wasn’t able to calm her down on my own so I grab Amelie for some help. After about 20 mins we are still unable to calm her down or stop her from hurting herself. This little girl can really hit hard hey. My fingers feel bruised from stopping her head hitting the wall. Eventually she climbs onto my lap and still punching herself I pick her up and take her outside. We go for a walk down to the lake and she calms down.

She has things to look at, she is stimulated by and curious at the goings on of the city.

I sing to her and walk her around for over an hour. She is calm and she is even smiling. For three weeks I have watched this girl beat on herself and this is the first time I have seen her smile.

I take her back to class for lunch and she sits happily feeding herself with no complaint. I should mention here that feeding time is always difficult. Who can blame these kids, I would not want to eat rice and egg every day either.

While we were trying to calm her down we saw a child, another young girl of nine, who doesn’t eat, and is usually well behaved, mostly playing on her own, tied to a chair around the waist.

When I return with Tanh, the young girl who was tied to the chair is now lying on the ground. She has blood all over her fingers and mouth. She has chewed the inside of her mouth.

I grab the teachers attention and she gives me tissues to clean her up. Apparently this task is too menial for her. Eventually she gives me a proper wash cloth.

I can’t help but think at this point, what happens when we are not here? We are here for one month and we try to fill a gap, but then new volunteers start and they don’t know where to start, they don’t know how to handle these kids, it took me three weeks to work out all Tanh needed was a walk and some simple stimulation; birds, trees, lakes.  Will the next volunteer ignore the teacher when she says leave her to beat herself? Or when they laugh at you for trying to help, will they ignore this feeling of stupidity and do it anyway?

This month has been hard, but as I was reminded, I am only here for a month, and then I can go and travel and think about the kids as a distant memory. But these kids are there, day in day out, month in month out. In this small classroom with no access to the outside world, no access to imagination.

There are bars on the windows and they are closed with big wooden doors so there is no ray of sunshine, no outside world, just four recently painted off white walls and these teachers who really don’t care all that much. Of course they have toys but for the most part they are locked away in the cupboard. The teachers will drop some shitty old blocks on the ground, but there is no effort to engage with them, teach them group activities, singing etc.

I should be careful not to paint the wrong picture, the teachers do occasionally do lessons, and pull out some paper and pencils, but this should be a daily activity not once a fortnight.

After feeding the kids I walk outside and I am really upset. I am angry. What kind of person ties a small child to a chair? Who would let a nine year old girl repeatedly bash her head on a concrete wall?

The director is in a meeting with the assistant director and I ask to speak with them. I bring our local volunteer to translate and tell her about my morning. I try very hard to bite my tongue and be understanding of cultural differences, but my words are firm and my tears are present.

I tell her the teachers are treating these children like animals and if she is serious about making changes she needs to act.  She tells me if they give Tanh attention while she hurts herself she will only get worse. This is rubbish.

I explain that children with a mental disability already have a hard time communicating and are frustrated and this behaviour is not for attention, it is a result of being cooped up all day not expending their energy in a positive way. These children are literally imploding.

The director tells me she is having problems with the attitudes of the teachers and they are having a workshop next month to try and address this. She invites me to attend. The assistant director smiles at me and tells me she can see I care and she pleased about this. She invites me and the others to her house after lunch to speak with her daughter who has exceptional English and can translate well for us.

We speak to her about teaching the teachers English, teaching them methods of dealing with the children, providing articles on the disabilities of the children. It is one thing to put your hand up to help, but we explain to her we can’t do it without their help. When the directors aren’t around the teachers don’t want anything to do with us. We challenge them to do their jobs, challenge them to care and this is the last thing they want.

The directors explain a lot of these teachers are only doing this as a job, they are not educated, they do not have a passion for children, this much we worked out weeks ago.

Lunch time ends and we return to class. I have the local translator with me, and young Tanh is all smiles. Instead of pinching me she is stroking my hair, playing with my nose and looks like a happy, normal little girl. The teachers tell me via the translator to put her down. If I keep giving her attention she will be in the centre for two more years, that I am doing her more harm then good.

For three weeks I have seen her cry in the corner and beat herself up, not participating, not playing with the other children, sleeping all day, and today she smiles and is happy and I am doing her more harm then good?

I listen to the teachers bitch at the translator for about 20 minutes before I have had enough and I leave. I want to shake some sense into these women. I have seen how they treat their own children with care, how they get special attention, how they have special food, and yet giving these kids with high care needs attention is wrong?

What is wrong with these women?

The translator explains to me the teachers say they are tired, they are run down, they are hot, it is summer, they have been doing this for ten years. And while they didn’t say it, I am sure they are not paid very well.

This I can understand, these kids take energy and commitment and there is good reason I am not a teacher full time. I don’t think I could do this day in and day out for ten years.

However, I tell the translator, if I was a toilet cleaner and after ten years I decide that I have had enough of cleaning toilets so I start to rock up to work and stop cleaning the toilets, do you think I would still have a job?

Even as I write this I want to cry, I am frustrated, angry, lost. I think about what kind of care these children would have in Australia. They would have whole rooms dedicated to the autistic children, toys to stimulate them, exercises, teaching methods. Of course it goes without saying Vietnam is a developing country and I can’t expect the same but was it really that foolish of me to expect the teachers would care? I was told when I started that I will need to take initiative, the teachers would be busy and my role is to play with the children and it would be challenging. This is what they tell you so when you feel useless they have covered their own backsides.

I watch these teachers do little more then nothing on a daily basis. There are far more teachers in a room then required. We watched one teacher sleep all morning, another go shopping for her own child.

A few of you have asked if you can donate money, and the truth is, I don’t want to give money into this organisation. I don’t want to put anything material into it, when the real need is something money cannot buy.

The teachers did pay me a backward compliment and I really wish I could understand the language so I could understand the context better. They told the translator I was the most unique volunteer they had ever seen. They can see I really love the kids and I keep coming back with enthusiasm and energy. This actually makes me sad. Out of all the years they have seen many volunteers come and go, and there has been many, I am the first one that gives so much to the children? I really feel like I could and should be doing more, much more.

This comment and this thought only brings more questions then answers. Volunteering in Vietnam, are we making a difference? Are the right people being sent to the right projects? Or is this just an industry, am I being exploited just like the children of this country? Because this is how I feel.