Long Road to Dodgeball Victory

Last weekend our school had its annual Dodgeball Tournament. I was on Team Rubbish and we dressed accordingly. Here are some photos to take you through the evening.

H2H Ride for Vietnamese Children

Well, it’s time to pass the point of no return by proclaiming my intentions publicly. I plan to bike (on a bicycle) from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City with 8 other individuals during the month of November.

So there’s Vietnam. See Ho Chi Minh City? Look to the south. Further. Further. There it is! Now, do you see Hanoi? Look to the  North. No, further north than that! Further still. Ah! There it is! Gosh, it looks like a long way. I wonder how far that is? What’s that you say? 900 miles? And what’s that big part in the middle called the Central Highlands? That sounds high. It probably is. Probably pretty hilly. Hm, what’s the highest point in Vietnam anyway? 3,144 meters? Ok. Sweet.

Wow, that looks kinda hard, Katie. I like a hard day’s work as much as anybody, but why ya doin this?

I was hoping you’d ask . . .

I’ve written a bit about this idea before. I work at a big school called ILA. One of the great things about it is that it has it’s own Community Network that works with organizations all around Ho Chi Minh City. I’ve told you about the orphanage in previous posts, but it also works with:

• A boys’ shelter for street children which provides temporary or long-term shelter in exchange for the boys either attending school or undergoing vocational training to gain more independence
• A cancer hospital for children. I was there for the first time last week and couldn’t believe it. Families from all over the country sell everything they own and pack their bags basically to camp in the halls of this public hospital as their children await the help they need. Just across the street, literally, across the street, is a private hospital full of fancy, comfortable, empty rooms that no one can afford. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.
• A shelter “for girls who have been sexually abused or trafficked for the purpose of labor or sexual exploitation.”

So our bike ride is a fundraiser – we’re trying to raise at least $15,000 to help out these organizations. We’re asking our friends and community to make donations, through our group, to go toward the following things:

• 1 year’s salary for a braille teacher at the orphanage, as a very high percentage of their children are blind and currently without any such programs.
• A renovated and refurbished classroom at the orphanage
• Annual health checks, monthly football outings, and weekend activities at the boys’ shelter
• Vocational training for all the girls at the girls’ shelter
• Monthly play dates at the cancer hospital where kids and just be kids

So, please take a minute to stop by our (new!) website: www.h2hrfvc.org and consider making a donation – no donation is too small (or too large, for that matter). As you can tell, a little money goes a lot further in Vietnam that in many other parts of the world. It’s easy, you can reach PayPal with one click from our web site and your money will be put towards some pretty stellar organizations here in Vietnam.

And I’ll love you forever.

Learning about learning styles in Angkor Wat

It turns out that a big theme of my year has been dominant senses and learning styles. Don’t know why, but I’ve thought about it a lot. Our visit to Angkor Wat was a case. study. I want to be a real photographer. I swear I do. I love and appreciate real photography and real photographers. But I don’t actually take that many pictures. During this whole visit, start to finish, Chelsea was the photographer.

We agreed that it would be better to spend significant time, taking our time, seeing a few of the temples at Angkor. This as opposed to racing through in a futile attempt to see tons of them (I think it may be impossible to see all of them). We wanted to try, hard as we could, to find a way to appreciate how old they are, how fabulously constructed, and the things they’ve seen happen within their walls. This kind of thing is hard for me in general.

So at every stop, we stopped. And read a bit about it in the book. And then, in true 6-yr-old fashion, I climbed everything that could be climbed. Touched almost everything that could be touched. Played with echos. Played with new instruments I found along the way. And the entire time there would have gone completely undocumented if Chelsea hadn’t used the camera like she did.

So, here’s some of the stuff we saw, smelled, touched, heard, and climbed while we were there.

Dawn at Angkor Wat. Eating baguettes, drinking coffee. This was built in the first part of the 12th century. That's 900 YEARS.

Playing in front of ancient temples at sunrise

A view from inside. Foot-shuffling is cool in here. These halls actually have worn grooves where so many people have walked over them over the centuries.

In the 70s the Khmer Rouge stormed through and chopped off the heads of most of the Buddhas in the hallway.

Ooh, that library looks climbable

Climbing said library

Appreciating cool wall with cool elephant carvings

Having climbed along said wall

These trees are so big!

And the ancient temples are returned to the earth

What’s a girl gotta do to get a kiss around here???

Yikes, I’ve been away for a while and I wasn’t even finished telling you about Chelsea’s visit! Well here I go.

There are no ovens in most Vietnamese homes because most things are done with a stove. Result: birthday cakes are harder than they look. Pink birthday cakes are even trickier. But, Chelsea was turning the big 25. So, being the stellar friend that I am, I worked it out.

PS – I throw Mexican birthday parties. They have my favorite birthday song AND my favorite long-standing tradition of shoving faces in cakes. So, without further ado.

Light the candles: check

Sing a song: check

Shove unsuspecting face in unsuspecting cake: check

Get a kiss: check

The end.