Well today is our first day with our actual volunteer schedules! yay!  The weekend was really fun, we got to know the area a little bit better and visited the beach which was beautiful.  This country is so amazing!  On Friday we visited a couple of our sites to get a feel for the location, and took two volunteers along who have both already been here.  We visited a local high school that was completely built with charity money, a university which a few of us will teach at, a disabled school where children learn art projects and how to draw (They are all deaf or hard of hearing) and last a school for disabled children, which was really sad and difficult to see.  Some of the children are so helpless, but hopefully the massage and physiotherapy we have learned will help give them some relief which is the goal.

It’s a lot less crazy here then it was in Da Nan, even though its still a city.  We have lots of kids that live around us and are constantly curious about us.  Everyone is curious about us!  On Saturday, we took the deaf children up to the mountains to draw and on our way back we visited a small art gallery.  When we arrived, the owner kept trying to take our pictures and he ended up giving us the largest jack fruit I have ever seen in my life as a gift.  He invited us for wine that night but we ended up just staying in, we did thank him for the offer though!

Everyone here is so friendly, I can’t get over it.  Not to mention, EVERYONE notices us.  I’ve never experienced a country where a ethnicity is completely dominant.  We are truly the only western people here.  Well, we are going to have breakfast soon and start our first day, more updates for you later!

Well we made it!  I spent a few days in Da Nang at the GVN volunteer house with all of the others.  We had orientation and got to know each other which was so great!  We also got to celebrate GVN Vietnam’s chapter’s 5 year anniversary! They day before we all started to part ways to our 3 different locations, we traveled to the Ba Na Mountains.  We took cable cars up to the top, which reached higher then the clouds and had cake and drinks together.  It was so beautiful.

The Tam Ky group left shortly after we got back that night, and the Tuy Hoa and Da Nang people stayed at the GVN house and hotel, which is located down the street.  We had a short orientation the next morning with breakfast and then soon after, my group was off on our 9 hour train ride to Tuy Hoa.  The train was an experience for sure.  Cultural norms are very different then ours, but once you got used to the way things ran it was a very enjoyable ride and a GREAT way to see the country.  I saw so many interesting things, I didn’t want to close my eyes!

Today is our first day at our new house and the volunteers who were already here were so welcoming!  More updates later, we are about to eat breakfast!

Well here I am with only 5 days left before I start my 2.5 days of flying to Vietnam!  I have to admit, I am no where near done preparing and packing but at least I have done all the essentials and paperwork.  I’ll make it there I swear!

I am so excited to get over there, just hope I can make some kind of difference in the short 2 month period I am staying!

-Danielle