Our First Day!

July 5th, 2009 by Danielle Faletra

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!