Sunday March 4, 2012

Sunday March 4, 2012

Today was the first day of giving. We started at 9:30 am, there were ten of us and 5 motorbikes. We drove through the city 30 minutes to community of Chaunce Chu. We were headed to visit the gravesite and monument to the Buddhist call "Blind Monk". We meet our guide for the day Tang. We then set out to deliver envelopes to families in need. We gave them 150,000 VND, which will buy: 22 pounds of rice and 1 liter of fish sauce, two main staple foods.

We meet many interesting families; here is a video of a very sweet 8 yearold that sang us a song. He and his Down syndrome brother are looked after by their grandparents while their parents are working.

We also meet two sisters one with four children and the other with two. They both walk one hour to the mountains to collect brush to make outside sweepers.They then return home for lunch with their bundles and go back to work only to return home at the end of the day for a total of four hours walking. If they are able to sell the sweepers the will make less than 20 cents each.


The visit to the last two people of the day was a hike from the road we were on. We walked about 500 yards in the jungle up and over and around. When we finally got to their house the husband and wife both came out to meet us. These had to be two of the friendliest and happy two people we meet all day. She was just so happy that we had come to see her and this was even before she knew that we where there to give her a envelope with money in it. She gave us multiple hugs and wanted to smell our clothes. When we gave her envelope she was crying and hugs started all over. She just could not believe that we would give her something. She did not even know what was in the envelope. Saying our goodbyes we left and headed to the Buddhist monastery for lunch.

We were hosted by the Buddhist Nuns of the Dam Hoa Temple. We had a wonderful lunch and then were given a tour and granted a visit to the Spiritual Leader; she is 86 years and is attended to by one nun.  Then we just walked around and asked questions of the Nuns.  We then took photos and departed.  Later that day we took a tour of the Imperial City.