28th Mar

Today’s Plan… Visit to VBA in Vinh Phuc province

              Interview a teacher and a worker

8:00@Mrs. Nimra’s Home

Because Mrs. Nimura also has planned to go to Vinh Phuc province on other unrelated business, we decided to go together. At 8 o’clock, her secretary, Mr. Son and I got together at her office and left for Vinh Phuc. 

10:00@VBA of Vinh Phuc province

At first, we were escorted to the biggest room. It was decorated with many flowers, drop curtains and the bronze statue of president Ho Chi Minh.

 

At first, the president of this association gave me the message of condolence and sympathy for the quake in Japan. Then, he introduced all staff and started to explain about association itself. Their thoughtful greeting was really nice, but it was a little bit long. When his greeting and explanation had finished, the class lessons also had finished… Because the primary school curriculum in Vietnam is only half-day schooling, the children don’t study in the afternoon. So I missed the chance to have a look at the lessons.

11:00@ Local primary school

I left VBA and went to a local primary school which is receiving some blind children. The lessons had finished already and the children were eating lunch.

This is the folding desk in the classroom. The reason why this is folded is for daytime nap!! It will become a bed during lunch break.

12:00@ Have lunch with the staff

The staff took me to the restraint near the association. Despite the lunch time on Monday the staff had drunk alcohol a lot. They encouraged me to drink vodka, but I was just pretending to drink it. After a number of repetitions of ‘mot tram phan tram’ (drink down) and shake-hands, one hour later, everyone except me was totally drunk. I’m not sure how can they work in the afternoon.

Outside the building, there was a site to make brooms. Some blind people were making it to make a living. That was quite dusty place. I interviewed one of them although it was unscheduled. He is 26 years-old but just has studied how to write his own name last month because he couldn’t go to school. He used to be an orphan child in a village deep in the mountains. Compared to other interviewee I met so far, I felt he came from unhappy background. But there may be a number of people like him in rural village. It was good that I could listen to his talk about his experience.

16:00@ Visit to an interviewee’s home

After leaving the association, I visited to the home of a blind man to interview him. His house was in a rural poor village. He makes a living by raising pigs. His lifestyle seems to be very hard, but it’s seems not because of his disability. The life of families around there looks as hard as his family.

He said that he can walk around the village with bare foots by himself despite the blindness. I remembered the girl I interviewed last week. She said that she cannot go out by herself at all because of the horrible traffic condition. The lifestyle in rural areas is much harder compared to the life in Hanoi, but in here, I felt the people with visual impairment are treated same way as sighted people.