When I first came to Vietnam, there was one thing that I swore that I would never do: ride a motorbike. If you have any idea what the traffic in Vietnam looks like, it's not hard to understand why I felt that way. The longer I've spent here, the more I've realized that the traffic is less dangerous than it initially appears, in fact it's more like organized chaos than anything else. Yet, even as I continued to get used to the rules of the road, my vehement veto on all things related to motos held strong. Perhaps it's due to the fact that at home I genuinely just do not like motorcycles, and I think the ribs of anyone I've ever ridden with can attest to that. However, once I was forced to get on one this weekend as I mentioned in my previous blog, my mind has completely changed.
Now I love them.
I don't see why I'm surprised with myself really. I mean, I've always been an adrenaline junky, and weaving in and out of traffic on the streets of Hanoi is just about as exhilarating as road travel gets. I was running a little late for work today and instead of just waiting it out at the bus stop I decided to catch motorcycle taxi to the second bus stop on my journey to work. By the time I arrived there I was considering asking the guy to take me the entire way. It's just such a faster way to travel through the often congested city streets that have left me stranded on buses for hours on end. These guys are so good at what they do you're almost constantly in motion (even through red lights... which can be a little disheartening, but practically everyone does it). Plus, it's only marginally more expensive than the city buses and much cheaper than standard meter taxis, and since you negotiate the price before hand they won't take you the long way or in circles to try to drive up the price like so many taxi drivers do here. I'm thinking it is going to be something I am going to partake in much more often throughout my final month or so in Hanoi, and potentially during the rest of my trip depending on how the traffic is in the other countries I plan on visiting.
Something interesting about the motorbikes here I don't think I've ever mentioned is that they literally transport everything you can imagine on them here. I've seen bed frames, floor boards, live pigs, kitchen sinks, refridgerators... basically anything you can imagine on the back of those things. I actually saw a guy carrying a tree on the back of one the other day. I'm not even joking. A freakin' five foot tall tree. It's pretty comical when you see it, but it's also really impressive that manage to do it without hurting themselves or someone else in my humble opinion.
Motorbikes aside, here are three other interesting tidbits of information from the past few days. First of all, I met two Canadians last night! I know it's excrutiatingly lame that I'm excited about that, but honestly it's so refreshing to run into other Canadians because they just seem to be non-existant here. I know that's not exactly true, but it is a fact that I have run into very few. Ironically though, I met an Australian girl last night who told me that she had not met many Australians while visiting Vietnam. This, of course, prompted me to laugh out loud and ask if she was for real. It seems like every second person I meet here is Australian (if they're not Vietnamese, that is). The second interesting piece of info: I found Coors Light for sale in a cafe today! I mean, yeah, Coors Light is an American beer, but it still made me really excited because up until now the only foreign beer I've seen around has been Heiniken. I didn't buy it because it was like 1:00 in the afternoon and I didn't feel like being that much of a wino, but I intend to in the near future. The third interesting thing is that last night I went out with a few friends to this place called Le Pub and they served poutines! I was really excited because it was the first time I had seen anything even remotely Canadian for sale in a Vietnamese pub. It was, of course, absolutely terrible. The fries were like rock hard, the gravy was runny, and the cheese was practically non-existant. It made me slightly homesick for Harold's Hotel poutines, to be honest.
But aside from being a disappointment, it made me think about the five things from home that I miss the most (people and Misha notwithstanding).
5. Canadian food
4. My MacBook
3. Greenie Dos
2. Jeans
1. My X Ring
I think I'll be more than glad to see all of those things (and people/Misha) when December 14th rolls around!
And now, on to the sad realities portion of this particular blog entry. This is something that I have not blogged about as of yet, but I think now is the perfect time to do so. As you all know, I work for a local NGO that helps develop health and education related projects all over Vietnam. Currently, my organization is seeking funding from the EU Commission on Human Rights on a project that is seeking to raise awareness about the rights of children in two extremely poor provinces. I was really excited about this for two reasons. The first is very simple. Human rights is what I'm interested in, it's what I focused my degree on, and I have a lot of knowledge on the subject that I feel will allow me to make a significant contribution to the development of the project.
The second reason is that I know how children, particularly disabled children, are treated in this country.
I'm going to go ahead and warn you that this may not be easy for many people to read. I know for many people, ignorance is bliss and I do not judge you for feeling that way because sometimes I wish I didn't know as much as I do about what people less fortunate than me have to face in their day to day life. I would also like to say, I am well aware that things like this happen at home as well. But after reading it, I'm sure you will see that it is quite different.
For many families in Vietnam, having a disabled child is considered a bad omen. Particularly in more remote locations, the people just do not have enough education and awareness about disabilities to understand what is wrong with their child. This leaves to adandonment and extreme mistreatment by not only the families, but also teachers, health workers, and other members of the community. Furthermore, mothers often do not have any knowledge about how to limit risk for disability during pregnancy which leads to many children being born with completely preventable disabilities. This problem is not limited to rural locations however, and it is in fact very prevalent right here in Hanoi.
Many of the people that I live with are doing placements in schools for disabled children, and some of the stories they have told me have made me simultaneously emotionally distraught, and physically sick with rage. These kids are not given a chance. In one of the schools there is a room upstairs where the "good" kids (read: less disabled) learn from under-qualified teachers and international volunteers. Downstairs, however, is a different story. The kids are expected to sit in a straight line, quietly and unmoving, for five hours every day. The teachers do not try to teach them, and the volunteers are not allowed to play with them. If they move, talk, or do anything considered "bad" by the teachers, they get beaten to bloody pulp. And I'm not talking a smack on the hand or a tap on the bum, I'm talking about a teacher driving her knee into a kids neck, pinning him to the floor, and smacking him across the face until her hand hurts. More often than not, from what I'm told, they will be whacked with a metal rod if they do anything the teachers do not like.
This is not just the severely disabled kids they place on the bottom floor, the other kids are beaten as well. And from what I understand it is completely subjective to the teachers, and some kids can end up bullied while others get away with anything. And, to make it worse, they don't even get smacked for what is actually bad behaviour, it is for completely trivial things that almost all kids do. If the kids punch each other (which they obviously would because they watch their teachers do it everyday), the teachers do nothing, but if they don't want to finish their dinner they'll be black and blue for weeks. My friend describe it as a hopeless situation, because if they try to properly discipline the kids nothing good comes out of it. I've heard stories of volunteers putting children in time out only to have the other kids throw things at the child, because the teachers do it as well.
The unfortunate thing about all of this is that in Vietnam, technically, treating children like that is completely illegal. Vietnam was the second country in the world to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and therefore this behaviour is completely against the law. However, law is a subjective term in Vietnam. The police can always be bought off for the right price, so when it comes down to it, if you have money you're pretty much untouchable. This is why children of government officials can drive the wrong way down a one way street, crash into three motorbikes and still have the police side with them. And it's also why these schools can beat the hell out of the kids without anyone doing anything about it, because corruption keeps the head haunchos safe.
I often find myself wondering why organizations would continue to facilitate this kind of behaviour by giving them funding and providing them with international volunteers. I have thought about contacting my organization (IVHQ, not the uselessness that is VPV) and telling them that it is an absolute travesty that they would continue to send volunteers to a place that mistreats children so terribly. But then, I also think that the attention they receive from the international volunteers may be the only real affection some of these children ever get. That thought in it's self is devastating, but it is an unfortunate reality that keeps volunteers in these places.
Although I have been fortunate enough not to personally witness any of this yet, I still feel the same hopelessness regarding the situation as the other volunteers who have worked at these schools. It is not in my nature to stand by and do nothing while others suffer, yet the more I learned about the situation the less I felt I could do. Which is why I was so excited to receive this project at work, because I finally felt like I could do something to help. Although I was not allowed to do it in Hanoi (a story I will tell in a future blog) the opportunity to make a difference for a even a few kids somewhere in Vietnam that are treated like that feels like the start of a new beginning. Change has to start somewhere, and Vietnam has seen remarkable social and economic development in the last twenty years. Perhaps in another twenty Vietnam will live up to it's commitment to the UNCRC and children with disabilities (and all children) will be treated with the respect and dignity they should be.
Until next time, remember just how much worse it could be. Positivity always goes a long way.
Sarah
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