Meeting our sponsored child (part two)

After we'd seen the three schools, given the gifts and taken photographs, we got back into our bus-taxi to be taken to meet our sponsored child M.  We've sponsored M. for almost 5 years, and have received regular updates on both the project work done by Plan International in M.s district, and have received letters, drawings and photographs by and of M. and her family.  The anticipation of finally meeting her was palpable.  My hands were damp, my mouth was dry and my heart was racing a little.  I was ready to cry.

The taxi took us out of the town area, and along an ever narrower road, into denser vegetation, away from the population to a small village crossroads.  We saw the concrete drainage ditches put in with Plan's aid (there was a sign with the Plan logo on it).  Ah ha, I thought, as we stopped, we must be here.  No.  The village elder climbed aboard, and off we went, leaving the village's good road behind.

We were now bumping along on a very dusty red-mud single track road, with ruts where the rains must run in the wet season.  There was lush undergrowth close by, banana trees, some walls of properties here and there, and no sign of where we were going at all.  A couple of motorbikes came across us, but we were the only vehicle on the track, and a significant vehicle at that.

We finally got M.'s house and the taxi pulled into a small slip in front of a grassy driveway - which was just as well as a tractor approached from the opposite direction.  We all got out of the taxi, and our interpreter introduced us to M. and her family.

The first photo I took at M's house is of hens...

In all the fuss of being introduced, and saying 'Sin Chow', and shaking hands, and smiling, and high-fiving with M, and being photographed, and invited inside for a drink, I didn't take nearly as many photographs myself as I'd have liked.  But there was also the exquisite embarrassment of not wanting to offend M's family by taking too many photographs.  This was when the language barrier and the cultural gulf felt most awkward.  Not oppressively, but this was a situation where I had absolutely no idea of how to behave, of what was expected and of what was acceptable and equally not acceptable.

M's mother had prepared a meal for us all - a feast in fact, as there were by now about 10 people in the entourage, plus the guests that M's family had also invited.  We were obviously a big attraction ourselves.  M's father gave us his home-made rice wine to drink with the meal (the cloudy bottle), which tasted mainly of ginger, and had a dry kick to it.  He was very happy to keep proposing a toast to us, and whenever we had an empty glass it had to be filled again.  The same went with the food.  Whenever our bowls were empty, M's mother would offer us something else and was determined to put something in our bowl.

We'd got over the indiscretion of us being vegetarian by the children eating some chicken, and us eating the greens and they made us a quick omelette.  The rice we were served was their own - grown in their fields - and was plump, with a good bite, and a slightly nutty flavour - delicious.

With M in their main room - sleeping area behind us

M's parents.  Don't know what was behind the curtain.  The Vietnamese officials travelling with us were seated on matting on the floor behind M's father and ate there whilst we had the benches and table.

M's parents were lovely.  The were in their mid 40s and had 3 other older children, now all left home and working elsewhere.  They looked us squarely in the eye and smiled broadly.  We could see their lives etched into their faces, and they were honest and happy, hard-working and straight-forward.  I felt lucky to have met them.  It was a moving experience and we were overwhelmed with their kindness of spirit towards us.

The view out from the door of their building/house.  They lived in a small complex of buildings around the courtyard.  The bicycle is what M. travels to school on - 30 minutes ride away up and down the dusty red-earth track.

That's all for tonight.  More adventures next time.

Kat.