Life has never been the same for me since I stepped off the plane and back home onto Singapore. Ta van was a total life experience. I never knew what I sign up for when I joined iproject but I am glad that I had a chance to go, to make a difference and in return learn something.

Pre- trip
This was never the easiest part of the whole trip. Many people do not think of the effort that is needed to plan such a massively big trip, for that we have to thank the teachers; they put in great effort and time. Funds was raised in different ways, for e.g, through Ronald we manage to gets lots of cheese sausages which we sold like mad and also we did stuff like catering service on teacher’s day to provide classes with food. That was indeed tiring and we did stink but I am sure through raising funds together as a whole, we manage to understand and bond together as a group. Yeah sure at first, we were unsure whether any of the classes would order with us a not but in the end our fears were unfounded.

Construction
Volunteering was never meant to be an easy job. Volunteer: to offer to do something that you do not have to do, often without having been asked to do it and/or without expecting payment. That is what all of us in iproject want to achieve, we go there with dreams, goals and high hopes of helping others. However construction there is not as simple as it seems. For one, they have no machinery and we do have to rely on manual labour, for example we have concrete mixers in Singapore but over there we have to add all the ingredients and use the shovel to mix it well with water before we can get cement. Our mornings there are basically spent for construction work. We were all split into groups and each group were given task to complete. My group was in charge of digging the path to make it level as it had lots of big rocks logged within the ground. We use tools like shovels to loose the ground around the big rocks and then the guys would use sticks with sharp end to try and split the rocks. It may sound easy but in fact it was truly hard work. Most of the times, the older kids would give us a hand and it never fails to amaze us how much strength they got. It may take us 4-5 hits to dig a certain pile of soil but they can do it easily without even breaking into sweat.

In Singapore, we have wheelbarrows to help us transport stuff here and there but in Ta van we made use of gunny sacks to transport soil, rock and boy were they useful. The weather there was helpful too, though we had the sun shinning on our back, we still were quite cool. Towards the last few days, we did jobs like painting and of course repairing and washing the doors,

Arts and craft/ Games

In the afternoons, we were basically split into two groups. One for teaching arts and craft and games and the other English. I was in the arts and craft group and we did things with them like painting to the extent of even face painting. We also asked the kids there to draw a picture if their school and it really showed how creative and innocent they are, they would try and copy our actions. The drawings they drew really represented what they would try and copy our actions. The drawings they drew really represented what the really felt. One problem we faced during this segment was that, I t was hard to converse with the kids there as we could only use our hands to bring across our message and we really need to thank our translator for making our life easier. We managed to bond with the kids a lot during these few days as we interact with them by teaching them how to play games like captain ball’s and of course soccer. Of course things are not always plain sailing, there a few times during the games that some of the kids the not want to play and we had to then accompany them while they do their stuff.

At the end of the days we spent with the kids, helping them to have a better environment for learning, we managed to truly bond with the kids, tears were flowing freely when it was time to say goodbye, till now I can still remember the teary scene.

People in Hanoi were a friendly bunch too like the students from HelloHanoi who voluntarily brought us around and showed us the sights and the food, I can still remember the day Linh gave me a bracelet, she truly touch my heart, she was with us less than a day and she has truly been a inspirational person. The kids in Ta van also were a sight, you can never imagine it till you are there to see it, though they are living at a lower standard, they are still happier and they do not take things for granted.

Overall, the trip to Vietnam was fun and we truly bonded together as a team. I can never thank the teachers enough and all iproject people for celebrating my birthday with me. This small little gesture has warmth my heart.Days filled with memories of the kids in ta van, bus rides with japalang mummy and kids will always be in my mind. This trip has certainly gave me more than I sign up for.