Orphanage trip

On February 9th 2015, the 21st century class along with Mr and Mrs. Swansons and Mrs. Van Anh  traveled to 3 destinations on a charity mission. Gathered over 1000 USD worth of gifts and money, we came to the first destination, ___________, an orphanage for about 20 homeless children from age 4 to 16.
 I myself can be seen as the pale boy in the blue ISHCMC-AA Sunbear shirt. That was a great experience for me. As soon as our group walked in the door, the kids with their smiles surrounded us, their eyes puzzled about our presence. One particular boy called Khoa "Fat Boy". Coincidentally, his name is also Khoa. That hilarious incident made my day. I sat next to a quite little girl when we circled up to prepare for the group games. Well, I helped her introduce herself  in front of everyone. On my right were two little demons, A 5 years old and a 4 years old.
They keep stealing each other's gifts. When the 5 years old was about to climb onto the poor little defenseless 4 years old, I had to interfere and break up the heated fight. it's those small little things that i'd remember the most from this trip.


Our next destination was a safe haven for kids with family issues. The women in this house took in these children for the day, teaching them necessary skills to survive in this society. They do everything they can to help these children obtain a much better future. However, when we started to explore their home, we walked upstairs through a spiral stair cased into a bed rooms with about 6 or 7 bunk beds. On the walls were drawings of cartoons and animated characters that to me seemed a little terrifying. More noticable was a stain on the wall opposite to the staircase. The women in charge could not afford to fix the leaking roof. This created a safety violation to the children and the people in charge. Therefore, we had decided to raise money to help them fix this roof ever since.


In the end, I had a nice day with Mr and Mrs Swanson and my fellow classmates. More importantly, I had learnt to feel more empathy toward the less unfortunate. It is our duty to help and support our fellow humans since we all bare the same genetic make ups. We would do everything we can to alleviate the pain and suffering these individuals have to go through everyday.