Home Sweet Home

Monday, June 21, 2004

Well, as you know, I made it home safely.  I've had today to rest, unpack and review my pictures - proof that this wasn't a dream.  I had the most amazing time and am so very grateful to have had the experience. 

While I'm more than glad to be home, I miss Vietnam.  What a wonderful place, so full of new and exciting things - the bustling streets of Saigon, the sandy beaches of Nha Trang, the cool breezes of Dalat and everything beautiful in between.  I miss the girls from the Little Rose Warm Shelter and the sweet babies from the Tam Binh orphanage.  I miss dragon fruit and little bananas and eating scrambled eggs and french fries with chop sticks.  I miss the kind people and my new friends.

Would I do it again?  In a heart beat!  It’s already on my calendar for 2006. 

I’m still trying to let it all sink in.  I saw things from a tourist view and saw things that even locals don’t know exist.  It’s mind boggling that most of the people don’t know there are children in shelters and orphanages.  I’m sure that’s kept quiet by the government.  I saw some things from the viewpoint of the Viet Kieu (Vietnamese born people who left Vietnam) in our group, some returning to Vietnam for the first time.  I heard some of the stories of how their families escaped in 1975 just prior to the fall of Saigon.  I feel like I saw Vietnam through many different eyes and I can’t believe how blessed I am for that.

There were some humorous moments that I’d like to share:  One of the children at camp told Caroline that all the Catalyst people looked alike.  That doubled me over!!  There were 220 kids, all with dark hair and dark eyes, dressed exactly alike, so we all had the same feeling!  My little friend from Little Rose, Minh, asked me something over and over in Vietnamese, so we tracked down a translator and her question to me was “do you speak Vietnamese?”.  It took me 10 minutes to know what she was saying – so that was funny to me.  The night we did our dance, our costume was our red t-shirt worn inside out and bath towels wrapped around our waist.  We were all standing in the lobby waiting to walk over to the auditorium and a very nice European lady told my roommate, Barb, that her tag was sticking out of her shirt.  No mention of the ridiculous towels we were wearing!!  And after a particularly long day we were singing and dancing with the kids and I was about to drop over from exhaustion.  I said to Caroline and Amy, “please tell me we’re not going to sing 99 bottles of beer on the wall”.  We all cracked up!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my journals and I hope they all made sense – most were written late at night after some very long days.

Thank you for taking this journey with me.  I’ve loved having you along. 

Kathy/Kathleen