Community Corner

Notes from the Orphanage: No Options for Adoption

This is a continuing series of vignettes covering a two-month volunteering mission that Renton resident and journalist Ava Van embarked on this past spring in Vietnam.

Editor's Note: This is a continuing series of vignettes covering a two-month volunteering mission that Renton resident and journalist Ava Van embarked on this past spring in Vietnam. 

Find out what's happening in Rentonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Find out what's happening in Rentonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Shortly before Ava Van began volunteering her time at the orphanage at Ky Quang Pagoda 2 in Ho Chi Minh City this past spring, a newborn had been abducted from the facility.

Van learned from a foster mom that another young child, a girl with Down syndrome, had been raped on multiple occasions when she was lured outside the orphanage.

These crimes against children made a big enough impact on the monks who oversaw the orphanage that they instituted a clear rule: no child could be adopted. Period.

For all the good intentions that strangers brought with them when they visited the orphanage and/or donated generously to its operation, they simply couldn't be trusted to ensure the children's well-being as well as the orphanage could. For the head monk, "he's scared the kids would be exploited," Van said.

The Better Alternative?

The orphanage relies on private donations. Combine that with common eastern beliefs in karma and luck, and it seemed almost a given that the children in the orphanage would face a different kind of exploitation. Van recounts that people would come by the orphanage, stare openly at the children, take pictures and some would give money so they could have good luck. "It just made me angry because the kids were being exposed as if they were animals," she said.

And yet they couldn't always reap the benefits. “Once I saw piles of clothes donated to the orphanage, which were meant for the kids, but I saw all the foster moms and staff members hover over the clothes, picking it out for them. I stood around to see if any were given to the kids, and all of the foster moms told me they're keeping it for themselves,” Van wrote.

Space and resources were generally tight; so was staffing. The orphanage cared for about 155 children - more than half of them faced some kind of disability including devastating neural conditions like hydrocephalus. They were divided into 13 rooms by disability and age. During Van's stay, one staff member cared for 19 newborn/infants.

Treatment: These conditions were ripe for instances of abuse and neglect, and Van saw them. She saw a nurse hit a baby's face hard to stop her from crying. Another staff member chained a mentally disabled woman in her 30s to a crib/bed because she didn't want to wear a diaper. When the woman eventually soiled herself, the staff person shoved her to the ground in order to clean the bed. “It was really disheartening to witness that experience of her doing that,” she said.

Kids and young adults who had mental disabilities were often tied or chained to their beds all day long with no interaction with other people except for when they were being fed. “I just thought this was really inhumane to tie them up like a dog; the dogs were treated better than the kids were,” Van said.

For Van, these children's quality of life could be improved in spite of their disability with a little more love and attention. She recounts a 3-year-old child that another volunteer was working with had eventually learned to walk though he had some kind of medical condition which caused slower development than other kids. “Instead of letting him hang out and play with other kids, the foster mom tied his leg to the crib.”

The children generally don't get to see a doctor unless they look physically ill or become extremely sick, she said.

Food: Van learned from the head monk that the orphanage spends about $100 US to feed 155 children three meals a day. Older children ate instant noodles and instant porridge. Babies and those who weren't able to feed themselves were usually given baby cereal. Otherwise, they did have meals with rice, small pieces of meat and minimal vegetables. “The food the kids ate made me sick to my stomach. It was gross and not nutritious. I was willing to buy more meat and veggies and to buy a fridge to store all of it,” Van said. “I encouraged the monks to ask clients [donors] for better food. … He said the kids are fine with what they're eating. Feeding them any more would make them bigger and harder to raise.”

An Irrepressible Hope

Though the children can't leave, the orphanage sets out to raise and financially support those who are capable of continuing their education through the university level. Van learned from long-time staff members, however, that most of the children don't make it past the seventh grade. There are also those who run away. 

Ever hopeful, she gave the older children some basic learning tools – school supplies – to keep them motivated and want to take advantage of what the orphanage offered them. She writes in her blog: “On a daily basis, most of them can’t stop sharing with me how eager they are to become teachers, doctors and lawyers when they grow up (which by the way, makes me so happy. Even though they don’t have much, they never stop dreaming!)”

In that same spirit, Van took the time to throw a symbolic birthday party for 61 kids at the orphanage . She writes in her blog

"Growing up, my grandparents and I were pretty poor, so we rarely celebrated my birthday. But when we had enough money, they would spoil me with a Vietnamese fruit cake (the best!) and my grandma would make my favorite, chicken congee (rice soup). Even though these two things aren’t much, just going through those old birthday photos the other night made me really happy, and I knew right then and there, I wanted to do the same for my kids. I want them to also have photos to look back on when they grow up. More importantly, I want them to realize they were never forgotten, but loved very much."

“Some had never seen a birthday cake. They never tasted frosting. Their reactions – that made me really happy,” she said.

The happy moments that Van sought and created in her time at the orphanage were valuable but couldn't erase the ultimate feeling of hopelessness she felt for the children she'd grown to love. She writes: “The shock I faced by the end of each day because of the trauma at the orphanage, it didn't hit me until I was on the airplane, flying home. Even more after several weeks settled in when all those horrible memories started to haunt me and the only thing I could do is move on with my life. I felt and still feel hopeless.”

That sentiment is at least in part grounded in her hopes for the little boy she was given the opportunity to name: Thanh. The head monk told her she wouldn't be able to adopt him until he turned 18. And at last contact with the foster mom overseeing his care, he still hadn't been seen by a physician for an alarmingly swollen belly button that appeared filled with fluid.

Then again, the orphanage itself has not been 100 percent adherent to its own adoption rule: a physician was able to adopt a girl because he had performed surgery on her, Van said.

So Van plans to make regular visits back to the orphanage while staying in touch with several foster moms to monitor her kids.

And she keeps that glimmer of hope alive by sharing her experiences. “I just really hope through my story it can open the eyes of many people what it’s like to be an orphan, what they deal with on a daily basis, what they live like. Possibly charge people to go out and volunteer, give back, try to change adoption process. There are families and couples out there who can give these kids so much love. I'd hate to see them stay there for all their lives…go into the real world and not have mom, dad or family for support.”

Coming Up Monday: “Moms” and “Dads” Make the Difference

Read More: Ava Van: 57 Days in Ho Chi Minh


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