Today was the official first day of the Vietnamese Colorado Heritage Camp. There are about 100 families from all over the country... about 350 people total. Each group of children- according to grade- get to wear a different color of tee shirt with the Heritage Camp logo on it. Jazzy's pre-school color is red.
The morning consisted of a "Opening Ceremony" and Instructions for Volunteers. I get to do something (?) on Saturday night with the Carnival. We'll find out tomorrow night what I will be doing. After a nice Vietnamese lunch of Pho at the Stanley Park, I went to a lecture by Dana Sachs. I had read two of her books prior to going to Vietnam, and now she has a new one "The Life We Were Given". She is a journalist who has travelled for years all over Vietnam, interviewing hundreds of people, and has researched everything from the war.... to Vietnamese adoption..Operation Babylift...to current Vietnamese travel destinations. She talked about the fact that in 1975, there were 800,000 orphans just living in the streets of Vietnam, 20,000 orphans in government run orphanages and 2000 in Western run orphanages. She showed photos of some of the 20,000 starving and dying kids in the government run orphanages. The 2000 in the Western orphanages were not that much better off, but were the infants and children who escaped in Operation Babylift... some of whom are at our Heritage Camp as speakers telling their stories i.e. where they grew up with their adoptive families, what they do now, obstacles they have overcome. The children (now adults) were all from Jasmine's home town area just outside of Danang... where most of the fighting occurred. They are all around 35-38 yrs old now.
Jasmine's pre-school group did Martial Arts, made Tiger posters and Tiger necklaces since this is the year of the tiger, and read the Vietnamese story about how the tiger got his stripes.
Also, today I visited the Vietnamese Market... a little store that was set up to sell Vietnamese imported items to benefit the Blue Dragon Society. Blue Dragon helps homeless Vietnamese kids go to school, buy clothes, etc. I bought Jazzy a little Vietnamese jewelry box.... as if she needed another jewelry box!, a sweatshirt with the Heritage Camp logo, some Vietnamese gummy bears... which she has already eaten, Vietnamese calendars, Dana Sachs book, and a book for Jazzy about different cultures. The middle school kids are running a Vietnamese coffee shop..so I had my extra shot of concentrated caffeine this morning.
Dragon Ceremony
Jasmine meeting her camp counselor
Lunch with the pre-schoolers
