imagine what it's like to be 16 years old, having stayed in the centre all your life, and having all your days fixed to the same routine of eating & sleeping. you don't go to school because a limited number do, so you do odd jobs around the centre, laundry because you're a girl, dishwashing. all you know about the world beyond the centre and the route to the market is from pictures and books and visitors that come to the centre - and you only have a few of those a year.

but you're happy. you can still laugh, and smile. your most precious belonging is a book full of songs that you've written the lyrics to, and you sing it all day long. you know them by heart but you keep the book and teach the other girls in the centre how to sing as well. you can dance, only a few steps that you repeat over and over again, steps that you learnt from some visitors a while back. but you're glad. you have three sets of clothes that you wear, wash and rewear, and you're satisfied.

visitors come, giving you things that are in fact, worthless to them. stickers, stationery that hardly costs anything, stuffed toys bought in bulk. in return, you give them all that you have - all your possessions you hold dear, the very few things that you have stored inside a single shelf. they laugh and talk to you, their extent of vietnamese being "what's your name", "how old are you", and "what do you like". but you laugh and talk to them as well, jumping up and down when they come to visit your dining area, offering them food even when you don't have enough. you love company, and you love people on sight. it doesn't matter what they think, or if they reciprocate the love you give them, as long as there are people there for you to love and be affectionate towards.

and you're happy.

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that's what vietnam taught me, and what vietnam rcip means to me.

being satisfied, being happy isn't a goal or aim. it's a choice. it's up to you to count your blessings one by one and realise that you'll never finish. it's up to you to decide if you want to spend your life laughing with people you love and not contemplating whether they love you back enough for you to love them. i dont think it's naivete nor innocence that the children and youths in hanoi sponsoring centre #4 have, no, it's a rare form of maturity and sense of gratitude they have towards life.

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gah enough heavy stuff. just a couple of photos, too lazy to upload them all. :)

OH YES VEE ARE AT ZE TOP OF ZE WORLD.

learn your numbers with the traffic lights!

namely yingming, annie & charissa.

ONE!

TWO!

THREE!

SEVEN!

EIGHT!