A Day in Dalat

Good Early Morning Everyone:

I know its very early in the morning in the US but its about 1:45pm and i have a little down time so i thought i would write.

We had a great morning in Dalat, first of all the hotel we stayed in last night had full beds instead of twin beds, i felt like i was in a king size bed.

We started off by going to a YMCA school here in Dalat. You will see some of the pictures i took of the school. This school is for those of migrant families who have come to the city to work but are not registered residents. Since they are not registered they don't pay taxes and therefore can go to primary school since most of the funding comes from tax payers. The Government owns the building in which the YMCA uses but they YMCA of Vietnam supports the school completely for renovations, supplies, books and stationary for the kids, they also pay the teachers that teach there. There are about 40 kids in this school which ranges from 1-5 grade. These kids are the ones that come from the poorest families and don't have any money at all. They receive the same education as the kids do in public schools and will take the same test as well. 3-5 graders go to school in the morning so they can go work in the afternoon selling newspapers, lottery tickets, and shinning shoes to help make money for their family. The 1 and 2 graders go in the afternoon. There are three classrooms and 5 classes throughout the day.

Once they reach the 5th grade and pass the test to go to secondary school they then are admitted to public secondary school. Secondary school cost everyone to attend. It is not funded by taxes so each child is charge about $1.50 per month. For the kids that came from the YMCA school who cant afford this gets a subsidy from the Government. So if you're scratching your head like i was this morning... the Government wont allow them to attend primary school but will subsidise them to go to secondary public school. I think there is a bit of bureaucracy going on.

Cathy got up and spoke to the local Government representative. She gave them a gift that her daughter's school raised to help with supplies and renovations. We also gave them tooth brush's and tooth paste. The sang songs for us and made us feel very welcome, yet again it was an amazing experience to see what environments these kids learn in.

We then went to the XY Factory which makes embroidery prints. This place was awesome, its basically like a commune. There are over 300 embroiderer's around the state and about 20 of them and their families live at this commune. Once a person becomes and embroider that becomes their life. They take much time reflecting and spending peaceful time by themselves. They have a school on site for the children of the embroiderer's who live at the commune. They start at a young age, many of them are mid twenties doing this work. The pieces that i saw were magnificent, the great detail that goes into it is mind boggling.

We are getting ready to go climb a mountain and have dinner with the people that live on the mountain. I'm excited to see what we have, we will also be having a campfire with them and learning more about the culture. Then tomorrow we are off to Nah Trang.

Talk to you soon!!!!