Orientation Day

May 16th 

Yesterday was our orientation day with the other 6 new volunteers. We had breakfast then went to their office on the 14th floor of the same building. The main coordinator here, Hiep, went over information about the company and the history about how it started. Then went into details about our placements, and logistics about our stay here. She took Jim, this other girl Lia and I aside because were the only three new volunteers working with an NGO and she explained a how special and meaningful the work we will be doing is. She told us that mainly we will work at the Youth Centre but part of our job will be to travel to local NGO's all over the city and to speak to the people there and gather information about what they do. This sounds really cool cause we will probably get to explore many parts of the Hanoi region. Also we will get the opportunity to teach a bit of English to the staff at the Youth Centre during our 3 hour lunch breaks or during down time in the afternoon. Our orientation pretty much ended there. So the rest of the afternoon we were able to relax and then we decided to take the bus into the city with a few other volunteers. We walked around and found a place that looked good to eat. Our waiter spoke a lot of English so he talked a lot with us and made a lot of jokes, definitely made a good first impression on the types of people Vietnamese people are. After dinner we walked through the market a bit and headed towards this big lake in the middle of the city. I fell in love with down town Hanoi, it was so lively and beautiful. I tried to capture some photos to show how incredible it is. The old quarter definitely has some European characteristics but it is also very different from any other place I've been. We didn't stay down town long since buses stop running at 9pm but I can't wait to explore it further. A few of the volunteers want to go to Ha Long Bay this weekend and Jim and I will most likely join. Castaway does cool tour where you get to stay on a boat over night so we will try do something like that.

Our fancy bus passes. 

May 17th 

We met our 'boss', Ling, at the Youth Centre, he is our placement mentor, Hiep described him as very professional and she assures us that we will learn a lot from him. He speaks very good English so it is easy to communicate with him. We had an interview this morning to get to know him and what he expects from our work here. He told us the job is very flexible, as long as we get the work done. We must go to the Youth Centre at least once a week to meet with him personally and fulfill tasks around the centre such as cleaning, cooking and teaching. There is a small class of students around our age that come monday-wednesday to practice their english and he wants us to sit in on the classes and discuss stuff with them. Apparently in school they learn English grammar but do not get much opportunity to practice the language so this type of class that he runs allows them to practice with native English speakers. There is no wifi at the Youth Centre so we will have to do most of our work at SJ Vietnam's office in our building or at a cafe in town. As long as we communicate to Ling where we will be, he doesn't care where we work. This week we will be going to the Youth centre and just getting to know the volunteers who work there and the way that the centre is run. Next week Jim and I will research about all the different NGO's in Hanoi and make a list. The third week we will contact them and set up an interview time and place then week four we will meet with them and ask them about the work they do and the requirements for the volunteers that they need. Then after our job is to write a report about our findings. It is hard to write down what we are doing  it is easier to explain in person since there is a lot to it I think. But Jim and I are both very excited to start and we both really like Ling. 

After our meeting with him Hiep took us to a conference called In & Out (Social Inclusion OUT of the box). It is 11 organizations from all over the world, including SJ Vietnam (the program we are working for) who have come together to promote social inclusion. During the conference we were able to get to know a lot of Vietnamese students our age who volunteer in Hanoi. We discussed what it means to volunteer and the type of social exclusions there are in the community and what can be done to stop this and create better attitudes towards the inclusions of minorities. In between workshops Jim and I were able to talk to them and to get to know them. They all seem very interested in us and where we come from and what we are doing here but they were also very open to answering questions we had about their culture. They even helped teach us some Vietnamese words. 

All in all, its been a great start and we are very happy to be here. It was cool to get to participate in such a cool conference on our first day.