Gifts for the Children

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On Thanksgiving evening, I had requested my brothers and sisters to gather any toys they have laying around which my nephews were no longer playing with. I would plan to then bring it to Vietnam. The amount of gifts were overwhelming. I had more toys than the space aloted for China Airlines. I did my best to pack as much as I could filling the box to the top. When I arrived to the customs area at the Saigon airport, they couldn’t decipher from exray of all the gadgets so it was requested that I open up the boxes. They saw some cell phone among the toys and asked me to pay taxes for them. It was soon recognized that these were toy celphones and therefore, they let me go through.

On Saturday, my co-workers Nghi and Nhi organized the toys for the children. We identified the ones that needed batteries which also turn out to require a screwdriver since the battery latch were screwed on. I was trying to figure a strategy for passing out the toys to the children in the event that we did not have enough toys. The initial stragegy was to randomly pass out tickets with numbers on them. The children would then go up and select only one gift at a time. We counted 126 gifts so we printed 126 tickets.

As we arrive to the orphaneage, we were greeted by the sister monks. The children were having dinner which gave us a little time. I proceeded to request a screwdriver in attempts to install the batteries. It was quite an amazing coincidence that this Sunday’s attandence of all the children for dinner added up to be 126. I felt as if the stars and moon were being aligned. It was therefore no longer necessary to implement the elaborate scheme of having the children select the toys.

I had requested Nhi to help with the battery installation but before we were able to make any leadway, the children were finished with dinner and eager to see what awaits within the cardboard box. We had the children form lines. I was going to proceed with a modified plan of having the children come up to pick each toy. The sister suggested that we pass out the toys since some of the children were too small. Nghi and my friend Nhat started passing out the little toys for the children. We had many baby type action figures and hotwheels cars. These were appropriate for the boys but there were many girls. They were also given these toys since all these toys came from my nephews. The girls didn’t seem to mind since the colorful little toys were toys to them with no preconceived gender biase. The children books and puzzles were given to the older children. Eventhough the books were children books, they were in English so it would still be challenging for the children. Some of the oldest children that I tought English to, seem to refrain from receiving a toy to ensure that the little children receive something first.

After all the little toys were passed out, Nhi was still in the process of installing the batteries. The hottest item was a red remote control car and the remote control army truck. Once some of the boys saw this, they started to raid the toy box. It only took one child to open the flud gates as all the children swarmed the box grabbing what they could. All the sisters and assistance were yelling out commands for the children to stop but it was futile. It was fine that the toys to be desiminated in this manner but I wanted the batteries to be installed. The verbal commands were useless so I took the box and raised it beyond the reach of the children. The sister then took this over to a room for me to install the final batteries.

I sat on a table where I was trying to work on the truck when a couple of boys snuck in and grabbed it. They pulled the plastic toy back and forth until it fell to the ground breaking into many little pieces. That was a difficult lesson learned since that toy was rendered useless. I then started to work on the red sports car toy. The boys insisted that they could install the batteries but my feable attempts to explain to them the dangers of a screwdriver did not seem to sink in. The moment the fourth battery was engaged, the headlights turned on and the boys immediately grapped the car. I insisted that they share or else the fate of the sport car would end up as scraps similar to the pulverized truck.

The children were very creative, making full use of every toy that was given to them. Without any instructions, they took upon various puzzle games and handheld video games like experts. Some of the toys were not age appropriate since some of the children were quite young but that did not seem to deter them from figuring out every little nuance of each toy.

On my previous visit, we showed a movie. This was projected on a wall from a LCD projector. The children were eager to watch another movie but there was a competing soccer game between Vietnam and Thailand that captured the attention of the entire country. This was the mother of all sporting events since all televisions and radios were tuned in. It just happen to fall right at 6pm which was when we were planning to show our movie. The older kids really were looking forward to this match so we decided to defer the movie for next time and let the children play the toys until the soccer match begin.


I was amazed by the affection that I receive when I am in the orpheaneage. The boys in particular would come right up to me and hold on to me as if I am a long lost family member that they have not seen for a long time. They had complete utter trust and seem to starve for affection and love. It was really heart warming as some of the children posed for the camera and stayed close to me the entire time. One boy asked me where my house was and where I lived. I said I am staying in Saigon but my home was far away. He then asked if I took the taxi to my home. I replied by saying that I had to take a long all day flight to get here. He than explained to another boy that “anh Sy” had an airplane and that I flew in my own airplane to get here to visit them. I didn’t really have the heart to alter the nice fantasy so I concured with his rendition and replied confirmingly that I did fly with my own airplane.

It was getting dark when we got onto the taxi and made our way out. We said good bye to the sisters but tried to sneak out without really formally saying goodbye to the childen. Some how, I became instantly attached and didn’t have the heart to part the children even though we were there only for a couple of hours. As we drove slowly out of the central courtyard, one boy did see us and asked if I we was leaving. I rolled down the window and said replied that yes, we are leaving waving to him and promising that I would be back. In my heart of hearts, I do wish to see these children again real soon. It is always such a warm union, even for a short moment.