It is difficult to describe the feelings of the visiting delegation when they arrived at Van Canh Friendship Village (Xuan Phuong, Tu Liem, Hanoi) within the framework of the Workshop "Psychological consequences of victims of toxic chemicals in the Vietnam War".This small Friendship Village, located more than ten kilometers away from the city center, is quiet in the early morning sun. “It’s school hours, the children’s work hours are over, so the village is quiet. It’s time for recess and it becomes lively again,” explained Mr. Dang Vu Dung, the Village Director. Only by visiting the village and witnessing the difficult and painful living and studying of the children here can one fully appreciate the brutality of war. Obviously, no material force can compensate for the physical and mental pain of the children’s families. Therefore, we better understand Professor Mike Gorkin’s thoughts in his opening remarks. He hopes that the US government will have more appropriate policies to ease the pain of war in Vietnam. It may not be able to heal the wounds left by the disaster of war, but timely encouragement can somewhat ease the pain of this cruelty. Each child in this Friendship Village is a difficult situation and has extraordinary determination that makes the visiting delegation emotional. The consequences of war have not allowed them to be normal people. Intellectual disabilities, motor disabilities... have caused them to face countless obstacles in life. When meeting nearly 100 broken souls from different provinces of the North here, the visiting delegation was truly haunted. Haunted, not only by the consequences of war, fate has forced them to carry painful wounds, but also by their determination. In the most special class in the village - the class for children with the least intellectual development - the children are being guided by a teacher to learn how to wash their hands. Ms. Oanh, the teacher of this class, said: This is the class with the least intellectual development in this Friendship Village. The children's memory is very poor, when going to the toilet, if the teacher does not check, they may... forget the way out. In this class, children are taught the most basic skills to serve life such as washing hands, washing face... However, only 3/8 children in this class can absorb. The remaining children are almost completely incapable of receiving... Trung trembled as he held the soap and rubbed it on his hands. The soap kept scratching and moving, refusing to follow his control. His already weak, crooked hands, combined with his mental disability, made what seemed easy for any 4-year-old child extremely difficult for a 10-year-old boy like Trung. It was heartbreaking, but everyone tried to smile. Smiling as if it were an encouragement and consolation when the tiny, crooked hand of "young man" Nguyen Quang Hoa (nearly 29 years old) was lost in the hand of Professor Gorkin. If it were like many normal, healthy young men, this year, Hoa's child would be almost in first grade. But this young man is still as innocent as a child. He happily shook hands and asked about the health of anyone he met. Hoa had a very good ability to imitate (even speaking in foreign languages). But after speaking, Hoa forgot everything, almost couldn't remember anything except his name Nguyen Quang Hoa and his hometown Phu Tho.
Nguyet's (Tuyen Quang) path to literacy is ten thousand times more difficult than other children because of her intellectual disability. The teacher said that the children in Nguyet's class all learn and forget quickly, so it is very difficult to teach letters and do math... The word "gố ru" that the teacher gave her to practice writing was written together by Nguyet. And due to spelling mistakes, they became two words "ghê go". The path to literacy and integration into life of Nguyet and the children here is also as bumpy as the lines of words she has been practicing writing for 3 years now but still has spelling mistakes. In the computer class, many children are still shaky and have not pronounced words clearly, but thanks to the efforts of both teachers and students, they have begun to know how to use the keyboard. The cramped hand of Yen (Thai Binh) has been learning to type on the keyboard for 4 years now. Her typing speed is still slow, but Yen and her friends in this computer class are better. I had to ask her 3 times to understand how she spelled "Thai Binh", her hometown. Because she and her friends here have difficulty pronouncing. This year, Yen is 23 years old! Thom's bright smile at the embroidery class attracted my lens. The survey team standing by watching made Thom... lose focus. It took her 5th attempt to thread the new thread. As if understanding the trembling in the 22-year-old girl's hand, the whole team had to look away. Thom had a bright smile. If she hadn't suffered from the war, this year, she could have been a pretty, young senior student at a university. After 6 years of learning embroidery, Binh's hands can now produce the most beautiful and complex embroidery at the Center. Of the ten students in the embroidery class, the worst student can also have embroidery lines that match the drawing. The unlucky hands, thanks to extraordinary willpower, have become more prosperous! Unlike Binh, Thom in the sewing class was less fortunate because both of her hands only had 3 fingers left, but none of them were intact. Yet, the extraordinary hands of that 27-year-old girl were able to produce skillfully sewn garments. Each situation in this Friendship Village is a page filled with tears. However, their hands have written magical and beautiful pages of life. Dung's hands in the paper flower making class were too weak to hold scissors, even though she loved cutting paper. She was taught gluing, an important step in the paper flower making process. Those trembling, pale, weak hands, along with extraordinary determination, after 4 years helped her become a skilled paper flower maker.
Leaving the vocational training area, we continued to the special care area for children who cannot perceive life. For nearly 20 years, Mother Bien's hands have devotedly held the hands of each child with cognitive disabilities in this Friendship Village, feeding them spoonfuls of rice. Thao cannot see anything, although her eyes are still wide open. Notably, Thao cannot chew. Every spoonful of rice that is put into her mouth, Thao can only swallow it. At 54 years old, Mother Bien never stops hoping that one day, Thao and the children at this special care home will be able to hold a spoon to eat rice by themselves. A rope loops from one side of the wheelchair to the other to keep Toan's neck, 12 years old, from leaning forward. This rope around the neck is what helps Toan attach to the wheelchair. For the past 8 years, since he learned to sit in a wheelchair, Toan has had to stick with it. It can be said that it is the rope that connects Toan to the not-so-vibrant but warm life of love in this Friendship Village. Looking at a group of girls playing in the yard, each member of the group felt like they found a little warmth. Everyone would think that they were healthy. However, while they were playing, behind them, Lan’s mother called them to come home and eat until her voice was hoarse, but it had no effect. They were deaf. Each situation here, as Bien’s mother said, is “a sorrow for each family, the whole country”. But looking at the lines of writing that were still scribbled but had clear meaning, the fingers that were still twitching but could type on the computer keyboard, the colorful flowers gradually appearing on each embroidered cloth… we, like the members of this Friendship Village, constantly hope for a tomorrow, when better things can come to the children through their will to rise up, through the love of the kind mothers in this Friendship Village.
