Met someone in the hotel lobby who has been working as a volunteer in Vietnam for about three months, at an orphanage several hours drive from Hoi An. She is a friendly, cheeful New Zealander who is obviously devoted to the children at the orphanage. She told us quite a lot about them.

By a co-incidence she lives in Tooting Bec when in London, very near our area.
She is teaching English to the children at the orphanage and helps to care for them all the week, with one other European woman and also Vietnamese people, but at weekends these two are encouraged to get away somewhere interesting, which is why she was at Hoi An.
There are about 30 children, aged from 8 to 15, and they have absolutely nothing - (although some have one parent, who cannot care for them). Nevertheless the children are fantastic, cheerful, polite and hard-working with wonderful smiles. She showed lots of photos of them.
One of their new skills is using a skipping rope, which was unknown until she bought them a length of rope.
When she came from England originally she brough tapes and CDs for teaching aids, but there is no radio, tape player or CD player at the orphanage.
The kids can watch TV for half an hour a night.
All the food is prepared in the kitchen with fresh vegetables that the children help to grow in their garden, and they have a chicken too.
Near the village is Hill 65, of notoriety from the Vietnam war, and also nearby is a war memorial for over 54,000 local people killed, although this is a farming area with low population.
She said that there is a huge problem with mental illness which is rife amongst participants in the war, that the government is addressing with difficulty, just as has happened to veterans in the US.
Those children look so charming in the photos, they are so bright and resourceful, they deserve all the good that the two Westerners can do them.
After these two leave, more volunteers are going to continue the work.
The orphanage is sponsored by the Vietnamese govenment.

When you are in Hoi An you cannot avoid the local children who try and sell to tourists.
Post cards are favourite, then Tiger Balm made locally, pendants, and they also ask for coins, of any kind.
Then they say they need the money for school.
Schooling is not free, and I was told that for a first school the cost is about 650,000 Vietnam Dong a year. (15700 dong to $) And this is on a wage that is often about $10 a month.
One thing the children, and adults too, often ask, is: How old are you? This is a bit disconcerting at first, but you get used to it.
It is one of the phrases being taught in the English lessons at school, along with Where are you from? How long you been in Vietnam?
I got in the habit of making the disclosure, which sometimes caused mirth! I usually asked them their age as well, they always knew the answer in English, too.
It is the girls that seem to most enterprising, so maybe the future of this fascinating country lies with the women entrepreneurs!
Our friend who works at the orphanage says the women are the workers, the men so less, drink coffee and talk.