Thirty-second Day - Soc Tran 12/03/10

Sumner

So toady we woke up and got ready to go to Soc Tran. Soc Tran (pronounced: shoc tran) is where Hannah was born and where her orphanage is. We got up and walked to the dock to go to a floating market. On the way we found the hotel that we stayed at the last night that we were a three person family. The next day we had Hannah. Then we got onto the boat. We went up the river a little way and then turned on a canal where the floating market was. On the way we saw an on the water gas station. It was like any other Vietnamese gas station with gas pumps and all. When we arived at the gas station we went slowly up one side of the market. There are many boats with fruits and vegitables. We saw many bamboo poles with some of the different fruits and vegitables hanging on them. We asked our guide what they were for and he said that those things are the things that they are selling on that particular boat. This market was wholesale so you had to buy in mass. We saw some women in little canoos up beside the bigger boats and buying produce. We saw some other women in canoos selling phu and noodles and other food. Our guide called one of these weomen and asked her to make us some fried noodles. She had a little styrofoam box with the top and one side cut out of it with a little one burner cookstove. She had one pan add mixed the noodles and fried all the stuff. Then she gave us the food. It was moving fast food! Once we got to the end of the market we furned around and went down the other side. On the way back we stoped at a place that sold pineapples we baught one and the man on the boat sliced it for us. We ate the pineapple on the way back down the other side of the market. Then we went back to the big river and to the dock. After that we went to buy some things for the kids in the orphanage at another market. This time it wasn’t outside on the water it was inside on land. We baught all sorts of stuff, candy, washing machine soap, soy sause, rice (five kilo’s of it), toys and all sorts of other things that would help them. Then we loaded all of it in the car and drove to Soc Tran. It was maybe a four hour trip to get there. When we went to go get Hannah it took allot longer because you had to take two ferrys. They just compleated the bridge six months ago so if we had gone seven months earlier we would have had to go on the ferry. When we got there we went directly to the orphanage. First we went into the office of the orphanage and met a woman named Mrs. Van. She was the doctor for the orphanage at the time Hannah was there. She didn’t remember Hannah because she didn’t ever have any realy serious sickness. In that room they had a chart of how many kids were there. We were supprised to see that they only had twenty-nine kids. Then Mrs. Van took us to one of the rooms, the main one for orphans. We saw babies and little kids and older kids. There were some older kids in there that we gave those fethered things to. Many of the kids there had disabilitys. I was so glad that I have someone to love me and take care of me instead of being in an orphanage. It is probably one of the hardest lives to live. After giving some toys and candy and cookies to the kids Hannah played with one of the girls there. While she was doing that I played for a while with an older kid in the orphanage. His name was Tam and he is fifteen. We played with the fethered thing. We learned that the Vietnamese call it a fethered cock. I don’t know why, but that is what they call it. After that we went to another building where elderly people live. That room used to have with Hannah’s crib. After that we went to another building, the one that we went to to sign the papers that offically made Hannah ours. Then we went back and had a conversation with Mrs. Van through Anh because her English is very limmited. She thanked us for taking care of her for the last years and we thanked her for taking care of Hannah for the first years of her life. The conversation was more than that but that was the path the conversation took. After that we got back in the car and drove to a pagoda. It was basicly like any pagoda exept that in the trees surrounding the ppagoda were many bats. The locals even called it “bat temple.” After that we went back to the car in a thing sorta like a sicilo. It was the oposite though because a person on a motorcycle attached at the back to a small carage (not like the ones that the pony express went on just a seat and a little area to sit on the front.) Once at the car we went to the hotel and got settled in. It was a big hotel and looked very nice from the outside. Once we got inside it was still nice but it wasn’t as nice as it seemed from the outside. Our room was clean and it would be only one night so it was fine. They even had a swimming pool so we decided to go check it out. It was a little questionable about how clean the water was but it looked clean enough so Hannah and I swam for a little while and then we got out and went back to the room. By that tome it was about time for dinner and we went to the restraunt in the resort. It was a little scary because we were the only ones there, besides two emploiees. The meal was OK though and we went went back to the room to get readdy for bed. Done with today, BEDTIME!