Evening dinner and show with the kids and families

This evening, we had our farewell dinner with the Vietnamese children and families. Each year, there is the Little Red Fairy contest which is a drawing competition where children compete for money which they can use for their families or for school scholarships. The US consulate and one of her team were at the event. From what I understand, she had heard about the work Catalyst was doing and wanted to come down from HCMC and check it out. She was friendly and praised Catalyst for the direct efforts of the organization.

The show included a song from each of our Catalyst teams which were written by the Frisch family. The songs are clever and in English so I don’t think the Vietnamese kids have any idea what they said, but the point was to put us all up on stage for the amusement of the children even if they couldn’t understand. There was also a “fashion show” by the young adult men and women which was a little odd as it didn’t seem like any of them actually wanted to be doing this. I think this must be some tradition as every year there has been a fashion show. Not sure I get this. The highlight of the show to me was some lovely dance performances by some of the Vietnamese school age children. Throughout the whole evening, the DJ had the music super, super loud. Caroline kept going up and turning it down to a reasonable loud level, but they just turned it back up. Several of the Catalyst adults went and sat way in the back of the school yard so that they could save their eardrums. Overall, it seemed like the Vietnamese families and children had a great time which was the point.

That night I found a cute little baby with his mom and gave him my Habitat bear. When you donate over a certain level to Habitat for Humanity, you get a cute little stuffed bear. I have several from my own donations and from friends and families who have donated. I like to give them to the children of the houses we have built. I didn’t have a chance to meet the children from the house this year and I heard there were several kids at the house and I only had one bear with me. When I saw this little baby, it seemed like a natural decision. The mom was very thankful and the baby seemed to respond well to the bear. I hope it brings good memories to both over time.