The kids' sufferings and the kind heartsnbsp;

nbsp;Little Duong Thi May always wished to wear a doctor's gown. She applied the stethoscope on a teddy bear and laughed. A few kids around heartily laughed with her, their heads keeping turning back and forth, seemingly boneless, their hands waving in the air, with no definite direction, in a charitable class of the Vietnam Friendship Village for mentally-retarded kids due to the effects of the US dioxin. May is 13, but she knows nothing, is unable to talk fluently, nor walk with ease due to for her bandy legs. Her father is dead and she has four elder brothers, all mentally retarded.

The educational course is a special one. The students are all disabled, retarded and of different ages. Teaching them is a hard job. They are of the 3rd grade but many of them find it hard to do the reading. Only a few of them can. Their pronunciation is distorted due to their twisted lips and their memory is quite short. They easily forget what they've learned. "We make every effort to help them; the more they can learn, the better," said Nguyen Thi Yen, their teacher. Besides general education, they are also trained in such handicrafts as embroidery, tailoring, plastic-flower making ...nbsp; Even though their fingers remain awkward and clumsy, and their understanding weak and deficient, their products can meet all expectation, to some extent. This has given them a source of joy, some self-confidence and a dream of doing something helpful for their families when returning to the normal life among their community.

In the Village, it is quite hard to tell the kids' exact ages. Some in their twenties have a physical statures as small as the 7- or 8-years-old. They find it difficult to feed themselves, much less have mental ability or physical capacity for work. No one can hold back the tears when seeing the heads turning round unconsciously, the bandy arms managing to push the spoon of food into the mouths with awful difficulty ... Yet they still keep smiling, singing in their great innocence, at the presence of some visitors, craving for something beautiful.

Ellen Laugesen, a Dane and one of the volunteers who has been working for the Village as expert in physio-therapy has donated a whole set of equipment to its functional-rehabilitation section. For years she has been coming to the Village to help train its two technicians in direct treatment of the kids. Many of them with deformed arms and legs, moving around on their toes trembling all along can now walk better, after some time of great care by the technicians. Nonetheless quite of few of them, though staying in the Village for a long time, are not allowed to return to their families due to their worse conditions. For these cases, they need major surgery, but the Village's utterly limited budget cannot cover all, as it depends mainly on the assistance from the NGOs and charity people, both at home and abroad, and its own meager efforts.

One of the friends

Suel Jones, one of the American Vets, who joined in the US War in Vietnam in 1968, is now a member of the International Committee for Friendship Villages. He has been staying in Vietnam for four years, becoming one of the Village's volunteers and making recommendations for international delegations to visit the Village, hence their possible and potential financial assistance. Today Suel Jones is returning to the Village visiting the kids and meeting with the war veterans and the former youth volunteers who are under treatment there.nbsp;

Sitting in the small room of the veterans just back from their physio-therapy, Suel Jones was talking to them over a cup of green tea. The story about Vuong, a vet from Thai Nguyen Province, touched him to the heart. After his demobilization, Vuong returned to his home village and had seven children, three of whom died from the dioxin effects on the father and one could not open the eyes until three months after birth. The American vet was awfully saddened because all the Vietnamese vets in the Village were in awkward circumstances. Even Suel Jones himself was a victim of the Agent Orange/dioxin. After his return from the Vietnam War, his wife would never be a mother, after her several miscarriages. He wished to share responsibility, to some extent, as a magnanimous gesture of humanism to the Village by joining in the care and treatment of the war veterans, the victims of the Agent Orange/dioxin and the crippled by the war now living in untold difficulties.nbsp;

On late that afternoon Suel Jones was on his way home, reluctant to part with the kids playing on the grounds of the Village, among their deep attachment. A little boy was grabbing at his pants, smiling and saying something unintelligible, his head falling to one side. He was bidding good-bye to the American friend, I guessed.

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Story:nbsp; Vuong Mo nbsp;nbsp;