Day 3 by Don	Day 1-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Back Home
	The family house is where all the children live that is part of the Da Nang Streets Children Center.  It is run by staff, but there is one ‘mother’ that seems to take care of everything.  She truly loves here children and from the outside, seems like the disciplinary but inside you can see that she loves each and every child.  When I asked her if the children ever get adopted and leave, I felt that that wasn’t the best political correct thing to ask and she tells me no.  She does love them.  I would guess there are about 30 children here ranging from 4 to 18.  These are children that they have found on the streets abandoned.  Today there was a new child that was just being introduced to the home for the first time and there was already one incident of biting another child.
	The home seems to have outside support.  The first day we met one individual from France named Claire Asserman with an organization I believe she was running called Cap’Vietnam.  She was spending several months here with other people to help out.  They were currently financing the rebuilding of the homes floor, which was under construction.  She was very happy to see us and asked if Robyn wanted to stay and help, but since we were leaving to go home, suggested another day.  I am sure we will see her again.  She seemed to be a very special person.
	After work, I had stayed at the hotel to take a nap as the Linda, Robyn and Deanna go teach English.  Later I would take a taxi and pick them up.  As we left the family house, several children rode their bikes and shouted with enjoyment as we taxied off to Hoi An just as you see in the movies! The three of them defiantly had fun with the children, but Linda was definitely stressed at her new found career of teaching children.
	We arrived in Hoi An and after some quick window-shopping, we found a nice little restaurant on the second floor and ate on a balcony overlooking the river.  Across the river there seemed to be a loud concert and carnival going on.  On the river, there were several swan boats with eerie eyes being paddled by many of the children.  As some of the boats got stuck in the mud, there was a canoe that was paddled to the stranded swan and the man inside pushed the swan into deeper waters.  There were many people walking the streets.  This is the ideal place to people watch.  And if you love shopping, deals can be found if you are willing to negotiate and walk away if they don’t meet your price.  It’s a bargain Mecca.  After we ate, we walked around for a bit and soon caught our taxi back to the hotel after a long day.
	Today, we all went to the Nguyen Dihn Chieu School for the Blind and watched a ceremony for the graduation of individuals that were learning to use the cane for the 1st time.  In Vietnam, you don’t see Seeing Eye dogs, or people walking around with canes.  They are constraint by their local surroundings.  As the terrain is very varied, it is almost impossible to walk around the city and enjoy the culture if you are without sight.  Most people that are blind live in the outskirts of the city.  With the new introduction of the cane to these people, they now can navigate unknown areas, and as the Vietnamese people say, they can now walk beautifully.  They mentioned our work that we were doing and thanked us.  We even were asked to come up on stage to hand out the thank you certificates to the young helpers that taught the students how to use a cane.
	One of the women sings the song “Where have all of the flowers gone”.  A very ironic song to pick as it was written in a time when our two nations were at war and about the effects of the war on the people within the US at the time.  She was awesome, but not sure if she understood the meaning behind it, nor cared as Viet Nam has truly left the war in the past.
	After the ceremony, we were invited to have lunch with everyone, which was very good.  Pictures were soon taken with everyone and then people departed.  As class didn’t start until 1PM, many people found vacant rooms in the school and tool naps.  What a life! Deanna, Linda and Robyn waited for several hours for a room to be opened so we could turn on a router for the Internet.  In the meantime, the three of them played computer games.  What a bunch of dorks! I head out and take a walk outside along the streets by myself.  I visit a Buddha site and buy some Fanta for everyone.  Again I have many enjoyable flashbacks of our race up north in 2002...it is hot and muggy...the sky is overcast...my friend the wind is still and not blowing...I can see people sleeping on their tile floors in their front rooms...to some this could be the worst place in the world but to me, it is awesome...we traveled through some very awesome locations back then.
	Today we made a lot of progress in the PTC CAD software training...but also lost three students.  We designed a lens for a camera, placed it in the camera body, and now everyone is putting together a rover.  Yesterday they were having problems creating lines and now they are doing this.
	We have one student in the class who is really picking it up quickly.  I wish I only had documents for him, as he speaks no English and once I leave it would be hard for him to learn anything.  Sheila, who connected us with PTC, met another teacher this weekend that knows someone in Hue that might be able to translate.  And as she says, there is a god-coincidence that we just happened to be going there this weekend! I’ll look up the nuns and see what will be possible.
	This kid is a natural at this and will talk to Dihn/Joy about what it would take to hire him for the school to train everyone else.  He has a smile that goes from his forehead to his chin! After I show him what the next lesson is, he goes and shows the other three women how to do it.  Not sure if he is trying to teach them or get make points with the women...but he is doing great and very effective! Teachers make $80/month so it would be very easy for someone to sponsor him and would be very ideal for him.  So many opportunities are available for pennies!
	A little about PTC.  This is a program that Sheila arranged to get donated for the schools we will be visiting.  It is a powerful 3-D modeling CAD program, yet very simple to use given the tutorials available.  PTC has been donating this to all the military base schools so that the children I believe ages 5 and above can learn CAD.  It is one of those types of software that when you do teach it to the children, they end up surpassing their instructors only after several hours.  In our class we have one 2nd grade teacher, two accountants, an architecture student, and one who has done nothing except use Excel and Word.  It is amazing how fast they seem to pick it up.  I have one interpreter, which does help, but it is still a struggle at times to get across what it is that I would like to teach them.  All of them are extremely patient and as I look at them now, they are having fun putting together the rover sample.  There is a mix of examples to teach them and have found that using a mixture of the Pro/Desktop tutorials and the PTC examples has been ideal.  It has gone slow at times, and they all want to do the examples maybe 10 times till they get it.  I might have to shorten their ‘playtime’ of doing the examples over and over so we can get onto the other examples.  But in the end, it is amazing that we sit here learning something together as complicated as 3D modeling with people that don’t speak the same language, in a room with very muted blue painted walls which are taller then the width of the room, it is probably 90 degrees and 100% humidity on old computers with Windows 2000 operating system (the new ones are in an even hotter room) and they are all enjoying it and really learning and helping each other.
	Day 1-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Back Home