Do Page Seven

The Children in Her Care

"An SOS mother has to ask the children questions; she has to guide them and advise them."
I was given my first child on the 2nd of January 1990. He came from the outskirts of Hanoi and his name is Tuan Hai. Two days later I took in two more children. One of them had been abandoned by her parents. The mother was disabled and knew that her daughter was also mentally disabled. She left her in a very poor house in the centre of Hanoi. Luckily there was a neighbour who gave her a bit of rice every day. She was lying on a thin mat and looked terrible. She was three years old at the time. When I picked her up, she cried. She couldn't speak clearly and only used ugly words. When I took her in, I let her sleep with me. My family house wasn't equipped to cope with a whole family yet,because the SOS Children's Village had only just been completed. So my children had to sleep on the floor. Thanks to the care given her by everybody in the village, she began to eat and soon began to grow. Because she was disabled, though, she was never able to recover fully. She often had a high temperature and wasn’t able to move one side of her body. She was in hospital a lot, but there was no treatment for her illness. Even though she did not get better, I didn't want to send her to an orphanage. The village director tried to convince me that it would be better for her to go to a specialist facility where they could help her more. I asked her to leave the child in my care, but she said, "The SOS Children's Village doesn't have the specialist equipment needed for disabled children. She's still small now and you can lift her onto the toilet, but what will happen when she's bigger and heavier and we can't lift her anymore? You've got other children in your family who need looking after too. Please send her to the orphanage for disabled children." I couldn't sleep for a week after she went to the orphanage, because I missed her so much. The village director didn't want me to go with her on the day she moved, because she knew that I would cry. Two years later I visited her in the orphanage. I had made clothes for her. When I got there I saw that she was able to sit upright in a chair. She even remembered me and smiled when she saw me. However, her illness was very bad and she died a year later. Two more children arrived two months after this little girl. They were brother and sister and their parents had died. They were living in extreme poverty and only had potatoes and sweet potatoes to eat, but no rice. When the two of them came to me, the boy, who was the older one, was very ill. His younger sister was three years old and also extremely malnourished. She had a big bald head. Her arms and legs were very small and she had a very fat tummy. The village director showed me what I had to do to make her hair grow again. I took her to the doctors to have her examined and given medicine. After three months she was eating quite well and she started to grow and so did her hair. Now she studies in the evenings and is healthy and fat. Her name is Hanh and her brother is Tien.

My eldest daughter is Na and she comes from a suburb of Hanoi. She's the one who already has a baby. She had seven brothers and sisters and was only seven months old when her parents died. She lived with her brothers and sisters after that. She was seven years old when she came to the SOS Children's Village. A lot of people thought that she was only five, because she was so weak. Thanks to the care that everyone has given her here, she quickly grew bigger.

I was given another child in October 1990. She had been abandoned outside Hanoi. Her name is Hien. When she arrived, everybody from the village came to look at her and a lot of them had to laugh, because she was so dirty. She had black skin and curly hair. I said to the village director, "Perhaps she comes from the mountains, or from Africa?!" I looked after her and bathed her and a week later she was already a shade whiter. She ate a lot and grew so quickly that I got worried. As she grew bigger she also got prettier. She always did well at kindergarten and school. She's now the class representative and takes part in all the school activities. I took good care of her, woke her up at night to see to her when she had a high temperature and now she has grown quickly and is healthy. I've been very lucky with this child. None of the other children had any problems with their health when they came here. Those I've described were the difficult ones. Including the one who died, I've cared for eighteen children. Seven of them are either in the youth homes or the SOS Vocational Training Centre, or they've got married.

You've already mentioned where some of your children came from. Do you know all their histories?
I know all the family histories. Most of the parents are dead and two of them have parents who are mentally ill. I know all their relatives. They come to see the children and realise that I'm taking good care of them. They are thankful for that and I'm often invited to visit them. They also come to visit the children.

Do the children ever ask where they come from?
I've explained it to them and told them about where they come from. Whilst they are still small, I keep this information to myself and don't tell them about their tragic pasts. I only tell them about where they come from and how they used to live, once they've grown up a bit. When they are about fifteen or sixteen years old, I tell them their stories. At that age they are able to understand these things. All my children should know where they come from and be familiar with their family histories.

Do's Story:
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All these mother's stories come from SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy. Copyright is reserved and no unauthorized use permitted. Use for non-commercial purposes may be requested. The interviews telling about the lives of some SOS Mothers form part of an interesting study on being a replacement Mother to children in need in SOS Children's communities worldwide.