Ho Chi Minh City

Finally it’s about to start. From the 10th of March 2016 I started preparing for my trip to do voluntary work abroad. During this period I got the necessary vaccinations, got my visa, attended a volunteer-preparation day at Muses and did a lot more to prepare well for the trip. I’m really excited to go for it now!

You might be wondering what my reason for doing voluntary work is, why abroad and why Vietnam?
One of the reasons I got interested in doing this, was by my girlfriend Fleur. She did voluntary work at Mercy Ships for 2,5 months last year. She helped on the Hospital Ship when it was docked in Madagascar. When she came back, her positive and impressive stories inspired me to do something myself. Fleur came back with a lot of good experiences, but also some really confronting ones. There is a great need for help in a poor country like Madagascar and the same is true for a lot of other countries. It got me thinking about what I could and should do.
I figured it would be wonderful if I could support people in need and at the same time have a great experience myself by getting to know a new culture and country. So I started searching the internet for the options. I found an organisation Vrijwillig Wereldwijd and made an appointment with one of the founders to talk about the projects they work on. In this appointment Vietnam caught my attention, I liked the diversity in the projects and am very interested to get to know more about the Asian culture. The projects are focussed on teaching English and support with daily activities like helping in the kitchen and playing games with the kids. I’ll write more about the projects in detail in my blogposts later on.

view from the hotel (Lele hotel, Ho Chi Minh City)

I just landed in Ho Chi Minh City and will stay in a hotel in the city for one night. Tomorrow I will be traveling to Can Tho by bus. Can Tho is the town where I will stay and where the projects are located.

More soon!