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Remember the Beauty of The Children: "The Future"

By Pete Zastrow

If you were in Vietnam it would be hard to forget the children: even during my year in Vietnam (the first time), when all of us thought we had reason to suspect almost any child we saw, we remember the beautify of the Vietnamese children. None of that has changed.

The VVAW delegation seemed to attract children wherever we went. As we walked the streets of Hanoi we would often be accompanied by children: they would ask us if we were Russians (they don't see all that many Americans in Hanoi). When we said no, we were Americans, they would take our hands and walk with us through the stores or along the streets. Or they would try out their English—"Hello, how are you?"

In Hanoi in the early morning we could watch the children congregate. At 5 AM the youngest children would gather in the park across from where we were staying, creating a makeshift soccer field with a couple of concrete benches as goals. Kids—4-5-6 years old—would begin kicking around the soccer ball; usually, two kids with bandages or limping would sit on the benches to act as goalies. As best I could see from across the street, no one much cared who won; running and kicking were enough. As the morning moved along, older children and then adults started using the same space; the small kids vanished, no doubt heading home to get ready for school.

In Chicago, we're afraid to let our kids lose to play by themselves—there would have to at least a couple of adults around to keep them from being stolen, molested, or murdered. In Hanoi, where they loved their kids as much as we do, there is no problem with letting them run free.

At the home of Ho Chi Minh long lines of school children lied through the Mausoleum and then around the lake and through the house where Ho Chi Minh had lived. They mostly wore the red saves of the Young Pioneers; the children were slender (I don't think we ever saw an overweight child—or many adults, for that matter) and looked both healthy and happy. Although they seems suitably awed walking through the home of the founder and leader of their country, they were also quite ready to pass around appropriate giggles for the strange-looking American tourists.

Much later, as we were waiting to board the car ferry for the commune outside of Ho Chi Minh City, we were sitting in our van until the ferry got to our side of the river. Of the beaten track, we were indeed a curiosity here, a place where a few food stands and a couple of houses marked one end of the ferry route. But there were plenty kids: our van was surrounded, young faces peering in the windows to look at our cameras, watches, pictures, anything we could find to show them. One boy wore a "Monk from Ork" T-shirt but with the added decoration of a Lenin button. All the children were infatuated with the pony tail belonging to one member of our delegation, and when he wasn't looking, would make scissor motions with their fingers for the rest of us to see. Once again we seems to be seeing happy and curious children, delighted to have something new to talk about for the day. They gladly escorted us on to the ferry.

In the museums as we were escorted from display to display, often a couple of children would come along. Our guides, conscious of their duties to let us see everything, would show the kids away, but in a couple of minutes, they would be back. Through the length of the historical museum, our guide was accompanied by her young child ofter to her embarrassment, but for those of us who are familiar with what childcare means in this country, having the child at work seemed a perfect solution.

We saw the official solution to childcare problems on our last day in Ho Chi Minh City. It was going to be difficult to arrange a tour of the Childrens' Hospital so we asked to have the change to see a daycare center instead.

Daycare is state operated in Ho Chi Minh City it is supervised by the Committee for the Protection of Women and Children. The head of the local committee showed us through the school/daycare facility. Of course the kids were friendly, happy like kids anywhere to have someone to perform (we were treated to several songs) or a reason to break routine. Kids were playing with many of the same toys American children play with: the school bags hanging in the hallway could have been the same bags hanging in school all over the U.S. Caring adults helped wherever they could.

There were some profound differences from the U.S. Childcare could begin as early as 3 months, although the laws had recently been changed so that women automatically were given 6 months leave after a birth. (In the U.S. finding childcare for children under 6 months is almost impossible.) Nutrition is watched with great care; daily menus are posted with all the various food and vitamin values of each. We saw several children being brought back from malnutrition, children who had lived in the countryside where food is sometimes less plentiful than in the city. But even these children were clearly on their way back. Proper nutrition and tender loving care help.

All over Ho Chi Minh City are networks of these childcare centers and, while most families do not use them, preferring to leave their children with relatives, the centers are available and inviting. No woman who wanted to work outside the home would feel she could not because there was not adequate childcare; the childcare was there, available and, from all we could see, dedicated to the wolfare of the children.

During this visit, as with most of our tours, we were shown the best: 2, 2 1/2 year-old children were drawing (probably with some help from the teacher.) Children sat contentedly around tables sharing toys, through my own experience with children of that age made the "sharing" seem a little suspicious. Naturally enough they wanted us to see the best—and we did. But if we saw children well scrubbed and on their best behavior, I believe that other childcare centers are equally inviting and the children equally well loved.

In one of the ironies which recurred during our trip, we discovered that our guide had a history at which we could only marvel. The head of the Protective Society accompanied us throughout the tour of the childcare center, through the translator, she sounded much like everyone's picture of the administrator from the local board of education—filled with facts, dryly giving us far more information than we could use. As we were ready to leave we learned she had spent years and years at the infamous Cong Son Island, the worst of the prison camps run by the worst of South Vietnamese abetted by the worst of the Americans. There was something appropriate that a woman with the strength to endure that was now devoting her strength to the children.

Now knowing what may come, it is still true that these children are the future of their country. they seem to have a good start. And from all we saw, their future—and their country's future—looks bright. As we expressed several times during our travels, we can only hope—and work to accomplish—that these children and our children will meet someday on the playfield instead of the battlefield. May their children and our children someday play together in peace.

—Pete Zastrow
National Office