Look at the wonderful garden in TTG…everytime I come back it has become more beautiful!
When we bought the land in 2006, It had been abandoned for a long time, it was covered with wild bushes,
a bamboo forest.
We had a dream, Tu, Trinh, Khanh, Hoa, Nhi, My Nhien, Quang, Tho and me…we “saw “TTG long before it was built!
It was in the chidren with special needs, in their parents, in their
teachers but also in the land, the earth, that we “saw” this dream.
I remember Tho driving with Mr Loi to visit some land to make our dream come true. I could not join them as they were afraid if the owners saw me the price
would go up.
Tho came home and said: This is the land we are looking for!
Next day he had to leave Vietnam and I stayed behind. I called my sister, Gitti and her husband Bob, I said: we found THE LAND…they wired
the money the same day so that we could buy it right away!
It was quite an amount that Khanh and me picked up from the bank. At that time there were no 500.000dong bills yet, probably the maximum amount of a bill was 50.000dong (1$=20.000dong).
So imagine the bags of money!!!!!!
We were so stressed that we shuffled the money under our t-shirts, in our pants (it would have made a funny scene in a comedy!) and drove like mad to deliver the money as quickly as possible!
I brought the money to Mr Loi, who was our middle man, made him sign in my little note book: received….so and so many dong…date+signature….that was all!
Everyone told me you are crazy! You hardly know Mr Loi, he
will run away with the money!
I did not worry one second! I knew it was “the” land” and I knew Mr Loi was the right person.
He had been recommended to us by the education department, with whom Eurasia
had built since 1998, in 6 schools, special classes for children living with mental disabilities.
In 2009 we inaugurated Tinh Truc Gia,
Now 30 youngsters, young adults with disabilities live and work here.
Our
aim to bring happiness and wellbeing to children youngsters and adults living with disabilities really is a living example here!
We also wish to bring happiness and wellbeing to the land, to the earth itself!
When
one knows how much agent orange , bombs etc have fallen on Vietnam’s earth, it is so joyful to see how our bio-dynamic garden is developing well!
I have to write a report for the FAO as they said our garden was one of the “best
practices” here in Vietnam!
I hope my report will really be good! I hope they will come and see fort themselves
Healing the earth, bringing wellbeing and respect to the person living with disabilities, creating a joyful community,
this is HAPPINESS