This is about Sam’s side of the family.  He has my side, he has Leigh’s side, and now he has his side.  Pictured above is Sam with his birth family and his birth mother, Mrs. Ha., is the woman in pink standing in front of Sam.  This was our journey:

Our guide for meeting Sam’s birthmother and family was Mrs. Dao.  She is a social worker  who works with an agency called Eurekaz and who, 4 years ago, helped us to locate Mrs.Ha.  After picking us up at 6:30 am, we headed to the local market in Can Tho to buy some food, supplies and clothes for Mrs. Ha.  Mrs Dao explained that Mrs. Ha is extremely poor even by Vietnamese standards.  She earns the equivalent of $1 US dollar per day stripping the ribs from coconut plant leaves, which she then dries and sells and which end up being oven into brooms and mats.  Sam worked with Mrs. Dao to buy food and clothes for Mrs. Ha, and sweets for Sam’s nephew.

Sam is standing with Mrs Dao, on the right, and Anna, who served as our translator, in the middle.

We were then off to meet Sam’s family. Sam’s birthmother, Mrs. Ha., lives in the Mekong Delta in rural Soc Trang province. And I when I say rural, I mean rural. We left from the city of Can Tho, which is on the way to Soc Trang and is 3.5 hours south of Saigon.  From Can Tho, it was 1.5 hours on a deeply rutted road to a car ferry in the Long Phu area of Soc Trang.  Then we took like what I think is the slowest car ferry I have ever been on to cross the Hau River; the current was moving faster than we were.  Once off the ferry, it was another 45 minutes on a 2 lane road to the An Thanh 3 village.  

(The picture above was actually taken as we were leaving)

We then needed to transfer to motorbikes to go the approx 2 kilometers from the main road back to Mrs. Ha’s house.

The man with the striped shirt was my ride from the road back to Mrs. Ha’s house.  And like most of the people we saw on motorbikes throughout Vietnam, I held onto a shopping bag of supplies while riding on the back seat.

This is the road we travelled by motorbike.  It is essentially a sidewalk that goes many kilometers back into the countryside, meandering past houses and farms.  The farm on the right is growing sugarcane, which the region is known for.  However, where the price of sugarcane fell a few years back, the farmers dug ponds where the sugarcane foiekds were and stocked them with shrimp.  Now Soc Trang is well known for its quality of farmed shrimp.

We then arrived at Mrs. Ha’s house.

(This picture was actually taken before we left which is what Sam and Leigh are on the porch).

When we went to Mrs. Ha’s door, she came outside and immediately hugged Sam.  And once she hugged him she never left his side for the rest of the visit.  The other woman in the picture below is Sam’s Aunt (his Uncle’s wife).

Sam’s nephew wanted to join in the hugging.

Mrs. Ha is one of 8 siblings.  Pictured above are, from left to right: Mrs. Ha’s brother, 2 of her sisters, Mrs. Ha,  Sam, Sam’s nephew, Mrs. Ha’s sister in law (married to the uncle on the left) and Mrs. Ha’s oldest brother.

All in all, about 20 of Sam’s relatives came to meet him, which was an amazing turnout.  While some live nearby, others traveled to be there.  And there were neighbors and friends who wanted to meet Sam, too.  As Mrs. Ha’s home is very small, we moved next door to her brother’s house (the one in the green shirt, above).

We created a Shutterfly book of pictures of Sam from the orphanage through this year and Sam gave it to Mrs. Ha’s as a gift.  Once she looked at it, it only left her hands so that others could look at it.

Below is Sam showing the book to his Aunts.

We then all sat around Sam’s Uncle’s living for a while.  Lots of hugging, crying, laughing, and questions and answers.

In the picture below, Sam’s Aunt is showing how similar Sam’s hands and Mrs. Ha’s hands are.

We then went to get a tour of Mrs. Ha’s home. It was very dark inside, so it was hard to get good pictures.

Mrs. Ha held onto Sam at all times.

This is a picture of the bathroom that Mrs. Ha shares with her brothers family.  It is a traditional, rural bathroom with a squat toilet (in essence, a hole in the floor and a bucket of water for cleaning) set over the stream.  Waste goes directly into the stream, which makes the catfish very happy (and which caused us to say that we will not be eating any catfish while in Vietnam).

This is Mrs. Ha’s bedroom and bed.  No mattress; only a mat.

Mrs. Ha’s front porch.

We then posed for family pictures:

And said our goodbyes

After visiting Mrs. Ha, we then went to the orphanage where Sam was raised for the first 8 months of his life.  This was actually quite disappointing.  The Director of the orphanage seemed completely uninterested in the fact that we wanted to visit and never even looked at the gifts that Sam had bought for the children (making us think that those gifts a would be sold for cash soon after we left).  Further, even though they still house orphans, the buildings and facility have fallen into serious disrepair. This is a government run facility, and it is clear that the local government has other priorities.  They would not let us go into the building where Sam lived.  So the visit lasted about 15 minutes.

Nevertheless, Sam’s homecoming and  meeting his birthmother and his birth family were simply amazing.  I feel so fortunate to have been able to be a part of this important milestone in Sam’s life.  He now knows my side of the family, Leigh’s side of the family and, finally, his side of the family.