Word: tam
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...Vietnam's rules of adoption call for Jolie to send the orphanage regular reports and photos of Pax's progress. "For Sang's case," says Trung, Tam Binh's director, "she is required to send a report every six months updating us about his health, mental development, hobbies - and a photo," says Trung. "It's required for the first three years. After three years, it's not required because we can see if the kids are being taken care of for the first three years so we can be assured they are in the good home...
...first things you notice when you walk into the Tam Binh orphanage's reception area is a shrine on the back wall with a large, gold-colored bust of Ho Chi Minh, communist Vietnam's founding father, with a golden hammer-and-sickle hung on the wall behind him. But in a corner across from Uncle Ho's bust, there is a more discreet homage: a photo-copy of a Vietnamese magazine spread featuring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt taped to the wall next to one of the office's three wooden desks. The article features photos from the couple...
...Tam Binh orphanage is next to national highway 1A, a busy thoroughfare on the northern outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). But it is fairly quiet once you are within the grounds. The reception area has faded light-blue walls that look like they are about five years overdue for repainting. A pleasant tree-shaded garden is filled with primary-colored playground equipment of the kind you'd see pretty much anywhere in the West - slides, a plastic jungle gym, spring-loaded hobby-horses shaped like ducks and rabbits. The children's dormitories are further to the left...
...Founded 32 years ago (around the time the Vietnam War ended with the communist victory), Tam Binh orphanage has 326 children: 189 boys and 137 girls. Nearly half (47%) are toddlers of the age of Jolie's new son (the orphanage has 153 kids from 19 months to 5 years, of which there are 99 boys and 54 girls...
...Most of the children who grow up in Tam Binh orphanage go straight into the workforce after leaving school, a fact of life the orphanage recognizes. Tam Binh has 10 sewing machines to train teenagers in job skills (garment and shoe factories abound in Vietnam and garments are the country's second-largest-earning export behind crude oil). "Some of them go to work in factories. But some of them have even become teachers." And then Trung says, "Those who are not as clever, they can be street vendors - it's like all others in a society...