Of course I said ‘yes’, what kind of a new boyfriend would turn down a day of philanthropy whilst vacationing on a South-East Asian beach for a week? But agreeing to charity and actually following through with it once you’re faced with all of the obstacles makes those 1-800 donation lines make sense. Giving back isn’t always as easy as Brad & Angie make it look.

It seemed easy enough – the website we looked at listed ‘Local Orphanage’ as one of the activities of the town, meaning there must be signs in English and clear directions to getting there…so we thought. Using my photocopied Vietnamese phrase book, I managed to explain to the hotel manager that we wanted to go to ‘the house with the children who have no mother have no father’. He nodded his head and pointed out and to the left. The place we wanted to visit was, in fact, 40k to the south…an hour on our little motorbike. Directions to the next town and key words jotted down, we slapped on some sunscreen, filled up the tank and hit the gorgeous stretch of scenic road.

The map worked – we got to the town. Stupidly thinking that ‘all places in Vietnam must be about the same size as the town we were staying in (Mu Nei)’ and ‘how hard would it be to ask around?’ I mean, the main objective of an orphanage is to get those kids out and into a better home, right? I wasn’t expecting a billboard with spotlights, but surely it wouldn’t be too hidden to find.

It was. So hidden, in fact that my idea of stopping by the fire station for directions turned into them misunderstanding us and taking us to a retiree home. Tearing my Japanese girlfriend away from the sagging arms that mistook her for their granddaughter we were then taken out of the city centre, down a dirt road and, across from an abandoned warehouse. There it was, set ominously right next to a graveyard, with the entrance embraced in 2-padlocked chains. After a few beeps from our bike, a lady walked out, nodded to us and beckoned us in.

We walked up the hill to a simple white building, removed our shoes and were motioned to sit from a different lady. We sat and smiled as more ladies came in and sat and smiled back. Smiles are good and thankfully, universal. As they didn’t speak of word of English and our Vietnamese was limited to ‘hi’ – it was beginning to make this entire exhausting experience seem more like a Japanese business introduction than a work of unselfishness. We were shown a room – It was tiny yet; somehow holding 2 cribs on the left side, covered by nothing but a mosquito net and on the right, a simple bed. As I took a few photos to send friends back home about what I was doing on my holiday, my left leg was brushed up against by a boy, no older than 10 years old, who was more interested in my Ray Ban’s than the fancy technology I was holding. I gave them to him to try on and, after realizing that I was of the generous types, called out to another lad of about the same age. By this time, Naomi had come in and also given her glasses away. I took pictures of them, showing them the immediate result on the back screen. The excitement of more gifts being given away in the main room meant I was free to peek into the other 2 rooms. Both the same as the first, meaning that 9 kids (6 infants, 3 kids) fit inside this humble home.

I went back, and for the next few hours, we held babies and entertained the 2 boys with explanations of how the plastic sporting goods we bought for them were to be used. As I was doing my best in charades to stress the importance of keeping your eye on the ball, Naomi sat next to me and asked if I thought anything seemed strange. ‘Other than they’re orphans and we’re the nice weird-looking foreigners visiting them?’ ‘Or’ she said quietly ‘they think we’re here to adopt.’

Oh, fuck.

She’s right – we show up, not speaking the language, are shown around to pick which one we liked…I always assumed that it would be a bit more formal, but hey, if I can fire a rocket at a cow in the neighboring Cambodia for $30usd, who’s to say I can’t just pop in and choose an immediate addition to my family. ‘Okay, here’s what we do’ I told her, ‘we explain to them, through hand signals, that I’m a writer for an American magazine’. I pulled a piece of paper from my bag and began to draw pictures of…well, nothing, as I wasn’t keen on writing a big ole ‘U.S.A.’, as those letters could in fact, be what got them here in the first place. Somehow, one of the ladies took notice and brought back a phrasebook and, as we opened the book, we were immediately confused – it was an English-Burmese translator. Great, as if we weren’t going to give these kids enough of a blow, they’re refugees from an even more desolate place. As I tried my best to say ‘I. Job. Author.’ it was met with blank looks. Damn these tonal languages! I then resorted to pointing to the words only to be met with the shaking of the incomprehensive head. Well, this sucks, I thought as putting the book down, we show up looking like we’re going to take one off of their hands, and can’t even communicate with these little Burmese. As I picked up the book once more to try and explain something, anything, my fingers slipped from the place I was holding and it opened up to a page on ‘Health in Thailand’ – oooohhh, right…it’s a SouthEast Asia phrasebook. Got it. Thumbing to the Vietnamese section, we were then able to get moving. I was a writer. We’re not married. Nice to meet you all. Short and to the point, leaving no areas to be misunderstood. As we said our goodbye’s, one of the young boys refused to give me a high-five, something that 30 minutes ago, he was all about. The other boy looked as if he was going to cry. The ladies that worked there seem to say ‘bye’ with an air of sadness. As we silently walked out to the motorbike, I suddenly realized that we might have just led them to believe that today was one of their days, or, at least contributed even more to their abandonment issues.

This wasn’t exactly how this was supposed to go. We were supposed to ride back like the end of some Gael Garcia Bernal film, wind on our face and the world a better place because of us.

Instead we just felt like shit.