The hardest thing, all along, about The Big Experience 2017 was going home. Returning to the normality, after a little under three weeks in the unknown. Returning to a life-style, where our parents have, and use, the opportunity to aid, and protect us. We lived these weeks being, for the most part, independent. Sure, we were guided by the teachers when it came to day-to-day activities, but when we finished, we would –most times- choose, and pay for our own suppers. We built a site for a family that didn’t know us and didn’t expect a house to be made for them. We explored markets with no trace of a white adult we knew. We bought our fake Rolex watches, and Gucci wallets, and it was all our decision.
Like many days, the group travelled to a historic, or educational, site. Today was the Australian Embassy, where we learnt about relationships between Vietnam and Australia. We had the last lunch, at a restaurant which was made from the philosophy of “Feed one, Teach one”,teaching very poor children on the streets of Vietnam how to cook and work in the catering industry before flying to Ho Chi Minh city, where we are writing from now.
I knew all along that when I returned to Melbourne, a place that felt like the whole world, would be smaller . . .
Max S and Lihao Z
