Day 11- Orienting

I made it… finally got to my destination and my home for the next 4 months. Ho Chi Minh City. I arrived on an early morning flight and was picked up by a girl named Qui who works for Volunteers for Peace Vietnam and we caught a cab back to “Peace House 3”- home. There are two other dormitories nearby, one is the housing for the full time staff and the other has volunteers who will be working at orphanages. Peace house 3 is for the volunteers teaching English, and there are 19 of us total- 4 guys and 15 girls. I share a room with the other 3 guys: Matt, Andrew, and Kevin. Matt, 22, is from New Zealand. In short he’s an avid rugby fan, really easy to talk to, and a pretty cool guy. He was traveling around Thailand and Vietnam for 4 weeks with his girlfriend prior to this and he’ll be here for the same month as me so I figure we’ll probably get to know each other pretty well. Andrew, 23, is from Toronto and he’s a pretty classic Canadian… loves hockey, says eh all the time, and is pretty laid back. He’ll only be here for a week before he’s on to his next stop, Siem Reap. Lastly, is Kevin from Ireland. He has been living here and volunteering for the last 4 months and so he’s well versed in the to do around here and so far he’s been our guide. He will be here for another 2 months but I’m definitely looking forward to his company for the next month, he’s loud and not shy whatsoever. He also loves Manchester United… he and I will get along just fine. I really lucked out rooming with 3 huge sports fans. Sports are just an easy way to connect with someone who comes from a different background than you…

When I first arrived at peace house 3 I was just in time for orientation. I threw my bags in the corner and started learning Vietnamese. For the next 2 hours we sat in small groups and got a sink or swim lesson on the language. I learned numbers, words, phrases…all good things for functioning in the classroom. Most of which are going to take more practice to memorize but my favorite has to be “em be da tam chua?” which loosely translates to “have they taken a shower yet?”- no idea when im going to need to whip that one out. We had lunch after our lesson and then we were given the rest of the afternoon to settle in. Its definitely cramped quarters here. The four of us are in a broom cupboard on the top floor. I always manage to break a sweat by the time I reach the top step of the 5^th floor. As a sidenote, I’ve managed to rank the top 3 challenges I can foresee: 1) The heat. It’s a balmy 93 degrees and we have a couple fans to combat the heat but that’s about it. 2) Lack of food. My diet isn’t ideal for the circumstances and I’ve had to follow it pretty liberally so far. I can’t read the food labels and I can’t always tell what things are made of. 3) Sleep. Our bunk beds are plywood with a blanket wrapped around them, so not the most comfortable BUT I’ll take it over the tile airport floor. It could be much worse though, and to be honest I’m kind of enjoying it.

As the sun started setting on the Vietnamese skyline a big group of us went down to the local super market for supplies. We managed to survive our first major street crossing and it was something to be proud of. The traffic here is much different than Thailand. There aren’t any streetlights or stoplights except for in district 1 which we haven’t visited yet. A woven web of motorbikes are the best way to describe it. I don’t know how it operates yet but its something the locals have mastered. When you cross you basically have to make sure no cars are coming and casually stroll out. Like you’ll read in most travel books, the motorbikes are just really good at missing you. They predict where you are going to go and just casually swerve by. So the smoother you can walk the better, which is hard because it goes against every intuition in your body because the speeding locomotives are headed straight for you. One technique is to just look straight ahead and walk, easier said than done…

Once we reached the supermarket which was more like a corner store, we got some of the essentials. For me it was the highest caloric food I could get my hands on. I splurged on some peanut butter which was a whopping 3 dollars.. The Vietnamese currency is the dong and trades at around 20,000 dong to the dollar. Right now I have well over a million dong in my pocket which is funny. This might be the perfect chance for me to play monopoly with real money… The prices here are insanely cheap and sometimes I feel bad, like “really? You only want 50 cents for this box of corn flakes?” but that’s just the way it is here. I spent 276,900 dong at the store for a couple bags of supplies, which is roughly only 14 dollars.

When we got back to the peace house it was a mad rush for the showers before dinner where we all sat down and ate spaghetti and watched a movie on tv. A bunch of us stayed up and had a few drinks before it was off to sleep and prepare for the next day. Today we have a city tour planned first thing and who knows what the future holds. I wont start actually teaching until Monday so the next few days are dedicated to getting to know the landscape and the challenges ahead of us… oh yeah I almost forgot, I’m here to teach English….