Day 20

What a busy couple of days… It has been a while since my last post but I’m back for updates. Its amazing how the days fly by when you are only teaching 4 hours a day and exploring as much as you can for the rest. I’m starting to get the hang of the whole teaching thing and its nice to feel organized when you walk in the classroom even if its only with games for the kids to play.

Yesterday was a particularly big day here in Saigon. We had class in the morning, where I was teaching at a girls shelter. This was particularly fun because up until that point I had only taught all boys. The girls of this age group were way more advanced than the boys and way better behaved. They were also extremely shy though, probably because im the strangest looking human they have ever seen haha.

After morning class ended Matt and I had a personal tour of a few Saigon gems that are close by our hostel. Firstly we visited a Pho restaurant, which is a native Vietnamese noodle soup- amazingly delicious. The typical Pho is served as noodles, beef and broth with a plate of bean sprouts, kale, and a type of basil which you add and spice up with chilis and chili sauce. I tend to overdo the chili sauce and start sweating every time I have it…

From there Matt wanted to get iced café which we have heard so much about so Thao, (our guide and one of the staff at VPV) took us to one of the coffee shops nearby. According to Thao, while most of us back home go out to bars at night to socialize, the Vietnamese go for coffee- so she was a reliable source for good coffee. I’m not a huge coffee drinker but I was thoroughly impressed by the whole experience. We walked in through a massive set of plain double doors into a small oasis in the middle of the city. Tropical trees, a waterfall, a stream you have to hop across on rocks just to get to the tables. And the coffee was equally as well crafted.

The afternoon lesson was a group of university students who wanted to practice their interviewing skills. And even though they struggled mightily with it all it made me happy that I knew they were improving. Within a two hour period I knew they were better prepared than many of their classmates, and within a couple of weeks, hopefully they will be ready to apply for jobs in their fields of study.

Yesterday was Andy’s last day and so we had a big night out on the town with the whole group. It was great to get the whole crew together for a night. I’ve gotten really close with the 14 of us that are still here and I’m sad to see Andy go. This weekend we booked a tour of the Chu Chi Tunnels, which are to the North of Saigon. The chu chi region has a network of miles and miles of underground tunnels that were used by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam war. I’m looking forward to crawling though some history tomorrow…

Interlude...

One of my favorite parts of traveling has been learning about influences like music. Things that you wouldn't otherwise be exposed to, and just resonate when you are.

Matt showed me this song which is booming over in New Zealand...

There isnt much to be said about it, it just makes you feel positive

Day 16- First Day of Teaching

I feel like I finally started what I came here to do. Today was my first chance to teach English to anyone and it feels nice to actually do something philanthropic… So much of what I have done in the past 16 days has completely revolved around what I want- what I want to do, see, experience. Its nice to have such freedom, but I’ve come to realize that without a purpose in our lives (though to this point it has been experiencing all that I can) the sense of accomplishment seems to fade away. I’ve done so much in the past couple of weeks but I guess I don’t like everything being so egocentric all of the time. Today that changed completely.

We officially started our teaching duties this morning and it was awesome. One thing that I didn’t realize is that English tutoring was also available to anyone who sought it out, regardless of age or level. This afternoon a group of older kids (calling them kids feels a bit weird since they were 19, 20 and 23) came to the Peace House for 2 and a half hours for a lesson. It makes sense that you could get English lessons at any age… The lessons are really open format which is hard because there is no structure whatsoever, and on top of that you have no idea how much English any of them actually know. We played a few get to know you games really just learned about one another for the first 30 minutes. I found out Thao and Phoun were both at university and lived with their parents. They were both studying some form of business- Thao studies marketing and commerce and Phoung, real estate. Its great because with my own background in business I think I was able to give them some good business practice. Hung was no longer in school but was preparing for interviews which if passed, would allow him to go on to flight school and become a pilot.

I found it pretty inspiring that those three had such big dreams and were really tackling them head on by studying English in their free time… It was honestly fun to talk to them. I thought that Phoung knew little to no English, but it turns out was just extremely shy and didn’t like speaking in front of the group because she was self conscious. Makes sense. So when the lesson devolved from structured practice to just conversation (which is extremely useful because just putting them in a social setting where they are forced to use English with someone who has lots of practice, is a great way to learn) I had a great talk with her about everything under the sun. Food, music, movies, sports, school… I feel like I know her so well. We used spare sheets of paper to draw pictures or just pantomime clues to each other until we were on the same page. And it was pretty fun to teach her about my home and learn about hers. Im going to really enjoy teaching here.

After the lesson concluded and we scarfed down some pork, steamed rice and some sort of omelet thing. The crew hit the streets for a night time walk and we bought an extensive collection of bootlegged dvds… 75 cents a piece. Down time is pretty necessary here and we are all looking forward to sharing our favorite movies with each other…

Day 15- The Mekong Provinces

I came, I saw, I conquered the Mekong Delta. A tropical wetland made up of 8 or so provinces just to the south of Saigon, the Mekong has dense jungle and many small tributaries that feed into a few large rivers… it is extremely hot and humid. I had heard that this was a great place to go if you wanted to see the real and raw of south Vietnam and it didn’t disappoint. The jungle is gorgeous and the people in the region are very transparently poor. They’re primarily craftsmen and traders and don’t have much, sometimes it’s a stretch to say they have a boat which for many is their life blood. But they do have a ton of charisma.

A group of us ended up booking a tour with a company out of Saigon and departed on an unknown excursion early Saturday morning. In total we ended up traveling 4 or so hours on the road on Saturday with many stops here and there… A brick making factory (a big industry in the region), a water taxi to a floating village, a canoe ride along one of the fingers of the Tieng River, a ride through the thick south Vietnam jungle, and countless street markets. It was a very full but very rewarding 2 days…

The Mekong Delta group

Our canoe ride down one of the tributaries was picturesque

The floating village had almost no rhyme or reason to it but so did alot of
things in this river lifestyle.

There weren't too many takers on our lunch in the Delta one day. Gotta atleast try it though...

But by the time we made it back to the Peace House last night we were all beat. Seems to be a theme recently , but I would be disappointed in myself if I wasn’t on this trip. Andrew, Matt and I woke up at 6 AM to watch the Super Bowl but alas our router went down (nothing here has a very reliable appeal) so much to my disappointment we had to wait until it was long over to learn that the Giants bested the Patriots again. Today is the first day of teaching and its going to be a whirlwind but I’m excited. I have to come up with the days lesson plan so I have to go…

Tam biet