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

Day 13- Teaching 101

Almost 2 weeks away from home in strange places and it seems more like 2 months.. My theory is that the days have been so jam packed that they seem 2 maybe 3 times longer than they would normally. I think back to my time in japan and it seems like forever ago. There are a few things that I miss from back home, there aren’t many times that I find myself wishing for something that I’m used to but occasionally I do. I think the biggest thing believe it or not has been American breakfasts. Go ahead and laugh, I do. It sounds absurd to say but its true, I miss eggs and hash browns and a tall glass of orange juice. Here they have orange juice but its more like orange flavored water and its definitely not the same. The best parallel I can make is if someone who loves chocolate milk to crack open a yoohoo. Its just not chocolate milk. Here the breakfasts consist of a large loaf of bread, butter which looks more like the color of mustard, and vegemite (must be the aussies). There is also usually some fruit to go along like today was dragon fruit which looks like its straight out of the movie Avatar. But since I know I cant have the bread, ive been sticking to peanut butter on whatever fruit is there and a big bottle of water. I’m hungry 20 minutes later…

It makes for a long mid morning before the lunch break but today was an exception. The whole group of us went down to District 8 to visit one of the schools that VPV sends volunteers to. I didn’t really know what to expect but my thought was that we would sit and observe a class and just familiarize ourselves with the Vietnamese education system. As soon as we walked in the door we were swarmed by a group of 15 to 20 little Vietnamese boys. It didn’t take long before they were crawling all over me and seeing how many I could carry, or touching the girls hair and challenging all of us to thumb wrestling contests. They were the most outgoing people I’ve met yet on this trip. I half expected them to be reserved and unsure of us Westerners and our foreign dress, look and behavior…but they weren’t at all. They taught us today, not the other way around. We ended up playing a bunch of games with the kids for in total about 2 hours and it was pretty eye opening. They were all boys and roughly 7 or 8 all the way up to 15, with varying levels of English but surprisingly all could carry a broken conversation with us. I had a nice long talk with Hoang who was 10 and he asked me why I was so big, I told him because I ate little boys like him and he just laughed and said that wasn’t allowed. Towards the end of the session we all got laminated bookmarks as a gift from the kids. Each one had a picture on it that was drawn by one of them and coincidentally I got one drawn by Hoang. He was actually a much better artist than I am and I asked him and he said he loves to draw. All of the kids sleep in the same room that we were sitting in. It couldn’t be more than 30 feet by 10 feet. I haven’t really understood under what circumstances they came to the school, or as they call it- Peace Home- but I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time with these little guys.

It was hard to get much more exciting than the morning… after lunch we had a lesson on how teaching/schools work in Vietnam. It was a pretty basic lesson on how best to go about instructing a class and the jist of it was tons of repetition. Using very basic ideas and beating them to death with different vocabulary and different pictures to really drive home the point. We will each be paired with a different volunteer everyday and put in different classrooms as well with the idea being that the more exposure that each of the kids can get to different instructors the better.

Tomorrow morning we leave early for the Mekong Delta where Andrew, Matt and I will be staying for the next couple of days. The bus ride is only 3 hours and we have a boat tour, floating village, and some pretty awesome habitat to see so we are all excited. There will be lots of pictures im sure, which have been lacking the past couple of days. I wont have access to a computer however, so see you all in two days time…

Day 12- Ho Chi Minh City: The “State of South Vietnam”

Today was ‘heavy’ as Matt put it. Lots of walking, touring and exploring. Some of us also woke up a bit ‘dusty’ from the night before, but with all there was to do, once we stepped out the door we pretty much didn’t notice it. A group of the local staff took the 19 of us + 4 or 5 of the orphanage volunteers out and about to acquaint us with the city. We were a giant herd of foreigners roaming the streets.. not inconspicuous at all. Our first stop was the War Memorial Museum which was extremely interesting and somewhat sad. The museum held a very strong anti-American sentiment which is understandable, and it was pretty intense. There were several exhibits that really made you cringe.. the war prison exhibit and the agent orange exhibit had some graphic photos and some really horrible stories to them.. And being one of only two Americans in a group of about 30 it was tough to own what our culture did to the Vietnamese culture during that time period, regardless of the motives or rationale. I know none of the staff or other volunteers thought anything about Sarah (who is from Baltimore and just graduated from the University of Maryland and is headed back for their med school program) or I but it was still an interesting feeling. And I did get a few questions from people about the war and all I could do was answer them the best I could.

After the War Memorial Museum went to the post office and the Royal Palace which is where the King of South Vietnam lived until 1976. The palace was huge and lavish in its own kind of outdated way. Then we went to a couple of markets which the boys essentially sat and had a pineapple smoothie and ate strange fruits (stay away from the derrien, it tastes just like it smells) while the girls shopped for fake handbags and failed miserably at bartering.

Now we are back at home base and winding down for the night. Tomorrow we’re heading to the schools to observe some of the classrooms, and this weekend a group of us are going to explore the Mekong Delta. I’ve gotten to know almost all of the other volunteers on some level and its pretty cool to hear their back stories. Some have traveled a lot, some not at all. Each story is unique and it makes you realize how big the world is. Im already starting to dislike the Aussie accent though… foreseeable challenge number 4…

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….