From Toddlers to Teaching to Thoughts I've Been Thinking

Dios mio, has it been a long time since I’ve written in this thing! Life has taken off with a running start around here, so this is the first time I’ve really been able to come up for air in a few weeks. I’ve had so much to say I don’t even know where to begin. So naturally I just kept putting it off and putting it off until tomorrow. I guess some things never change, huh?

Anyways, first thing’s first…teaching! I’m now in my third week of classes and though I still feel like I have no clue what I’m doing, things have been going surprisingly well. Alice and I each have four sections of Listening and Speaking 4 for third years, and will soon each pick up a section of a first year pronunciation class. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much younger the students seem to me than they actually are. Most are only a year or two younger than me, so I was worried about being able to establish any semblance of authority in the classroom, but their bashful giggling in class make them seem to be more high-school age than college.
The students are also EXCEEDINGLY polite and respectful to me as their teacher. When I enter the room, they all rise and say good morning in chorus, and every student comes to my desk and wishes me a pleasant afternoon on their way out the door at the end of class. Once I corrected a student for talking in class and he came up to me during the break, apologizing profusely for chatting when it was “so silly to do so.” RESPEK.

The students are also extremely eager to learn English, and particularly excited to study with a native speaker. Many of them have studied English for years and have an extensive grammar and vocabulary, but when it comes to speaking they almost never have the chance to practice with someone who speaks fluently. And as anyone who has taken a language previously will know, that can make communication very difficult! In the Delta in particular, mastering the English language is seen as the ticket to opportunity, to moving up and out, to earning a decent living. The first week of class, we played a name game in which I asked them all to share with me their “dream for the future.” Very khumbaya, I know. I’m such an American – I expected to get answers like “to cure for cancer” or “to circumnavigate the world.” The almost universal response was “to get a good job in Ho Chi Minh City and make a lot of money.” Never before had I thought of dreaming as a luxury…

As for what the hell I am actually teaching them, it’s hard to say – listening and speaking, obviously, but beyond that your guess is as good as mine. The University gave us a loose syllabus that outlined five suggested topics as vague as “communication” and “transitions,” recommended a textbook, and told us to get to work designing a class. Despite the many classes as I have taken and enjoyed over the past 8 years, I’m learning fast that I’ve never truly appreciated how much hard work, meticulous planning, and creativity it takes to teach a wonderful course. I’m looking forward to having some time this weekend to sit down and do some big-picture planning, as up until now I’ve been throwing things together week-by-week in a manner that is a little more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants than I’d like it to be. Mostly for now, I try to focus on skills and vocabulary that will actually be useful to them in real life, and make them laugh as much as possible. One of the conclusions that I’ve come to in my limited experience as a leader for OA is that one of the best ways to put people at ease is to play the goof. Lucky for me (and thanks to my parents), I’m exceptionally talented at making a fool of myself in all areas of life, so I just try to put myself out there as much as possible!

Outside of class, Alice and I have been spending a lot of time over the past week working with Kate and Jack Thirolf on a project at two local orphanages. I think I have alluded to the project and to Jack and Kate before, but I wanted to take a second to explain it in more detail. The Can Tho Youth Empowerment Project (as it is called) was founded by PiAer Danny White a few years ago, and recruits students from the University to teach English and Computer classes for the children at the Buu Tri Pagoda and Hoi Tu Thien orphanages. Jack took over the project from Dan and ran it remotely from his post in Rach Gia (2 hours away) for the past year. This summer his sister Kate received a grant from the University of Michigan, where she is working on her Ph.D. in Educational Management, to come to Can Tho to carry out a month-long summer program with the help of a team of student volunteers from both Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City. You can check it out on her blog at http://canthoyouthprogram.blogspot.com/.

Almost as soon as we arrived, Alice and I began making trips with Kate and Jack to the orphanage every few days to help out with the project. It was a great way to jump right in, especially since we will be taking over leadership now that Jack has left. Highlights included teaching the chicken dance to a group of six-year olds (I think it was actually a bigger hit with the 21-year old volunteers!), spending six hours on a boat up the river with booting and peeing babies, and playing human jungle gym for hours on end. But seriously though…taking part in Kate’s project led me to feel a sense of community and purpose very early on during my time in Can Tho, and I was sad to see it end. Fortunately, many of the student volunteers who I befriended will continue on with us throughout the school year, so I will get to see much more of them!

And let’s be honest, what is more fun than playing with adorable Asian babies for hours on end? (Pictures below!) For all of their rambunctious behavior, it is hard not to love these little guys. There is Van Anh, one of the oldest orphans, who speaks better English than most of my students and has more patience with her little friends than most saints, and Nhi (left), who manages to get away with anything by flashing her toothless grin. There is Kien (or “Monkey Baby” as Alice and I affectionately call him), a bald little guy who doesn’t hesitate to snuggle up to you within minutes of meeting you, and Chunkers, the fattest, happiest Vietnamese baby that ever lived. One and all, they light up the room with their enthusiasm, and the love and affection they show us is without bounds. I’m excited to be able to work more with this project in the future – Alice and I are only the “third generation” of leadership and will really have the chance to shape its course from here on out.

After spending last weekend in Saigon (more on this later) with the Delta PiAers – sending off Jack and welcoming his replacement Frank – life is beginning to settle down into a nice little routine of work, sleep, and coffee dates (believe it or not, the Vietnamese mode of socialization and relaxation – what better place for me to live!). My world here is definitely much smaller, which takes some getting used to after the wonderful rush that was these past two years, but after spending some time in the big city this past weekend I’m starting to really appreciate the slow pace and community feel of Can Tho.

As I’ve regained my sense after the initial overwhelming plunge, I’ve been thinking a lot and have tried to set some little goals for myself to make the most of this unique opportunity to immerse myself in some place so completely different than I’ve ever known. I’m trying my best to get on the Vietnamese schedule – up in the early morning to exercise before the heat, to bed by ten, and meals at least an hour earlier than the rest of the world. Attempt number one to get up at five failed miserably – I woke up at six in a daze, lying on top of my alarm clock. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. I want to take time over the next few days to ride my bike around the entire city and orient myself a bit better, to try something at every food stand that I see. I want to find a favorite restaurant for every Vietnamese specialty, a favorite street, a favorite bike shop, a favorite bookstore. I want to befriend the owners of the fruit stand and the photocopy place and the pharmacy across the street. I desperately want to be able to speak Vietnamese – I’m starting class tomorrow at long last. Learning key phrases such as “Where is the bathroom?” and “Could you peel that mango for me please?” could really enhance my day-to-day life around here. Mom, you’ll be happy to know that I’m adapting quickly to Vietnamese standards of neatness around the house – keeping the cockroaches away provides motivation even where years of parental training doesn’t, I guess. I might even go so far as to embrace the uniquely bizarre Vietnamese female fashion sense and bedazzle EVERYTHING I own. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Strange to think that I might actually be less conspicuous wearing flowered day clothes (an outfit that essentially amounts to polyester pajamas), long white gloves and a face mask (to protect skin from the sun), and a sparkly, floppy hat.

Well, as this post has turned into a lengthy one, I think I will wrap it up for now. I promise to turn this blog into more of a weekly update than a monthly dissertation in the future. More to come on the weekend in Saigon soon, but for now, love to all! Hope that you are happy and healthy wherever you may be…

Quite a Week

Hello everyone, and my apologies for taking so long to post an update, I’m sure you have all been waiting with bated breath for news. Ha. I’ve always thought of blogging as a bit pretentious – but at the same time, the thought of sending mass emails on a regular basis seems both impractical and ridiculous, so here goes.

So I’ve now been in Vietnam for (a little over) a week, and I’m finding it hard to sum up in a few paragraphs just how many things I’ve seen and how many jumbled thoughts have been running through my head. I’ve spent hours playing with exhaustingly adorable Vietnamese orphans, burned incense at a pagoda, and traveled by boat down the river to a traditional death anniversary celebration in the countryside (read: jungle) of Hau Giang province, where I met a 68-year old man who hadn’t encountered a foreigner since the war. I’ve killed 25 cockroaches in my house in one afternoon, had a touch of the “Welcome to Vietnam” stomach troubles, and experienced the torrential rains of the tropical wet season most unfortunately on my way home from my first class. I’ve eaten dragon fruit and chum-chum, sticky rice and fried bananas, frog, mouse, snails and (out of nowhere) fried chicken, and tons and TONS of pho and bun and any kind of noodle you could imagine. I’ve played Love Doctor to a 21-year-old Buddhist nun over coffee. I didn’t even know Buddhist nuns could date. Needless to say, it has been a week of highs and lows – I’ve had simply intoxicating days when I can see myself truly falling in love with the place, and days when I just wanted to crawl back under my mosquito net and cry to the geckos on my walls. Such is life in the Delta, or so I have heard. But I’m slowly but surely feeling at home…

On that note, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly some things become normal. Like the traffic – whereas a week ago I had knots in my stomach and held my handlebars with an iron grip every time that I ventured out on the roads, I now find myself tooling along enjoying the scenery, even humming or practicing Vietnamese as I ride. I have also grown accustomed to finding sustenance at street-side food stands where the furnishings consist of plastic kiddie chairs and where you wipe down your chopsticks with a complimentary roll of toilet paper before eating (don’t worry, the food is good!). Sweating, pantomiming in order to communicate, hopping on the back of a motorbike, generally playing the Western fool – these have all become daily activities. A lot of times I just kind of look around and laugh to myself, “Where am I?”

So far I’ve found the Vietnamese people to be fascinatingly different. In many ways, the culture here remains steadfastly traditional – particularly in the Delta – grounded in gracious hospitality, stoicism, diligence, and devotion to the common good. It is actually rude to say thank you to your friends and family – taking care of your own is not optional but expected, and vocal gratitude is more like a vote of no confidence. I cannot tell you how many invitations to meals and coffee I’ve received or how much free food I’ve been given, all within about 2 seconds of meeting someone. At the same time, coming from a place where people are actively encouraged to formulate and share their own ideas and opinions, the somewhat reserved nature of the Vietnamese is quite a contrast. The paramount importance of the appearance of accord and homogeneity can sometimes mask individuality. It’s intriguing – it seems like everyone has a story that they’re not quite willing to share, and makes me want to dig a bit deeper.

In this respect, Vietnam is a really interesting collision of East and West, of first and third worlds at the moment. Just riding around Can Tho alone you will see a dinky little food stand next to a bright and shiny electronics store, or a woman driving a motorbike in a business suit next to an old guy pushing watermelons in a wooden cart. When we took a trip into the country, we visited houses that had satellite TV and cell phones but no running water (read: squat toilets, yum). There are coffee shops here that are nicer than Small World, but also whole families living in one-room houses. It is so bizarre. And everyone is very conscious of the fact that Vietnam is on the fast track to “development.” Whatever the hell that term really means, I have yet to discover. But in practice in Vietnam, it means that everyone here is DYING to learn to speak English. On the first day of class, I asked my students to tell me why they studied English. Their almost universal answer was “to help me get a good job and make a lot of money.” There is very much a sense of wanting to move up and out of the delta in Can Tho. Learning English seems to be the best way to accomplish that, so foreign teachers are very well respected and sought after. There is such curiosity about America and American culture, and everyone wants to “speak with foreigner” around here. At a coffee shop today, in fact, my status as a native speaker launched me into the position of featured attraction for the afternoon – I quickly became the object of a group interrogation. As a Westerner, I’ve found that I am sometimes seen as having superhuman capabilities and all the answers (thus the Love Doctor nun coffee date). Ha, such a different feeling from Africa. It is nice to feel respected and useful, but sometimes the special treatment bothers me. Like when we’re fed before the orphans at the Pagoda, or when people who are working to provide for their whole families insist on paying for my meals. Or when I remember the My Lai massacre. Oh dear.

But mostly, being a foreigner in Can Tho keeps the hilarious incidents coming fast and furious. Case and point #1: Last week when Alice and I had spotty Internet access, we went most mornings to an Internet café across the street. As soon as they saw us walk in, they would smile, say “Hello!” excitedly and start BLASTING techno. Just for us, how delightful. Case and point #2: For the past few days, we’ve been curious about the mysterious banana-leaf-wrapped food sold everywhere on the streets. Tonight we decided to buy some, thinking it would be some sort of delicious sticky rice or pastry. We start opening it at the dinner table, but are so inept that the shop keeper comes over and does it for us, miming slicing it and eating it to show us how it’s done. Only then do we realize that we have not bought sweets but instead a big fat roll of pork. Yum! Case and point #3: Based on the advice of PiA, before I left home I made sure to stop by my local Harley store to purchase a top-notch American helmet to wear on motorbikes. Little did I know that I would own the biggest helmet in all of the Delta. Most people wear helmets that cover the crown of their head. Mine engulfs my entire head and even has a nifty chin guard. I’ll post a picture – it’s pretty intense, probably like the size of a small child. When people see it, they laugh and point and say “Whoaaaaaaa.” I tell them it has to be big to hold all of my big hair ☺

On that note, I think I’ll wrap things up for now – more to come later on teaching and my newly acquired Asia-speak. I’ll try to post on this as often as possible, and hopefully I’ll even learn how to post pictures along with these large blocks of long-winded text. In the meantime, everyone take care – love to all!