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…