It’s not all easy

– Written by a Teacher in Vietnam –

So I have found a completely new challenge with my classes a couple days ago. I have two classes on Fridays where the kids are just out of control. My first class is just really squirrelly, but my night class I have a couple kids who are just down right disrespectful. They are required to speak only English in their classes but in that class I have a couple girls who will not listen when I tell them to stop speaking in Vietnamese. I understand that they are going to speak Vietnamese no matter what, but they really disrupt my class when they do. Because they know that I don’t know the language, they will repeatedly say things in Vietnamese that makes the whole class bust into laughter and takes me a great deal of time and effort to get the classes attention again. When I tell them to stop, they look at me, laugh, and keep on talking. So that’s what I get to deal with. Next time I’m going to separate them, if they don’t stop, talk to them individually after class, and then eventually kick them out of class for the night if they keep giving me trouble. I co-teach this class on Wednesdays with another Vietnamese teacher and they don’t give her this kind of trouble so I know they are just trying to take advantage of me and the situation.

Other than that my other classes are still going great. My favorite class has to still be my beginner beginners. They are so fun and just want to learn so bad and love talking to me and being in class. So even though there is still quite the language barrier, the class is still super enjoyable.

We met this Vietnamese girl named “Flower” who is about 19 years old. She is super sweet and her English is extremely good. We went over her house and got to see what a real Vietnamese house looked like and met her family. None of them spoke English so she had to translate everything but we had such a good time. Their house is pretty nice because her father is a doctor so they have a little more money than most. Most of the people’s businesses are on the first floor of their homes so we got to see what a real doctor’s office looked like too. Her house was about 3 or 4 stories (they are very narrow houses since land is expensive) and had about 4 bedrooms. The beds in Vietnam are literally bamboo mats spread across wood. I don’t know how that could possibly be comfortable but I guess they like it. They also had a really cool living room with really beautifully carved wood furniture. Of course, like all Vietnamese homes, they had an altar in the front of the living room with a picture of their family’s ancestors for daily worship. We sat there for a while and ate watermelon with her mother and then had to leave. But the watermelon and pineapple here are absolutely amazing. Way better than back home. So as far as fruit is concerned, we’ve been in Heaven.

On saturday, we woke up early and had breakfast and then walked back through the one street market that we had visited earlier that week. This time, we decided to venture further into the market and saw some pretty crazy stuff. Lots of goat heads, pig parts, and gutted chickens. It was pretty gross and smelled pretty bad, but was still really cool. We walked back through Ho Chi Minh square and found a huge supermarket that had everything we could possibly want. So that was definitely a really encouraging day and made the idea of being here for 3 1/2 more weeks much more doable.

Yesterday we went to a Vietanamese teacher’s house for lunch. Her name is Natalie and she is also 22. We walked about a mile and half there and was greeted by her grandmother, mother, and sister. The house looked like Flower’s house with the traditional beds, furniture, and altar. Her family fixed us a huge meal with lots of traditional Vietnamese food. It was definitely “different,” if you know what I mean, so we ate as much as we could. It was fun though to see how they prepared it and their customs when eating meals with the family. Like for example, the father always sits at the head of the floor circle and everyone must wait for him to eat before we can. Same thing with taking a drink. You are not supposed to point the bottom of your feet toward anyone when you sit cross-legged because it is the dirtiest part of your body. You also must recieve things with two hands and not one. And then leave a little food so it does not look like they did not prepare enough for their guests. But thats just a few of the many things we have to remember.

Last night we went to Central Park with our friend Flower. It was kind of like a permanent carnival with rides and games. It was the happening spot. Actually, night in general is a really busy time for the Vietnamese. That is when it is finally cool enough to actually go outside. So there were hundreds of people roaming the streets. We tried this really good ice cream in fried bread with sugar. It was sooo good. Best dessert we’ve had here so far.

This morning we went to a restaurant that actually had an english menu. It was great. We were so thankful it did because there was alot of funky stuff on there like snake heart and sweet and sour pigeon. So we definitely steered clear of that. Our electricity went out this morning so that was not fun since our room has no window so we had no idea where anyhting was. So we all decided to go with another one of our Vietnamese friends to go get fitted for an “Ao Dai.” Its a traditional Vietnamese dress for women so we were super excited to finally pick one out. It should be ready in 5 days. I picked a really pretty one that is a very deep royal blue with some white on it. It’s awesome and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

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