Random thoughts...

Lacey:

    It doesn't cease to amaze me how the Vietnamese people live. I wonder, with all their little street vendors/stands/shops, how they can make a living?  As you walk along the streets, all of these vendors seem to be "hanging out." They never seem to be that busy (unless it is a street vendor during the morning rush!); sometimes you will find them taking a nap while waiting for the next customer to pop in!  You see how cheap their products are and think about how little they must live off of and how simply they must live.  Most of these little shopkeepers, live right in their stores. The Vietnamese don't seem to have glorious high hopes and dreams of fancy things and travels far away. They are content with what they have. They live in a crazy, wild city, but they don't seem to live in the crazy madness of a world like us, consumed in "things."  The shopkeepers and people at their shops never seem to have a schedule or be in a hurry to get anywhere...unlike the insane traffic in the city going on around them.

    I also feel there is a lack of consciousness of space. People will run into you or walk straight for you and not get out of the way. No one says excuse me or let you go in front of them. Traffic is the same, times 100! No one would ever stop and let you in. You have to go in front of vehicles otherwise you would be stuck for hours!  The difference between the calm and carefree attitude on the sidewalks and the whizzing of the streets is baffling to me.

    The people watching here is something spectacular!

A guy taking a nap in between hair customers....I think this is where I will get Lance his next hair appointment!

 Bun Cha - an amazing noodle, bbq pork and eggroll dish!

1st week of school

Lacey:     Lance and I dressed up to look our best for the first day of school! Our day starts with a half hour van ride to Vincom Village, the neighborhood where our school is at.  The students trickle in and we start with a little play time and a snack and then we have time for circle time, songs, reading books and other activities. After that they have lunch and a nap before we repeat the same activities in the afternoon. The school day ends at 5:30 and we take our van ride back to the center of town.  It makes for a long day when we don't get home until 6:15ish. Sometimes I'll cook supper and sometimes we will grab some street food. We are quite exhausted from the days activities and don't have a lot of left over energy for anything else in the evening.

     Teaching this age group is a new experience for the both of us.  Teaching 2-4 year olds has its ups and downs. They are the cutest little things and I love when they run up and hug me! Trying to have a lesson with them is another thing! As I said, it involves some singing, reading books and doing a lot of repetitive activities, which now include greetings, feelings, weather, days of the week and working with counting from 1 to 10.  My 2-3 year old class doesn't go as smoothly because they don't repeat after me and interact near as much. The 3-4 year old class is a lot better than that.

     The middle of the week went down hill fairly quickly because I must have eaten some bad food. I ended up having a rough afternoon. Miss Jennie from my school took me to the pharmacy to get some pills.....which seemed to do no good! It took another day and a half of not feeling well to go back to the pharmacy. I probably should have gone to the doctor, but didn't want to deal with it.  The unfortunate thing about our school is that to get a sick day counted as a sick day, you have to get a note from a doctor!  I find this very annoying because I don't find it necessary to go to the doctor every time I am sick! (I believe my dad said, you go to the doctor when you are near death!).  Oh and the lady from the school who took me to the pharmacy the 2nd time, made me get some pregnancy tests because she thought that was the reason I was sick!

1st Picture: traffic on the drive home from school - mass chaos!

2nd Picture: Vietnamese love Obama!

Lance: Maplebear Kindergarten, the routine in our life........Since moving to Vietnam in early August there really hasn't been a routine in our life other than school. Work days start off with Lacey getting up while I procrastinate in bed. (Since it takes me a little less time to "fluff" before school.) I have routine of catching a French Bagguette down our alley with an egg, cucumbers, dried shrimp and some hot sauce for around 8,000 VND or 40 cents. We then walk a few blocks until we see a "baby" taxi, which is the smallest taxi cars. Then catch a 5 min taxi to Vincom Center where we meet our shuttle bus. At the drop-off we also found a cheap cafe where we can get a Cafe Da Den or black ice coffee for around 75 cents. We then get in the van with anywhere between 3 and 6 other passengers for our 30 minute commute. We arrive at school around 8:30. Kids free play, then there is a snack at 9:00. Around 9:30 I start circle time with some songs, days of the week, feelings, weather and other topics in which we try to get the students to verbalize in English. Sometimes this goes well, but usually I do the talking. Songs on the other hand.......the kids love them! Doesn't matter what language and they will shake it too if it gets them going. Kids are adorable, but it sure is something new for me to try and get 3-5 yr. olds to pay attention! It seems like there are always a few conversations going on, and this is frustrating, but you just have to understand that they can only take in so much each day. Around 10:30 the morning lesson is done and we either head to free play or music. Kids then eat and nap until around 2:00, then I have my older class from 2:00-5:30. This is a class almost entirely of boys, and around 3:30, they clearly have had enough of the school day. The last two hours or so seems to be made up entirely of diffusing screaming matches and reminding them to use their hands for love. The kids are great as individuals, but as a group the 13 boys over-run the 3 girls and occasionally Mr. Lance. Our commute home then leaves around 5:45 or so, which gets us back around 6:15 and then its time for supper and much needed relaxation.

In general, teaching so far has been very enjoyable as far as getting to know the kids and to be around their enthusiasm. I have never had to breakout in song or be as dramatic as I have the past few weeks. But that is probably good for me. I suppose that is why the days are exhausting and so long.

Sapa goodness...

Lacey:

For our first adventure we traveled to Sapa, which is in northern Vietnam. It is a beautiful, breath-taking place with huge mountains and terraces that are constantly entertaining your eyes. We took an overnight bus that got us there with enough time to grab some breakfast and be off on our trek. Almost immediately after taking off, we were surrounded by hill tribe villagers that ran to us...wanting us to buy their goods, or asking us to remember them, our friend, when we get to their village, so we can buy their stuff there.

The night prior Lance and I bought some new trekking shoes...which proved to be a bad idea! We soon felt blisters and it made it a painful next couple hour hike. After stopping for lunch and a couple more hours of hiking, we made it to our hill tribe village where we were to get supper and a nights rest. We finally got to sit down and enjoy the company of our trekking partners...a couple people from Denmark, a hilarious French guy, a lovely German girl and a man from India.

 Some hillside farming......

 

 Some old hill tribe ladies helping Lance down a slippery slope!

I made a comment to the French guy, saying that I heard that French people hate Americans...he responded by saying, "We only hate Bush!" To that I responded, so do we! Over the next couple hours we got fed a glorious meal and enjoyed many laughs over card games. Some games we taught everyone and some were taught by some young, local Vietnamese! The one game, the loser got charcoal rubbed on their face by the winner of the round!

 Many of the hilltribe village ladies carried babies on their back for the whole trek!

                                          A small boy taking the buffalo out for a snack!

The next day we trekked a few more hours, which was much more intense and steep. Finally we got back and could rest our blistery feet and sore bodies!  The following day we thoroughly enjoyed renting motorbikes and riding through the curves between the gigantic mountains and again, enjoying the lovely scenery.

                                           Roasted dog head anyone?

First Impressions

Lacey:

Amidst a few delays in our flights over it was a surprisingly quick flight! My uncle Monte gave us some good pills that knocked us both out for 10 of the 13 hours of the longest leg of the trip! Before we knew it we found ourselves in Taiwan. Shortly after, we were in Vietnam! Many good things happened after we landed. 1. Our bags managed to make it all the way from Sioux Falls, SD!

2. There was a lovely Vietnamese woman from the school to greet us!

She took us to our temporary home, got a quick shower and went to Maplebear Canadian Kindergarten school to sniff around and meet some of the staff. After a lovely massage, we didn't think we felt too jet-legged but fell asleep around 5pm. We awoke around 3-4am and listened to the sounds of the city. We got an early ca fe den da (iced black AMAZING strong Vietnamese coffee!) and some bahn my (french baguette with fried egg, cucumber, hot sauce and such) and sat and inhaled the smells of the fresh markets and watched the crazy traffic that is Hanoi, Vietnam!

Our task that day was to do some apartment hunting. We were quite pleased with our decision, although I think we were both hoping for something bigger!

We woke up early again and decided to explore the streets again! We found our way to some street pho (noodle soup) and it was quite delicious! Unfortunately it was only 7:30am and with hot noodles and the hot weather we were sweating profusely! We packed up our stuff and moved into our new home! After unpacking a bit we decided this could work as our home!

We found out that in Vietnam, there are not streets that have everything you need...there are streets that have 10 plus stores of the same kind! So, sometimes you have to do a bit of walking to find what you need. I feel this will be fine during the cooler winter months, but right now in the intense heat and humidity, it makes for a sweaty adventure!

We quickly found out that we were both not teaching kindergarten as we thought, but rather we had 4 classes between the 2 of us and had to choose. There is a 2-3 yr old class, 3-4 yr old, 4-5 yr old and 5-6 year old. After some observation and such (and input from the Vietnamese teachers), we decided that I would teach the 2 younger classes and Lance would do the older 2.

I should have realized that when you come to Southeast Asia, not everything (maybe most things) are exactly as they seem or are as you are told! Such as, we came early to travel a bit before school...and the school took that as we wanted to start RIGHT AWAY! But, after some talking, we negotiated some travel time before we were to start teaching!

Lance:

Well stated Jane. Not sure what exactly I should add. I guess I will start by mentioning that you can anticipate going to a place like Vietnam through stories and pictures, but you just can't fully prepare yourself. Overall, the adjustment to a different culture has been pretty smooth. The traffic is every bit as crazy as I anticipated as there is no stop signs, just a somewhat slow flow of overcrowded motorbikes, tiny cars and the occasional bus or truck. You just have to go!! They lurch around you and at no time have I felt in danger, although I do occasionally try to make sure I am the one closest to traffic. The food may look sketchy at times as local street stands have food sitting out. But, you just have to trust that the locals eat it, so you can too. We have eaten all kinds of food since being here, but the most fun is the grungy locally run shops.

Although, it is wonderful to have western food available whenever you want it. As far as the humidity.............it is just plain sticky here. The temperature has been around 90 with the occasional high 90's, but if you are outside all day you could go through a handful of shirts because of the humidity. It has become a normality to just be sticky as you go from outside to inside ac. Hanoi, and Vietnam in general, is in a confusing transition from undeveloped to a high tech country. The general population lives much differently than the higher classes which will pay more than U.S. prices for many goods, especially clothes, household items and tech devices. Our school, Maplebear, is part of a huge corporation. So, with this there will be communication issues and expectations that aren't anticipated. But, I must say with the help of our head teacher Shelby, our principal Janice and Jennie who runs the show in Hanoi, we feel very comfortable with the school and our job of chasing after youngsters. Kindergarten will definetly be a new trick in the hat, but the kids are sponges and seem very excited to learn!!!