Quest for feathers: The sequence

I've been looking for feathers for Thanksgiving. So we could have Indians. I know there are chickens everywhere, but these feathers were hard to find.




















And then we found a guy at a construction sight with a circular saw and he sawed it right in half

Aaaand then we saw a lady on the street selling the short ones. But we have no regrets.

maybe now we're friends...

There is a roadside stand where Erica and I sometimes get something to drink. The woman who works there is very sweet and sometimes we exchange a few poorly pronounced words in Vietnamese. Well, actually, she is soft spoken, and doesn't make any mistakes that I am aware of, so the mispronounced words might be a little one-sided.

One night while Erica was teaching, I went to have tea and the woman's daughter was there. The girl (I think her name is Hung, or something like that) brought over her English notebook to show me. She didn't speak to me in English, and looked confused when I tried Veitnamese, but I thought that we shared an unspoken friendship.

Every day when we walk past, the woman (usually wearing a huge floppy hat for the sun) waves and flashes an infectious smile in our direction. Sometimes Em (prefix for someone younger) Hung is there and I wave enthusiastically at her. On almost every occasion, she refuses to even look up at me. Once, she looked up and acted like she had never seen me. Another time, I ran up waving and saying her name and those around laughed when she ran off giggling and shy. I think these stories make me sound like a creep, but I've SEEN her eyes light up when we walk up, and I've seen her smile when I walk away, even if she ignored me when I tried to talk with her.

Tonight, Em Hung was inside and I saw her and waved. She smiled and acted shy. So I pulled out Erica's camera and took a picture of her. Her first reaction was this:

She ran back inside and I saw her pull out a comb and comb her hair. Then she peeked out again.

Slowly, she made her way outside, smiling the whole way.

Here she is next to her mother. She giggled the whole time. See! I knew she liked me...

When she was finally outside and not standing next to her mother, she acted like she had been waiting her entire life for this modeling opportunity.

I have the feeling that she'll still be shy the next time i wave, but I enjoyed our (lengthy) photo shoot. We'd like to get to know her mother more too. Baby Steps.

continued story time

My classes all went really well today, even my class of 6-year olds, which I was dreading. I can't tell you how excited I am about that. What a relief! They still crawled all over me, offering me a piece of candy, tattling to me in Vietnamese (futile), showing me the sentance they wrote, wanting me to get the gum out of their clothes... But I'm learning that it's not impossible; I really can be their teacher.

I feel like I did little but yell at them to be quiet last Saturday, and I even resorted to banging on the white board to get their attention. But when I walked in the classroom this morning, I was greeted by huge grins and shouts of, "Hello Teacher!" and I was dumbfounded. Could they possibly have forgotten how much I yelled at them (or maybe they just weren't listening..)? They immdeiately began to tug at my clothes to show off pictures they had drawn or just to smile at me! That made me want to love them so much better today.

I tolerated much more noise today and smiled. I encouraged abundantly and smiled some more. I took up some kind of pokemon cards, and I smiled sadly. I removed a "desk" that they broke from the room, and I smiled. And I sang the hokey pokey and smiled until my face hurt. And class went so much more smoothly today. Who would've thought that a smile would make such a difference (They probably teach that in 'teaching 6-year olds 101.' But I never took that class)? The pryr probably didn't hurt either.

Story Time Again

These past few weeks have been very encouraging. The people here are so friendly, as I've probably mentioned a million times, but we have few friends with whom we can actually communicate. And as is my struggle each month, I find myself stuck, wondering what I should write in a blog, or a newsletter, and will I have anything left to say in a postcard?? This communication conundrum.

I will share one story now about a couple of friends that we have made recently. While Erica was in Danang a while back, I met Thuy. She is an English teacher that lives in our apartment building and my first impression was that she was nice and had a beautiful singing voice (she sang to her son while i was with her). I went to hang out with her again and I discovered that she is GREAT! I love her! She is hilarious and goofy and invited me to join her exercise class. And then she paid my fee.

I have gone a couple of times now and it is hilarious and I'm sore in weird places. The Vietnamese people are very serious about their exercise. More on that later. Thuy is funny and great to talk with. She seems very honest and real, like I can talk to her about anything.

Anyway, Thuy has a student whose mother wants to learn English. The mother, Mrs. Le, is "very very rich" and offered to pay us a lot to come to her house and tutor her. However our contract with ESI says that we are not to earn money on the side, and we explained this and they told us not to worry, no one would care. So we insisted that we didn't need any more money, but we could be friends with her and teach her.

We're still in a trial period, but I have been to Mrs. Le's house twice (her driver picked me up and later brought me home). It's really a wonderful arrangement because of how she wants to learn. We give her a topic one week in advance (any topic we choose!) and she researches the vocabulary and answers some questions so we can talk about it. That has so much potential. For now, we are just getting to know each other, and her brother who also comes.

They both bring laptops with English-Vietnamese audio dictionaries, and FREQUENTLY the translations are questionable. They were trying to tell me a word and couldn't think of it, so they looked it up on their computers and it translated: spark off. They told me that first they needed to spark off, and then proceeded to conjugate it. I kept trying to interrupt and tell them that I had no idea what that meant and they should stop learning it. They are very diligent and often translate each word literally and it makes for much confusion.

I'm sure one of these days she will wonder why we don't want to make any more money, and why we came to Vietnam. For now, we are trying to keep her gifts to a minimum. On the first visit, it was observed that my nails were "ugly," so on the second visit, Mrs. Le invited a girl over to remedy that situation. She also put cell phone minutes on my phone and had me eat lunch with them. She liked my nails so much that she had hers changed to look like mine.

Here they are:
along with a story about my student Agatha, who doesn't pick up her trash.






We also have made friends with another woman in our apartment. She is the only other foreigner that appears to live here. She is Croatian, married to an American, and they are moving, but have had some difficulties with visas. Her husband and daughter flew out of the country before they knew they wouldn't all be able to leave, so she is still her with her 2 year old son and a suitcase that is locked. Her husband has the key to the suitcase.

She doesn't have a washing machine, so she has been able to come over to our apartment a couple of times to do laundry. When she comes over, I get the impression that she longs for someone who speaks one of the languages that she knows (one NOT being Vietnamese) or is not two years old.

I wish I had more pictures to post here, but at no point in any of these situations have I found it appropriate to say, "Hey, yes, can I take your picture? I want to put it on my blog to show people at home how great I am, and what a difference I'm making in the world."

Actually it's because I don't have a camera.

Seriously though, Erica and I have been very blessed with opportunities to make friends here. They've been thrust upon us. Thankyou Gsus.

New Students

I briefly mentioned that I have a new class of six year olds. There are now 21 of them. I honestly have no idea how to teach them. I have a hard time even getting their attention after the break at all. I'm going to ask for a teachers' aid this weekend because they just don't listen to me. The good thing is that no matter how much I yell at them to be quiet and sit down (two phrases I know that they know), they still smile at me and wave when they leave the class. That blows my mind (though it could possibly be because they weren't really listening to me when I was yelling).

I had two new students this week who didn't have English names. Last time I let the student pick, he named himself Peter 3, so I knew I wasn't going to let that happen this time. I watched these two new students and new right away what to name them.

The girl was quiet and sweet. She never came to me complaining (a futile practice because I don't speak Vietnamese) like many of the others. One boy dropped all of his crayons and she got on all fours and helped him pick them up. Another girl came and started coloring on her paper, and instead of yelling at the girl, she smiled and quietly colored with her.

The boy was quiet and didn't know any of the other children. He seemed so nice, like he would be a pushover, but when a group of boys tried to make him scoot over, he wouldn't have it. He wasn't going to move to another carpet square because a couple of boys told him to. I wanted to move all of the little tables out of the way to play 'duck, duck, goose,' and because I didn't know how to tell them to do it, I started to put away one table. This boy got up and went to work. He didn't question the directions, and didn't stop until everything was put away. And when I motioned for him to come over and sit next to the girl for the picture, he just did it, wide-eyed.

They were quite the pair. Meet Helen and Luke:

Beautiful Friends and Pesto

This post has needed to happen for some time.

We have a few friends at fellowship and they have made life better. I teach late Friday night, then early Saturday morning, and then again late Saturday night. This makes me relieved and newly thankful for the 'day of rest'. But coming to fellowship and seeing these friends is better than relief; they make my heart glad.

I don't know why I am surprised by how cool these friends have turned out to be. I mean, we asked HIM to provide some solid friends for us here, but as we've become accustomed to doing in this country, we kept our expectations low.

But here we are in Vietnam with a collection of different people who were all brought here for different reasons. And of course they're awesome! They are women of faith, beautiful sisters, living lives of true adventure. And I'm so glad I have the pleasure to know them.


This is Janell. I think I've said it before but she has been a wonderful friend to us from the start, going out of her way to be our friend. When we didn't know anyone, she reached out to us and made us feel welcome. Hospitality is definitely one of her gifts.

From what I have observed, she seems to be very up-front about what she thinks, and I love that. She's a great communicator. And I knew she was funny, but I only recently discovered that she is hilarious. She also happens to be really beautiful.

This is Jannene. She is from Australia/South Africa/here and there. I don't know her as well as I think I do, but I just feel like we've been friends longer. She's funny and sarcastic and as laid back as they come (maybe due to her origin). She's contemplative and a great listener. Everyone needs to have a friend like Jannene (but now she's our friend, so get your own). We MIGHT have heard a teensy, tiny tip of the iceberg of cool stories from her life.

On the right is Andrea Hamilton (http://www.andreahamiltononline.com/). She's in HCMC for a few months kind of on tour, singing and playing guitar. She is very open about her life and how it is a testimony to the One she serves. Plus she's really cool; I like her. Janell also welcomed her warmly to the city. On the left is Kate, a friend of Janell's from work who was visiting for a couple of days. I didn't talk to her very much, but she seemed pretty cool. On the right is Erica. This is her "not smiling for the picture," because she knows I like to take candids. She has a 6th sense about the camera though and can sense when one is focusing on her. So she smiles.
This is Aletta. You've met her before on my birthday. She is Janell's roommate (sorry to label you Aletta, but I met Janell first) from Holland and she teaches at a Dutch school in the city. She's bubbly and fun, and I can imagine her reaction to me calling her "bubbly." I LOVE her accent. She has a great sense of humor, and I love it when she tells stories, but even if she was bad at telling stories, I would listen just to hear her talk. She has also been so kind to us and has invited us to hang out multiple times. We also discovered that we were both pretty into the Backstreet Boys around the same time.
Janell, Jannene, and Andrea put together a wonderful meal for all of us. It was pasta with pesto and lots of roasted vegetables. Brownies for dessert. It was excellent. I did zero to help and it's not the first time I've been served a delicious meal at their house. The day is coming when I will be able to cook for them. I love Vietnamese food and haven't really craved American food so much. At least I didn't think so, but this was a wonderful change. BESIDES the fact that it tasted wonderful, I was able to eat the noodles without leaning over my food from a chair too high above the table, without sweating, and without manuevering with chopsticks.
Mmmm... Looks good, doesn't it Erica? (We'll find out if she reads my blog)

Really long video

Erica and I frequently talk about how all of our books and CD's use British English and how it's confusing for our kids. Especially since there are only a few other foreign teachers besides us: one American and two New Zealanders. The rest of the Vietnamese teachers teach British English and don't say their R's. I've had to ask my students what some words are, and they love acting dumb when I tell them to put their "cell" phones away, instead of their "mobiles."

Queue up= line up. Car Park=Parking Lot. Dressing Gown= Bath robe? And the other teachers always ask us if our kids were naughty, or if we think something looks smart. I just wrinkle my nose at them.

I don't say "half-past four" when telling the time. Nor do I say, "a quarter of seven." And sometimes I "forget" to teach that to my students. They're probably all going to fail their tests.

Bah, and we work at VATC: Vietnam American Training Center.

No more two year olds

My baby class (that's right Laura) has finished. I was relieved, but now that I have my new class, I miss them imensely. Why did I ever complain about them?! They were so cool. Here are the last photos and videos that I have of them:

Halloween in Vietnam wasn't a huge deal. I brought a wig, glasses, and a scarf, and my little kids loved it. No one else wore a costume, and I started sneezing a lot, so I took the wig off. Plus it was like one billion degrees with it on.

I had to give them a "final exam." They acted as if they had done it a million times before and they read everything I pointed at, if they could. I was ASTOUNDED at how much they actually knew. I mean, I knew kids were good at memorizing stories, but they usually look like they have no idea what's going on.
Above is Daisy. She normally wears a mask, but she took it off for the test. She has a super cute smile I learned. Below is Mary. Her smile here is rare too. She is a very serious girl. I think Halloween was very laid back and she felt ok to smile.
During the morning classes, some of the staff donned white cloaks (which I think people here wear at funerals) and masks and went to each classroom. We could hear screams, so the lessons didn't really happen as planned. They came into my baby class and made all of my babies cry. Also, in the other classes they handed out masks for the kids to wear. They ran out before they got to us, and my kids were NOT HAPPY. This is Sunny and she was terrified, even when they took their masks off.

This is Peter and I tried to get him to read some of the book for the video. That was a bust.

Now that I'm not in charge of their education, they just seem so much cuter!

For Kris

Happy Buy Myself Flowers Day to you all! I can't believe it's already here again. I had two new classes today, including a class of 20 six-year olds, and over 8 hours of teaching overall today, so it was a good day for flowers... This particular blog is dedicated to Kris Carlson. Because she noticed (and mentioned) my recent absence from the cyber world. It wasn't very long, but I noticed, and I really appreciate that someone else noticed. I mean it. I had a strange couple of days and that was just good to hear. I don't have time or space to write all of the other things that she has done for me or ways she has encouraged me, so for today it is because she made me feel loved when I really needed it.

In your honor, Kris, I took a lot of pictures of funny signs. I regret to inform you that none of them were appropriate to put on a blog (which may seem confusing based on what else I write today). Here is the cleanest one:

The reasoning behind my absence is that we finally moved and our new apartment didn't have internet. The rest of this blog is how this time without internet played out. It's kind of gross, so if you don't want to know more intimate details about my health, turn back now. Sorry Kris that the blog I dedicate to you is the gross one. So I also dedicate the picture of the dragon statue and my flowers today to you too, if that helps...

I started to feel like I was getting a cold on Monday. A cold is fine. It's annoying because if my students hear me sniffle, they will put on their masks, which makes me feel like a plague, and makes them so hard to understand. My throat hurt and I was getting lots of goop in my right eye.

That night (Monday), Erica and I were planning to go have soup. I tried a new soup while she was gone and I wanted her to try it. I just wanted to use the bathroom before we left. I had to go number two, but when I wiped there was blood all over the toilet paper (instead of what I expected...). My heart just about stopped beating and I came running out to show Erica (don't you all wish you lived with me?). Actually, I probably came out slowly and dramatically, eyes glazed, thinking that I was about to die...

The good news is that I felt fine, besides being a little stunned. I called Suz, a teammate who is also a paramedic. I don't even remember what Suz said to me, but I felt reassurred and went to sleep fine that night.

Several hours later, around 3 AM (Tuesday), I woke up. My right eye was bothering me so I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. My eye was red where it was supposed to be white and almost swollen shut. I woke Erica, nervous again, and asked her to pr*y with me. Then I went back to sleep, assuring G*d how much better of a person I would be if I was completely healed in the morning.

At six, I woke up and it wasn't better. My eye was still red, swollen, goopy, and itchy. I showered, and then put some ice on it for a while, trying to stall until the doctor's office opened, though the number I had for them didn't work anyway.

Here I am after icing it:

I talked to Suz again that morning and she made me feel better again, but it didn't take long for my mind to race, thinking of the worst possible scenarios about my eye and whatever else was wrong with me. I was hot and uncomfortable, my head throbbed, my throat still sore. I was self-conscious when people stared and I wondered if the doctors here would even be able to treat me.

Erica and I took a bus to the doctor in District One. She tried to relate to me, tried to sympathize, but I didn't want to hear any of it. We argued and I was defensive because I didn't want to think about anyone or anything but myself. Pity ME! What else is going on today? NOTHING. In my world, there is ME and I am scared and a million miles from everyone and everything. So instead of rallying support, I rejected it.

I was told that I have bacterial conjunctivitis and it has been going around the city, especially in children. Here are some eyedrops. You aren't going to die or go blind. I breathed a sigh of relief. My doctor (she was GREAT, Philipino, spoke perfect English, very reassuring to me) told me to be careful or it could spread to my other eye. Too late. Before we got home on the bus, my left eye had the color and sting to match my right.

I was still achy and cranky and vain for the rest of the night and into the morning. No internet, no t.v., couldn't find anything because we just moved, and I felt like my body was betraying me and falling apart.

It all sounds so dramatic now, looking back. The eye drops are working and my eyes seem much better, though I'm majorly paranoid about putting my contacts back in anytime soon. The doctor had me bring a stool sample back the next day, just to check that out a little more. That was fun to carry on the bus for 45 minutes in the heat.

But I'm fine. No problems. I just wanted to share a couple of days when I was afraid and didn't have much contact with anyone else. I'm not super proud of the way I handled it, or how little faith I always discover I have. I'm glad it's over(ish), but I'm glad it happened. Sometimes it's good for me to be afraid. And I was shown some love from a couple of my new friends here. I was texted several times for updates on my health and one girl brought cake by the apartment.

I am very disappointed in the pictures because I wanted them to look more pathetic so you'd feel sorry for me, but my eyes don't even look that bad here. Maybe a little creepy.

Thanks Kris and everyone for keeping me in your thoughts.

Meet Oanh

I mentioned before my friend who I met to have milk with one night. We originally met in the same coffee shop because she came in to order for her work, which is right next door. She saw me and just stood next to me, looking at me and grinning.

So I grinned back.

Seriously, she wouldn't stop grinning.

Finally, I asked her if she spoke English and she nodded vigorously and then paused and said, "So, so." We tried to talk for a minute and I gestured for her to sit, and she sat. Her name, I discovered, is Oanh (pronounced like the name Juan). She told me that she would like to learn English and that I need to practice my Vietnamese and she broke into an impromtu lesson of the Vietnamese alphabet. I didn't argue, but repeated like a robot. When she had trouble communicating something in English, she would break into a stream of Vietnamese like I might understand that better.

After about 15 minutes, someone came and said something to her (get back to work, maybe?), and we exchanged phone numbers, and agreed to meet again. At first I felt overwhelmed by her texts, but now that I know her a little better, I think they are hilarious. She always types in all caps and her language is really entertaining(I'm not making fun. I love it). Here are a few samples:

"HI CAROLYN. WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? ARE YOU HEALTHY TODAY?"

"I'M FINE THANKYOU. ARE YOU TEACH ENGLISH? I'M AN ACCOUNT BUT I SPEAK ENGLISH VERY BAD."

"I DON'T THINK SO BECAUSE VOCABULARY OFF ME IS VERY LITTLE. ARE YOU TEACH ENGLISH?"

"ALL DAY YOU DON'T GO TO MY COMPANY. I WAIT FOR YOU. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. I LEARN HISTORY NOW."

"OH YES, IF YOU LIKE, YOU CAN GO TO MY HOUSE BUT MY HOUSE IS THE POOR. ARE YOU VERY FUN?"

"ARE YOU GO TO BED? GOOD NIGHT AND HAVE A GOOD DREAM. THANK YOU VERY MUCH."

So, Oanh and I ended up meeting together for a couple of hours to look over some English and Vietnamese. I'm not sure how much either of us learned, but we finally set a time to go to her house. So after fellowship and lunch on Sunday, we were late to meet her, and she had been waiting for some time. She didn't seem annoyed, only more excited to see us. She took us on a bus for an hour, trying to teach us new words all the time. Meet Oanh:

We got off the bus and took a dirt road. The dirt road led to a dirt path. The path shrunk and we walked single file, moving off to the side when a motorbike approached. We walked past rice fields, papya trees, and other plants. Oanh's English is better than my Vietnamese, but that's not saying much. As we walked, she picked different plants and herbs and placed them in our hands enthusiastically, saying the Vietnamese name clearly. It was like our own private tour. She introduced us to all of her relatives along the way. She rambled on and on to them in Vietnamese, very proud of her visitors. I picked out the word 'America (go me, whoo)'.

Finally the three of us arrived at her house and her mother and three sisters were so welcoming to us. They are definitely poor and seemed to only own a small plot of land amidst many other farms. Oanh's father is sick and my understanding is that he has been for a long time. He just lay on his side on what looked like a table in the middle of the house.

Oanh's mother brought out a pepsi and split it between Erica and me and they cut up fruit for us and happily watched us eat while they had none. Oanh's nephew was passed around and I forgot that there was a langauge barrier. We followed Oanh around the yard and she picked every ripe cherry to give to us. She showed us how she fished using a net on bamboo. We sat on the porch and she sang to us.
Finally she shoved plants in our hands as parting gifts, along with some crackers, cherries, an unidentified fruit, and a quarter of a pomegranete for each of us, and we walked the dirt path to the dirt road to the road to catch the last bus home. Her cousin is the bus driver of bus #9 and she yelled to him where to tell us to get off the bus, and waved goodbye with her signiature grin. What a wonderful friend to have.


You can't tell in this video, but we thought it was so funny how she would pull up the net, finding it empty, and say, "No." and walk resolutely a few feet away and try again.

If you can't hear on this one, Oanh is just pointing out the rice and telling us in Vietnamese. They have many words for rice--different types, cooked, uncooked, half cooked, broken, I don't know how many there are...