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.
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.
1 comment:
I heart overseas aerobics! I don't know why I didn't ever go in the States.
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