Last night in Biên Hoà

From Sunday to Tuesday I said goodbye to Biên Hoà City and my friends who live there.

One night I got to go to a party with two good friends of theirs. The friends just wanted to give them a last special meal and say goodbye. It was a great meal, and very relaxing.

Holly and me

Steph and her friend Chi.

The boys who were watching through the window and quizzing me on different soccer players.

Quin, one of their friends, had all of the songs that Scotty from American Idol sang. I've heard Vietnamese people say they liked country music, but I thought Taylor Swift was about as far as it went. He had a whole album, and I was very impressed.

Melissa, Deidra, and Ashley were doing something?

Most big meals (all that I've been too) take place on the floor. No shoes inside, and the floors are very clean. It's a space saver and I'm actually getting better at sitting Indian-style (though they should change that name to Vietnamese style) (or Buddha style, I guess).

We had some beef and rabbit. There was some debate that somethign was turtle, but I think it was just a rumor. It was all excellent.

Quin and Chi are very good friends to them. And they were very welcoming to me.

Also, this morning, Melissa got a new haircut. Also, please notice the new tattoo.

Brittany got her hair cut and colored and her new tattoo is healing well. 4 new tattoos in that household. I'm very impressed. Don't worry, I'm not getting one any time soon.

So long, Biên Hoà

RIP: my bike

This was the last picture taken of my bike.

It was stolen this morning while I was ordering pictures at the photo shop. I go to many places without security guards watching the bikes, but I've gotten a little too lax. I was only away from it for about 5 minutes, but it was completely out of my sight.

Gotta take better care of my possessions that cost 1 million VND...




But what that thief doesn't know is that my front tire has a slow leak! Take THAT!

I can't even really complain though because this year Steph had her laptop stolen and Brittany had her purse stolen, containing her passport, debit card, ipod, and over 2 million VND. We're leaving a lot more in this country than we expected. It would be nice that I don't have to deal with the bike anymore, except that I already promised it to a friend when I leave...

English Club

Our school has been trying to start an English club for the entire 2 years that I've been here. Actually they used to try to force us to go to it, and they held it 45 minutes away on Sunday mornings. Good luck trying to get me to go to that.

But 3 students stepped up, and one of the new foreigner teachers was asked to help with it, and one of the staff members stepped up to head it up (Ha, she's the shortest one in the picture)(Ha is her name, I wasn't laughing).


They had students in groups playing games and they really went all out to make it happen. I was actually pretty impressed.

These are some boys from one of my favorite classes. Lot of characters in here.

That girl looks like she's flipping the camera off, but I don't think she is. For the record though, I didn't take this picture, so if she is upset, it isn't at me (I would bet money that it's the peace sign actually).

The foreigner, Justin, from California, had a birthday coming up, so they brought out a cake and sparklers and sung to him.

I don't want to pick on Justin too badly on my blog, in case someone out there knows him, but I hate that he's in charge of the speaking club. He doesn't seem to care about the Vietnamese people, but he does talk about his female students, or girls that he's met. He talks a lot about a lot of things, and I feel like he gives Americans a bad reputation. I'm frustrated to be leaving the school with him taking over my classes.

It was actually a really cool birthday party. I almost had a twinge of regret for never telling them when my birthday was. Almost.

I don't mean to brag, but the 3 students who were in charge were all former students of mine. I showed up to English Club late because I was testing for the first hour, but when I arrived, they made me judge a contest of listening and identifying sounds.

That's Lei talking to me. I had him in level 2 and 3, but he never belonged there. He finally tested out of it and is in level 6 now. His English is quite impressive and he'll joke with me and say, "Whatever," and walk off.

This is Kevin. Or Khánh, is his real name. You might remember him from the pictures of Halloween. I actually had him in level one and he would shake his head a lot and say he didn't understand, almost every 5 minutes of class. His English has improved SO MUCH! I love talking to him and seeing how well he is doing in his classes now.

He put cake icing on my face and then brought me a tissue to clean it up.

This is Vivian. She lives on my street I believe and she's the only student that I've ever had who calls me, "Miss." And she usually yells it. I've been riding my bike on my street and heard it yelled a couple of times.

favorite dress

This year, this is my favorite dress:

After riding a bike to school in a dress for MONTHS and not having a problem.... today I ripped my favorite dress. Huhu hu (Vietnamese English for crying; the English would be 'sniff sniff'?)

I was going to stop by my friend's shop before going to class, but seeing that it was closed, I decided to turn my bike around. I turned too far and needed to put my foot down quickly so I wouldn't tip over. That's when I heard the rip.

So I got to school and tried to close it with a paper clip. No good. Staple? Ehh... Then Ngọc, a girl in the office, offered a suggestion and everyone else in the office agreed. She safety-pinned a little doll to my dress. Only in Vietnam would that be the best solution.

This is Ngọc as she was leaving tonight after class. It was raining and she was already ready to leave (this is not her normal attire), but I wanted a picture anyway.

Vietnamese Culture Lesson

I will never never never learn everything there is to know abotu Vietnamese culture. Though I did expect less surprises to happen to me after being here for a little while.

Now, I don't intend to mock the people or the culture. These are just the facts.

I learned three new things this week.

First: While I was in the office one day, the secretary Phuong, was eating in the office. Noises while eating is not one of my favorite things, but much more noise is acceptable in Vietnam. I mean, obviously, noodle soup, what choice do you have?

We've heard many people, especially men, suck on their teeth to get food out. But Mrs. Phuong just started burping. About once a minute for a while. And it never stopped. No one else looked up or commented. I think I looked at her a few times, like, "Are you ok?" "You need some tums?" Nothing. Burping. Constantly for an hour.

Second: I was at Oanh's house. We talked outside drinking ice tea for a while. She went inside and brought out all of the gifts I've ever given her. 2 Christmas gifts, birthdays, coming back from America, etc. She had them all wrapped in plastic. She showed me them proudly, all in good condition, and proudly announced that she'd never used them. I know she meant to compliment me, or to show me that she was taking good care of the gifts, but that was not my intention for them.

I gave her a journal to use at school. A bracelet to wear (though her religion doesn't really allow for flashy jewelry, it turns out). A picture frame to display. A keychain to go on a key. Fingernail polish to share with her friends (though again, I gave that to her before I really knew her). And she has never used any of them.

I should have known that though because I brought a snowglobe back from Hawaii for my friends who have a juice shop here. And they thanked me a lot, asked me how much it was, then boxed it back up so it wouldn't break.

And third: I was searching for a particular color of fabric the other morning. I had a sample of the color and material to show the ladies and ask if they had it. I checked the famous Bến Thành Market because we were there already, but couldn't find it, so I went to the market near my home.

In Vietnamese I would say, "Do you have this color?" And in Vietnamese, the reply was always, "Have!" I would look at the fabric they had and they did NOT have that color. They might have had shades of that color, but not that color. I went to dozens of shops that did not have it, and they all said that they did. I was getting frustrated.

I've known for a while that Vietnamese people don't like to give bad news. Who does, really? But I just assumed they would know that I'm not going to buy what I don't want. They were tricky too. Some of them said they had it, and immediately asked me how many meters I wanted, before even showing them the fabric.

One woman even showed me one that was very similar. Same color, slightly different material. I said they were not the same, and she said they were the same. I asked how much and she said, 70,000 vnd. I said, I bought mine for 50,00. Then she told me that they were different and mine was low quality.

The next woman I asked said that she didn't have it. I almost hugged her.

End of story, I did find what I was looking for. I have my material and I'm now a little more savy in the market. And I learned 3 new things this week, so I've met my quota and don't intend to learn anything else until next month maybe.

Bike Video

Welcome to Oanh's House

This is my friend, Oanh.

After months of saying that I would come visit, I finally made it out to her house . She met me at the bus stop and she rode the bike with me on the back to her house. The next post is a video that I took from the back of the bike. This path got WAY smaller, with about a foot drop on both sides. I tried to ride the bike, but I was too panicky when the path was the size of a bike wheel.


She lives out in the country. She loves it. She tells me what everyone is growing as we pass the fields. The rainy season is only just starting, so now is the planting time. Obviouslt these beans have already had their time... Their irrigation systems were bamboo poles in the air with hoses comes out of them. This man is watering his crops with the hose.


I didn't arrive until 1:00, hoping that I had missed lunch. But Oanh had not eaten in anticipation of eating with me. I wasn't hungry, but Oanh's mom gave us huge bowls of banh canh with cucumbers and carrots and plates of mangos andwatermelon. The noodle soup was steaming hot and I would drink tea to cool off. Oanh instructed me not to drink while I was eating or I would get too full to finish my food.

Oanh has 3 sisters and a mother. This is me with her mother. Such a sweet woman. Oanh's father died from lung cancer last October and they're still coping with that.His massive headstone was a few feet from the door. Oanh said that if it was somewhere else, she would never be able to visit him. We looked at pictures from the funeral and talked about it a little.This is a papaya tree in Oanh's yard. They have a cherry tree, 2 mango trees, a star fruit tree, a plum tree, and her sisters planted a mang cau (custard apple? we don't have it in America, but I don't like it anyway) tree while I was there. Like or not, I want fruit trees like this someday (Francois agrees).

They made this to pick mangos out of the tree. It's made of bamboo and it works perfectly. There's an area for the mango to go, and then Oanh swiftly pulls it back, snapping the mango off. Very nifty.

Oanh going after a mango for me.Oanh's mom working in the garden. You can tell from her hands that she works hard. Oanh looked at my hands last year and said that I could never pick rice with her because it would be too difficult for me, which I can't even let bother me because I got a blister sharpening pencils last night..

Oanh is a very special friend of mine. We've had some very difficult/frustrating communication in our friendship, times when we didn't understand each other at all, or when we were together too much. She is such a happy person, very high energy. We've learned a lot from each other in the past 2 years. I'm going to miss her a lot.

Roommate May

Hopefully this won't be the last 'Roommate' post, but here's a quick overview of what Jenni has been doing for the last 10 weeks (twice a week)(she's a superstar). She's been going to a preschool for two 45 minute classes (FULL of students).

Now, maybe you've never taught preschool to 22 students who don't speak your language, but it's.... a challenge to say the least. Holy cow, I was so cranky after I had similar classes and I wasn't teaching them nearly as often as Jenni. They look cute, but when they don't understand what's going on, their reactions are all over the board.

A lot of the preschools here teach students to touch their arm when holding up their hand. It's more respectful. I love it; not sure why.

By the way, this seated, hand-in-the-air, calm-looking picture is of a very rare moment.

I got to go to class once and take pictures. The students are so much cuter when you're not their teacher.

For the record, Vietnamese schools are awesome. They're open-air, with balconies and lots of plants. Floors are kept clean because shoes aren't worn inside. Also, teachers have soft sticks with which to discipline...

Here Jenni was practicing "Stand up," and "sit down."

I LOVE their uniforms. I haven't seen a school yet that doesn't require them, except private centers like ours. I think the pink shorts are just adorable.

Jenni has been teaching this class for so long, and younger classes on Saturday mornings as well. AND she still goes to an orphanage to play with kids once a week. That's a LOT of children. And Jenni loves kids, and teaching, but she'd really like to teach 4th or 5th grade, not babysit a room full of pinballs, trying to get them to say, "M. Milk."

Way to go, Jenni!

Thanks for Your Support

It's that time...

Tomorrow will mark 2 weeks until I board a plane for Atlanta, Georgia. And as I've written some of you, I will do so with very mixed feelings. Maybe ALL of them. Relief. Nervousness. Ecstasy. Sadness. Guilt. Anxiety. Extreme happiness. Annoyance (you have no idea how many people want to go to the airport with us). So loved (seriously, a lot of people want to come to the airport with us). Excitement. Impatience. Weariness. Peace. And these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head!

One feeling that I won't be feeling is: Doubt. I have no doubt that this is where I was supposed to be for the last 2 years. And I have no doubt that getting on that plane and going home is the next step. There's a LOT I don't understand about my time here, and I've surely had doubts about things along the way. But looking forward, and looking back, I have full confidence that this was the season for me to be in Vietnam. It might happen again in the future, but in two weeks my time here will be finished for now.

Thank you all so much for joining me in this time, reading my stories, laughing at my cultural faux pas, listening to my complaints, supporting me. Sometimes even just a comment on my blog reminded me that I was not forgotten over here. Your support and pryers mean so much to me. Thank you thank you thank you.

I have sent out nearly 500 letters and packages from Vietnam and received SO MANY from you! Since March of 2009, I have received $ 16,759.00 in support, leaving me with only $115 dollars left to raise. You all have been such a blessing to me.

As soon as I reach that goal, I will let you know. My account number is 208061, or my name, at Teachoverseas.org. I can't thank you all enough.

Here are some pictures from the first to the most recent (Please scroll slowly and pretend that a graduation song is playing in the background):