"Hello! It’s hard to believe it’s almost Thanksgiving! I am reallylooking forward to Thanksgiving. All of the ESI teachers will bemeeting in Ho Chi Minh City for our yearly Thanksgiving conference.
This is typically the most difficult time of year for teachers. The newness and excitement of Vietnam has worn off, and homesickness andculture shock have set in. Although this hardly affects me anymore, I can certainly empathize with the new teachers. My first year ofteaching, until at least this time in the year, I cried every day. I try to remind myself of those tough times so that I can better help and understand the new teachers and the emotions they are feeling.
The other reason that this time of year is tough is because of the holidays. I rarely cry here anymore…..unless I think about Christmas. I really miss spending the Christmas season at home with family. I am so thankful, though, to have "Boo-Boo" here as she is like a sister to me. Because of the reasons mentioned, it’s good that we have a time every year at Thanksgiving where all of us teachers can gather together fo ra few days. We will talk about culture shock, study sc*ipture, andjust relax and chat together. I’m looking forward to some good westernfood, too!
Sunday was Teachers’ Day in Vietnam. It is a HUGE celebration. Theyhave a saying here that parents are most important closely followed by teachers. All week long we received flowers from our students. Wereceived at least 2 dozen roses, along with a large, decorated cake from our boss, and last, and certainly the most interesting, is the skin whitening cream that I received from my wealthiest student. Actually, it was a whole boxed set of skin whitening products. In Vietnam, white skin is the most important beauty component for women.It was a really sweet, and expensive, gift, but I think I will “regift” it at Christmas. Somehow I think that Hannah would appreciate it much more than I ever could.
Because of Teachers’ Day, the university had a huge traditional singing and dancing program that began at 8:30 am. That is actually late for Vietnamese, but still feels early to us on our day to sleep in. After the program, we were invited to a big dinner. Since we’vebeen teaching here for more than a year, and volunteering by helping the Vietnamese teachers in their classrooms, we have a lot of friendswho are English professors. It makes things like this so much more when you are among friends and not just people who are curious about us because we are Americans. I attached a photo of the party. 
The director of the English department gave "Boo-Boo" and I each two different colors and patterns of silk material to have some clothes made at the tailor. Hannah’s friend’s sister is a tailor, so she is going to make some clothes for us. We are excited to have some new, free silk clothes!
Just when we thought our Teachers’ Day celebration was over, Hannah invited us to her friend’s party. We ate hot pot, which was really delicious. We had spent time with these friends before, so it was a fun, relaxed time. It was nice for Hannah to get out, too, since she’s been staying in bed most of the time. Please continue to pr*y for her. She is supposed to be on bed rest, but is afraid that she will lose her job if she doesn’t continue teaching. Also, please lift up the coming Christmas season. It’s a great opportunity to share with our friends. We really want them to come to the Christmas service with us, and plan to invite them soon. Please pr*y for the conference thisweek, too.
Our class of gov*rnment officials ended on Friday, so they took us out to eat the specialty of Tam Ky, which is chicken rice. While we were eating, they asked if "Boo-Boo"'s real name was "Yogi". He proceeded to tell us that we are "famous" in Tam Ky and Danang, but people are arguing about our names. They are confused by my name on e-mail and Facebook being "Yogi", but going by *** in class. We tried toexplain that *** is just a nickname, but I am not sure they totally understood that. It's hard to explain nicknames to Vietnamese people because their names are all only one syllable long, so they never need nicknames. I attached a photo of us with this class.
Thanks you to each of you for pr*ying for us and supporting us! We feel so THANKFUL for YOU this Thanksgiving! We are so thankful to beserving in Vietnam, and we couldn’t do it without you.
Thank you verymuch, and may G*d richly bless your Thanksgiving celebration!"
Love,
"Yogi"
No comments:
Post a Comment