Goodbye Vinh

I can’t believe it but in three more days I’ll be on my way back to Texas. Believe it or not I have to close this chapter and opening another one. So, last night I had a goodbye party. And what a party it was! I think about 80 of my students came to say goodbye. They were crammed into my room, sitting outside on the balcony, and stuffed into Sandy’s room. I don’t think there could have been more students in my little room.



I have made some really good friends this year and it was so fun to have all of them come to celebrate a wonderful year together. Many of them told me that I wasn't just their teacher but their sister. Which is a really big compliment in Vietnam. A sister is someone that they hold very dear and close in their hearts. There are so many precious students here in Vinh and I am very sad to leave them. I wish I could stay but I know there is a plan that is bigger than what I can see.


To finish the night off I busted out the sparklers. Nothing says party to me like fireworks. It was really fun seeing the excitement in everyone's face, but also cool for to feel like I have passed some of my light onto them.

Good year, good friends, and good growth!

Wake Up Call

I am up a lot earlier this morning than what I had planned thanks to the dormitory manager where I live. He decided we needed a 6AM wake up call by playing Vietnamese folk music way too loud over the speakers. Then he followed it by a anouncment that I didn't understand but I would imaging he was saying something like, "I am very mean and I hate it when people sleep, so everyone wake up." One of the first things that popped into my head is, would it be culturally inappropriate to punch him in the face? Ok so I would never really do that but I’m just saying….why 6 AM on a Sunday? So I thought I would use this extra time to update you on some new developments.

This rant aside, I have really been trying to soak up all of Vietnam I can because this is my last week here for a few months. I am going to miss Vietnam a lot, especially Vinh. For all of you who don’t know yet I won’t be teaching in Vinh next year. I just found this past week so I have been kind of in a whirlwind trying to tell my friends, packing, and finishing things up here. It is pretty sad to be leaving this city and all of my friends. I am trying to keep an upward mindset and looking forward to what is in store for next year.

A Mountain and A Meal

The past couple of weeks many of my students have started to invite me to go and do things with them. I think this is all happening now at the end of the year but none the less I am excited to go out with them.


First we all went to the "Mountain" at the very south of town. Being from Texas I can't say that I really know what a mountain looks like but even I can tell you this is little more than a hill. But we were still very hot and tired after climbing up to the top of the mountain. So we stopped at the top and had a picnic with the fruit and snacks they had brought with them. Can you beleive that they carried a whole watermelon up to the top? But I was glad because it tasted really good!


Then the next weekend they invited me to come and cook some Vietnamese food with them. I was really excited because even though I have lived here for almost 10 months now I still know how to cook very few Vietnamese dishes. Real Vietnamese food is much different from the Asian food that I have eaten in America. Most of it is really good...I can't lie there are a few things that are questionable like frog or snake. But I have avoided those dishes.

Preparing all of the food. We ate so much!!! They told me a Vietnamese proverb, "Prepare for three days and enjoy for one hour." It took most of the afternoon to prepare dinner but only because they are so careful to make sure everything is clean. I had some very good teachers that afternoon.

They cooked a whole feast. We had spring rolls, a cucumber salad, fish, sweet pork, stuffed squid, clam and greens soup, and of course rice. It was so delicious. We all ate so much that after we finished eating we had to go for a walk to Ho Chi Minh Square.

I am thankful to be busy in these last few weeks that I am here. It has helped me to stay focused on being here. I am looking forward to being home but I am trying not to focus on it too much. Please keep the emails and notes of encouragement coming as I work to finish the semester strong!

Food for Thought

Last night I has some students come to visit. We were discussing different types of food that they like to eat (a very common topic). They always ask me if I like to eat dog, and of course I always say I am too afraid to try it. They started talking about how they like to eat frog. Which I have tried and I must say I am not a fan of it. They told me that in Vietnam they call frog the "chicken of the field". I thought that was so funny and told them that we call tuna the "chicken of the sea". I love it when I find little things that are similar in both of our cultures. It reminds me that maybe we aren't so different after all.

May Holiday

This past weekend I had a four day weekend. Without getting political April 30 was either reunification day or the day the south fell depending on what your view of it is. And May 1st was labor day. I was just glad to have a few days to go on adventures! My freinds Becky and Kirsten who teach in other cities in Vietnam decided to come down for a visit to the great city of Vinh. I always love having people come and visit. I think Vietnam is country that you just can't quiet understand until you have been here.

One of the first things that you have to do when you visit Vinh is go to Ho Chi Minh Square! So that is exactly where I took my friends. Vinh is the birth province of Ho Chi Minh so everyone is very proud of him here. The statue that you see behind us is about 4 stories high and is the tallest statue of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam.

We also went to the province just south of where I live, Ha Tinh. There is a stream called Xuoi Tien. When we got there my first reaction was, "Is this Vietnam?" It was quiet, cool, and filled with pine trees. I felt more like I was in Washington state then the middle of Vietnam. We hicked down through part of the stream and found a big rock that we could all sit on. It was so nice to just relax in nature, and there were only a few people that came by to yell "hello" at us. All in all I would say it was a really great weekend!!!

New Chinese Friends

One of the things that I like the most about teaching here at Vinh University is there are so many foreign students. I know that I have talked about the differnt things that I have done with the Thai students here but there are also students from China and Laos that study here. Since the Chinese students live in my dorm I see them all the time. So last weekend the invited Sandy and I to go to their room to make Chinese dumplings.

It was fun learning how to cook a chinese dish. First you have to make the dough. Then you have roll out the dough with an old glass bottles, which is the make shift student rolling pin.

Then you put a little bit of the filling in the little round circles of dough. The filling for this batch was cabage and pork. Then you fold the dough to seal in the filling so that it is a half circle.

Then the final step is to boil them in their rice cooker. They were so delicious!!! It was a lot of fun to spend time with the Chinese students. I was amazed at how different they were from my Vietnamese students and the Thai students. Even though the countries are in the same region on the globe each country has such a differnt culture. I mean it is like comparing a Candadian to an American. Haha. Not really Canadians and Americans arn't that differnent. I just love being reminded how creative our father is and how he made us all so unique!

An Emotional Birthday

Last weekend was my good friend Hao's (sound like "how") Birthday. She had a birthday party but it was while I was in Thailand, so we decided to have a party with just us! To celebrate we cooked lunch together and I made her a brownie birthday cake. As you can tell she was really excited.


Then we played a game that I used to play with my freind in college. Sandy, our photographer, would tell us an emotion and then both Hao and I would make a face that we thought expressed that emotion. Oh the fun you can have with digital cameras. I'll tell you the emotion we were going for and you let me know if you think we did a good job capturing it.

Surprise

Anger

Sad

Happy

It was a lot of fun getting to spend time with a good freind for her Birthday! In fact it is just to have good freinds. I definitly thought at one point that I would never feel close with anyone here but I have definitly been blessed with good freinds that I can share my happieness and laughter with. I am reminded ever day of how I am taken care of. I am one blessed woman!