Language lessons and 'Nam Noms

After a fun night of spontaneous karaoke in Ho Chi Minh City, we picked up the rest of our crew from the airport (18 in total, 9 each camp) and drove a long way (about 4 hours) to Hau Giang. Traffic is very different, and I often saw entire families of four riding one motorcycle, or one or two guys with a ton of cargo in front or behind them on the motorcycle. One guy had a cage of about 10 live young pigs in the back!

Skillfull transportation

Casual family motorbike

Our accomodations at the camp are rustic, to say the least. Our Vietnamese translators/co-teachers are also dismayed by our living conditions, including the toilet in the shower that is flushed manually using buckets of water, with no hot water, no drawers or closets, and already two blackouts in the hotel from using the (NECESSARY) air conditioning. I think it is good for us to get out of our comfort zones, though, and it allows us to really think about the aspects of our own lives that are luxurious, though we take them for granted.

Necessary mosquito net

Water bucket to flush the toilet yourself!

I am sharing a bed with a Vietnamese girl I met today, named "Humzhung" or "Yum", who is awesome and gave me Henna, loves Taylor Swift, plays competitive bingo, and made our room the party room. All of the Vietnamese girls came and played Bingo with the two of us in our room, and they were (mostly) patient teachers when I asked them to teach me Vietnamese. The 6-tone pronunciations are very difficult for me, and I am unfamiliar with many sounds. They like that I try, though!

Dung (Yoom) in the middle! (from a weekend trip)

Some of my lessons:

• My name is Allie = (phoenetically) "Thoy thun la Allie" 
• What is your name? = "Thun ko'o Baan la zhree?"
• We can do it! = |"Co Lin"

Sunday afternoon was our first introduction to our class. My class decided on the team name |"Green Tornados" and the slogan, "we are number one!" They are great, mostly participative and very good at soccer and volleyball. They are 8th and 9th graders, and I can't pronounce a single name, which is going to be a problem. I just wink and wave and smile and hope they listen to the translator, whos name sounds like "ThAow," but who we call "Snowy." We don't actually start teaching lessons until tomorrow, we just played the Human Knot, some word games, and demonstrated our sports. It's kind of funny, because a lot of us are runners or fencers or rowers, and we are not actually experts in the sports we are coaching. So the kids are actually better than us at soccer and volleyball, which was a little embarrassing but its still good for us to organize games for them and what not. I think my fellow distance runner and I (the basketball coaches) had enough basketball skill to slightly impress them though!

Some key members of the Green Tornadoes

So far, not being able to speak Vietnamese has been extremely frustrating, because I can't run the class the way that I want to. I will have to come up with another way to communicate, or hope that having more translators tomorrow will help get our instructions across more quickly. As it is, our translator struggles to understand us, which makes it a twisted game of telephone to actually communicate to the kids. And it makes explaining new games VERY difficult and slow. But as we all get to know each other, I know that everything will come more quickly! Also, the kids get workbooks for class in Vietnamese that follow exactly what we are teaching in English, so they will be able to follow us. Thank goodness!  I am looking forward to getting to know each of the classes!

In conclusion, I am sure some of you are interested in what we are eating.
'Nam Noms:
Breakfast: Banana 'Pancake' or fried egg with French bread roll and chum chum fruit or pineapple OR pho

Lunch: Beef or Pork Pho OR bowl or rice with fruit, cooked cabbage, pork knuckles, fried fish, fruit

Dinner: Rice with cooked cabbage with fruit and meat, tofu, fried fish, chum-chum fruit

Example of lunch

Dessert: Jackfruit (this taste is used to flavor Juicee Fruit gum and is tasty!)