BYOTP

Our first week of camp is over, having culminated in an exciting but exhausting day of competitions and tests for the students. We (the American and Vietnamese coaches) are currently taking a relaxing weekend trip to the city of Can Tho, an hour north of Hoa Anh (highlights: Can Tho floating market, street food like Banh Mi and purple sticky rice, and Karaoke). When we got to the hotel and exclaimed at the newfound luxuriousness of flush-toilets and hot water, it made me think about how expectations and things that we take for granted can be adapted very quickly. For instance, just one week has passed and most of the Americans are very comfortable with the necessity of BYOTP. My friend Kathryn, a fellow B1G Cross-country runner from U Minnesota, coined this term: "bring your own toilet paper." TP is not widely used in Vietnam, so if we want to use it we bring it everywhere we go. Its easy enough, and serves as just one more example of stepping out of the American comfort zone.

Can Tho floating market

I want to emphasize how much participating in Coach for College has been thus far. Coaching kids in basketball is a lot of fun, and most of them catch on very quickly to the rules and techniques. I definitely challenged them quite a bit when I started a tournament of "ultimate basketball" in which no dribbling is allowed and 5 passes are required to score a point, and one of those passes must include a girl. At first (despite my pleading in English to spread out), the kids would clump up and grab the ball away from each other and throw it up underhand in the air so that catching was a free for all. This resulted in only a few minor injuries, and after they figured out that this strategy was totally ineffective, some excellent passing ensued. I was very proud of their progress.

Friday started out as a nightmare. At 7:15 am we started the 9th graders on their test of the academic subjects taught throughout the week. My 9th grade class, the green tornados, are an exceptionally rowdy bunch. They are quite athletic, and won more than half of the sports contests, but they are also quite goofy and tend to make fun of the fact that Devon and I can't really speak or understand Vietnamese. As many times as we demanded "Im Lang" (be silent), the students continued to ask each other questions about the test and cheat very obviously. They were not subtle at all about looking at each others' papers and saying the multiple choice answers "a, b, d, etc..."  , which sound very similar to the English letters. I seperated them, I sat between them, I scolded them, but it was pretty  miserable. My fellow Vietnamese coach and translator is a rather timid and very tiny 19 year old girl, and she didn't quite understand my outrage. From what I understand, cheating on a test in high school or middle school is not nearly as big of a deal in Vietnam as it was where I grew up. In the end, I took tests away before they were finished and probably cost our team some points in the contest, but I valued honesty more than winning in this situation. I think the other Vietnamese coaches thought we were being a bit too  harsh, but I felt very disrespected by the students. Again, this is probably just a difference in expectations, and I did not even think twice about imposing my own values on them. I am going to have to have some discussions with our Vietnamese directors to figure out what the proper treatment would be.  Once sports began, the kids and I were back to our fun, buddy-camp counselor relationship, but I am still pretty upset about the academic test.

9th graders goofing off as always

With Snowee and the good kids! (Nhu and Dat)

Our 8th graders, who competed in the afternoon, were absolute angels and did not even consider cheating, nor did they speak at all during the test or move. They study much harder than the 9th graders, and try much harder to please their coaches. I'm proud to say I have finally learned their Vietnamese names, which was an intense struggle due to many of them having names that are spelled the same, but pronounced with different pitches. For instance: Thanh= both "Thaaanh" and "Thahnh".
For the entire day, our team cheered loudly about every 3 minutes: "Green Tornados! We are Numba one!!"

Some of the funnier interactions we have witnessed occur everytime we ask boys and girls to touch each other. For a few of the demonstrations for physics, we have asked the class to hold hands (i.e. to demonsrate a complete circuit). The boys and girls FREAK OUT when we suggest they hold hands, and are totally repulsed. Ah, the days of cooties. They often either hold each other by the pinky, or hold a fan or water bottle between them instead. The lengths they go through to avoid each other is pretty hilarious, especially for 9th graders!

The classrooms in the school are pretty dirty and consist of wooden tables and benches and ceiling fans that do not function. The farm right outside the windows often burn grass, and the smoke gets through the windows and forces us to either move classrooms or to simply breath smoky air while we are playing sports. I was very surprised that the farmer was not addressed about this, especially when it comes to school children.

Uncle Ho is watching in every class room!

Also, the lack of flush toilets where we are staying has really increased my awareness as to how much water is necessary to flush a toilet. We have to fill up 3 or 4 buckets of water to flush properly, which ends up being a lot over a whole day! Something to think about.

When I signed up to come to "rural" Vietnam, I expected houses to be spread out and far apart, with a small population just like rural towns in America. Instead, Hoa Anh is still fairly densely populated and the kids live quite close to the school. Their parents and neighbors have small farms (relative to USA agribusinesses) or rice paddies. They transport everything from hay bales to CAT tractors to their produce using 2-3 ft wide and maybe 10-15 ft long shallow wooden boats that motor down the river network to market. I saw a "barber shop" consisting of 4 wooden poles and a tarp on 3 sides next to the river, complete with a typical barber's chair. This barber is in business every morning!  One thing that rural America and rural Vietnam definitely have in common is the abundance of loose dogs that yip at our heels on early morning sunrise runs. Like everything else, however, these dogs are much smaller in Vietnam than in America.

Everyone transports their goods by boat or motorbike

Large tin riverside home

The one thing that is much bigger in Vietnam than in America is the price tag. I am not used to shelling out 100,000 of anything for material goods, so dropping 25,000 Vietnamese Dong on toilet paper the other day seemed quite alarming. The sticker shock is intense, but 20,000 Dong ~ $1, so the actual value of most goods are relatively quite inexpensive. It is extremely helpful to have our Vietnamese friends bargaining for us at the markets, because prices change dramatically for foreigners compared to locals.

We are all grateful for this period of rejuvination, but we are looking forward to seeing our students again. Cam Ang to everyone who helped support this program!