Rush Hour At 4:30 A.M.

Last night I had difficulty sleeping. Instead of trying to force submission that would not come, I let my curiosity get the best of me and ventured outside at 4:30 a.m. in pursuit of any fellow insomniacs I could find.

Instead of the few wandering souls I expected to encounter, I got the whole neighborhood.

Everybody was out - running, doing tai chi, drinking coffee, setting up their food stations for the day. The party was bumpin'. And so was the Vietnamese pop music blaring from the boom box of the Motorbike Taxi Entourage, perched a top a set of handle bars. The men smiled at me as I walked through the gate of campus 1, even more so than they do regularly...probably trying to figure out why I was up.

Here I was, still not having slept from last night, and these people were already at work.

I felt like such a bum!

When I started to backtrack home after my forty-five minute stroll, I noticed two Vietnamese girls (who looked to be about sixteen or so) jogging close behind me, stopping abruptly a few feet short of my heels. Giggles ensued. When I turned around to look at them, they both looked straight down at the ground, in complete silence.

I turned forward and smiled, still never ceasing to be amazed by the Vietnamese fascination with Western-looking people, such as myself.

Ohhh, Vietnam.

A Word A Day Keeps Dementia Away

So, I should really get to sleep - this I know. But before I go, I wanted to share this website with ya'll:

http://wordsmith.org/awad/

I wouldn't be surprised in discovering that many of you already know all about it and consult it quotidianly. BUT, I've just discovered it, and it makes me happy - so let me have my moment!

Basically, this website posts one new word every day - its' definition, origin and use (all the usual dictionary stuff), as well as an inspirational quote, which isn't related to the newly-learned word, but enlightening all the same!

In Vietnam, my life is pretty good. I teach three hours a day, I run daily (in preparation of a 5K I intend on taking part in come December, in Cambodia) and I frequently gorge on delicious cuisine that costs me less than a buck. Pretty awesome.

I also read, a lot. And I find that I long so much to hear the English language when that's no longer a luxury to me. Vietnamese is, well...not exactly light on the ears. Like most other Asian languages, it's tonal, and many of the sounds required to say these words must come through your nose. Not a skill I have mastered yet, to say the least...

So anyway, yeah. English. I love it. It's beautiful. I often find myself reading and researching new and different things during my time over here (don't worry, I'm not a complete loser - I do go out on occasion, when my Vietnamese friends are granted permission to stay out past their usual curfew time of 11 p.m.) and I have learned one thing: I am a lover of the English language. And I find that my amazement with words (the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 170,000 of them) is somewhat simlar to the opinion that my favorite TV personality, Anthony Bourdain, holds about travel:

"I know that I will never understand the world I live in or fully know the places I've been. I've learned for sure only what I don't know - and how much I have to learn."

Cockroaches Can't Fly, Can They?

Yes, people. We're back to the bugs. And today's top story surrounds the Insetcal Mother of All Creatures Disgusting: la cucaracha.

Last night, while lifting my mosquito net and anticipating sleep like no other, I looked down at the cold tile floor and saw the last thing that one wants to see before climinbing into bed: that hard-shelled, long-antennae'd copper-colored creature, the cockroach.

Grooossssssssss!!!!!!!

Reaching for my right sneaker, I stopped myself short and remembered what an elementary school teacher of mine once told me.

She said that the last thing you want to do is kill a cockroach with your shoe, in the event that you may have squashed a pregnant female with hundreds (or thousands) of eggs in her belly. Now, with those eggs stuck to the bottom of your sneaks, you'd be taking those unborn embryos with you everywhere.

Crap. Plan B...

But before I could even think of what to do next, my little friend took flight. And when I say took flight, I don't mean that he leaped/hopped to his next location. He actually flew.

Never before have I seen a cockroach fly...never again do I want to.

...And just a few hours ago, as I hung my towel on the hook in the bathroom stall, there he was again. This time, he was taking refuge among the shadows created by my shampoo and conditioner bottles, thinkin' he was slick, like I couldn't see him.

I made a move for him, but he quickly scurried away.

And I am left to hope that the bathroom becomes his new bedroom, so that I can rest peacefully in my own...

Gettin' Dolled Up, Vietnamese Style

With my eyes closed and Minh's make-up brush grazing the surface of my skin, I can't stop laughing to myself about how funny this situation is:

I am getting dressed up like a bride - make-up, hair, the works - so that An and her husband can put pictures of me and my friend Zen (playing 'the groom') around their bridal shop. Ha.

As Minh continued to drown my skin in foundation and an assortment of other creams, I began to realize why I never wear this stuff: my skin felt like it was suffocating. It will be a miracle if I don't wake up tomorrow with ten bulging pimples on my face.

After I was "beautified", I descended from the top level of An's three-story house down to the middle floor, by way of the winding staircase - trying, as always, to keep my balance. When I made my way into the dressing room, I had to laugh when I saw the size of the dress I was expected to fit into: in American terms, roughly a four.

That wasn't happening.

"It's your shoulders," Zen said, laughing at me as my two sweet-as-can-be Vietnamese assistants attempted to sew the back of the third runner-up shut. "You've got that swimmer's build."

The girls did somehow manage to squeeze me into this third and final dress. It was an ivory-white halter gown, with a red bow and sash at the waist, and my hair was bobbing with beautiful curls, thanks to the handiwork of the "hair guy" upstairs - sorry for that impersonal label, but I don't remember/couldn't pronounce his name. Sweet boy, though!

Lights, camera, action...

I ended up having a really great time. An, Minh and several other hair/make-up artists surrounded us, adjusting and readjusting the light and our poses, sometimes physically turning our heads in the direction they wanted us to face. We took somewhere around eighty pictures, in a variety of different poses.

But after reviewing the photos on An's digital camera, I found that I did not look like myself...

...at all.

Sometimes, in Vietnam, I feel the way I look in those pictures - completely different, independent of the person I was back at home. Disconnected, if you will. Someone who, even though she may not look it on a day-to-day basis, is undergoing massive internal changes and is having difficulty recognizing herself in the mirror.

So maybe the girl in that white dress is me, after all.

Hue, I'm coming!

I have yet to venture to Hue, but I think the New York Times would agree with me that it's definitely work the trek:

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/09/27/style/t/index.html?hp#pagewanted=0&pageName=27vietnamw

I Like My Eel Dead, Thanks!

So, as you'll notice, there are two posts today about food.

That's because after I finished my first lunch (yeah, I said first!), An and her friends called me up and invited me to a second.

I had to go - they were having eel!

My first introduction to this slimy yet scrumptuous fish was through sushi. Cut up into tiny cubes and served in a ball of rice and seaweed, I never got to know my eel all too well. Also, it was served to me dead, on a platter, with other dead things - usually the way I like my food to be prepared in the States.

Not the case in Vietnam.

After our waitress had set the cooking pot down in the middle of the table and walked away, I saw what I thought was a mushroom sticking out at the surface of the stew: it was that typical blackened-brown mushroom color, bobbing up and down in the broth, but this piece was slightly longer than any cut up mushroom I had ever seen, and with a distinct sharp "tip" on the visible end.

Excited, I grabbed my chopsticks and reached for it.

As I attempted to drag the anticipated mushroom out of the pot, it just kept going and going and going...until I realized what it was: the whole eel.

I dropped the fish and laughed.

"It's not dead yet," An said, smiling at me. "It has to cook a little bit longer."

Of course it does, I thought to myself. And after just being told by An's husband Minh that I'm the only American they've known to try "everything" in Vietnam, I couldn't back out now...

Alas, I've come to realize one very important thing about eating, thanks to Vietnam: the scarier it looks, the better it tastes. So let go of your inhibitions and try everything.

In the end, you'll be glad you did.

Fish, or Fat?

Although there are a plethora of eating facilities all throughout Can Tho, my laziness usually kicks in around noon and I tend not to venture very far for lunch.

Meaning...I only go across the street.

The ladies who run this cute vegetarian joint know only a few words in English, but that's more than the majority of the other places we dine at. So far, their linguistic knowledge of our native language has led them in the direction of asking Christine and myself how old we are, what our names are, and that we are very beautiful. (If you're ever down and out about your looks in the States, hop on a flight to 'Nam. I guarantee that frown will be turned upside down in a quick minute. Everyone is gonna think you're gorgeous!)

Anyway, we have the same dish every time we go here: a plate of rice, topped with vegetables, sugar-coated tofu (which I love now, by the way), pineapple, shredded onion, and something else...

Is it fish, or is it fat? Smells likes fish, but tastes like fat. And being that this place is "vegetarian", I want to assume the first one.

Regardless of what it is, though, it goes in my mouth. Just like everything else I eat here.

Insert "That's what she said!" joke.

Haha. VERY funny!

Wipe-out!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/asia/24delta.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

*Attention: The above article is NOT there to scare you folks at home. If further signs of a potential natural disaster become more evident, I'm sure the Vietnamese government would prioritize the expedient evacuation of foreigners...

On second thought, I think I'll start constrcuting a raft out of bamboo. Pretty durable material, so I've been told. Elian Gonzalez ain't got nothin' on me.

Jerry the Journalist

"Teacha, in little whiles, I ejec from class."

Those words were spoken today by my most animated student, Jerry. He's one of the tiniest boys in the class but undoubtedly has the biggest personality.

He also has the hardest time pronouncing English words.

After cocking my head to the side and asking him "What?" in the sweetest teacher voice I could muster up, he repeated that statement. Still perplexed, I handed him a piece of chalk and pointed to the board.

He wrote "eject" and then looked at me and smiled.

I still didn't get it. Then it hit me.

"Ohh, you mean EXIT!"

He smiled, nodded and enthusiastically answered back, "Yes, what I mean!"

I still don't know where he was planning on going, but he stayed for the remainder of class and never made a grand departure.

I was glad for this, because Jerry is one of my favorite students already. I learned last week that he plans on being a journalist (hopefully for a Vietnamese newspaper, because there's no English publisher in their right mind that would hire him...yet) and he always talks with his hands when he speaks in front of the class. He likes to include me in his dialogues whenever he can, but normally doesn't have much patience for my response.

While his partner and him were nearing the end of their conversation about the weather in France, he looks at me and says:

"And what about you, teacha? You sinks is cold in France too?"

Having been there once myself, I smiled and said, "Yes, the weather in France is very similar to New..."

But then he waved his hands in my face and turned back to the class, continuing to describe a European country that he's never been to before. I laughed to myself, because clearly he wants to steal the spotlight. For my own enjoyment, I'm more than willing to let him have it.

Does it get any better?!

Top 5 things that I love about Nam:

5) KFC delivers
4) Everyone smiles at me, for no reason at all
3) I seem to be getting thinner, due to a lack of fatty cooking oils in my food
2) I'm still experiencing warm weather, unlike the folks back at home, who are already starting to bundle up for the inevitable, bone-chilling New York winter ;-)
1) SINH THO - the best fruit smoothie ever created. And made with NO preservatives. Sweet.

"Shhhh, Be Quiet!"

One thing I'm learning about my Vietnamese students:

When I ask them to speak in front of the class, it's like pulling teeth. When it's someone else's turn to speak, all of a sudden, they can't shut up.

They don't get chatty when I'm speaking, of course. That's the kind of stunt you would NEVER see a Vietnamese student pull off. However, when their friends are reciting dialogues at the front of the room or answeing a question of mine that requires at least a few sentences in response, I hear voices all around.

And they're not even trying to be quiet!

Upon reflection, I find this funny. During class, though, it's quite irritating. I keep putting my right index finger to my lips and making the "shhh" sound over and over again. Silence follows for about ten seconds. Then the talking resumes. Incredible.

I've got some hypotheses as to why this is. For one, maybe they're just as fed up with the fact that they, like me, have literally no idea what their fellow students are saying in front of the class. They all whisper when it's their time to shine. And with the fan blowing, and even when I'm right beside them, I'm still having difficulty comprehending. I can't imagine how the rest of the class might feel...

Secondly, maybe they simply just don't care. I've noticed that when I actually get them up there, they don't want to stop talking. And they don't really care about what their partner in the dialogue has to say, either. They just want to hear their own voice, and look at me for validation. Cute, but we're certainly not making much progress in developing good listening skills.

During the middle of the fifth group that was performing their dialogue, I stopped them. I told one of the girls to go to the back of the classroom, and the other to stay put. They just looked at me, not understanding at first. Eventually, after my repeated "Go, go, go's!" and hand gestures toward the back wall, she understood.

For the next twenty minutes, I had a dozen or so groups perform their dialogues this way. And that finally got them talking. LOUD.

"I Can See You, Your Brown Skin Shining In The Sun..."

Things to note about Nam:

1) The dogs in Can Tho are similar to the people here: small, and timid. All of them look like they're starving. And the only one that barks is my neighbor's. He actually COMES to the edge of my sidewalk as I walk to my front door. He yelps at the top of his lungs until I'm safely inside, then skitters away. I hate him. We will never be friends.

2) The skin thing. It's outrageous. They literally hide from the sun here. White skin is revered, I get that. But I still don't understand why. The typical Vietnamese skin tone - the one that you'd see on the backs of workers in the rice fields, doubling over in the long grass, admidst the sweltering heat and penetrating UV rays - is beautiful. A color that desperate housewives all over America would kill to have. While those women spend thousands of dollars each year at tanning salons, the Vietnamese are dressing in layers to keep their flesh a milky, ivoy color. Crazy.

3) The pagodas. Today, I went to the province of Soc Trang. About an hour and a half after our bumpy bus ride, we arrived at the station, only to be told that we wouldn't be able to purchase tickets for our returning trip home. Apparently, they were booked. Lovely.

As always, when things go wrong in Nam, we called An. Our angel in disguise. She has helped us out in more situations than I can count. After the workers at the Mailinh bus company handed my friend's cell phone back to us, An informed us that we could come back later, at any time, and they would send us home.

First, we had no way of getting home. Now, it was up to us when we departed. TIV, man. This is Vietnam...

Anyhoo, the PAGODAS. Yes, they are beautiful. So colorful and so elaborate. The use of color in the Buddha paintings that adorned the temple walls was the kind you would find in a Crayola crayon box. I'm talkin' the loud, vibrant section of the box - the macaroni & cheese, the magenta, the teal. You name it, it was up there. It made the dull murals of my hometown St. Augustine' church seem so boring in comparison. Maybe if mass had looked this cool growing up, I wouldn't have been so reluctant to tag along all those year. Ha...just kiddin' mom ;-)

Mother Nature Needs to BACK OFF!

I've just returned from shopping at MaxiMark (the biggest shopping center in Can Tho) to find my beautiful SONY laptop covered in...

Ants. Dozens of them, running across my keypad, sliding in and out from under the letters. I knew we had them on our floors, in our fridge, in the bathrooms. But now my computer? When it's perched safely on my desk?

Thanks for the new laptop, dad...but mother nature has now come to claim it as her own.

The second I come home and see jungle vines strangling my laptop and dragging it back into the wild, I'm calling Robin Williams. Hopefully the skills he acquired while filming Jumanji still serve him well today...

My Prince Has Come...

Last night, while Christine and I were surfin' the Net, I turned to my right and quickly jumped up.

Chillin' on the floor two feet away from me was a frog.

How the hell he got in, I still don't know. The door was closed and the slanted window panes were not nearly thick enough for him to slide through.

But there he was, in all his froggy flesh.

I took a pic of him, which I think made him go blind. He didn't move. I took another one, but it, too, came out blurry. I gave up and turned back to my computer.

When I looked for him again, he was gone. Gone.

First I checked my shoes. Samantha from last year told us that sometimes they like to hide in your sneakers. But I found no frog.

I looked under the chairs and table. No frog. Where the hell did this thing go?!

If I end up with a toad in my bed, I might just freak.

But I guess it's better than curlin' up next to a centipede...

Mmm, Tastes Like Chicken

So I just ate...a duck embryo. Yes, I performed a not-so professional abortion on a baby duck. Call me a killer, but it was AWESOME! Tasted just like chicken, too.

The culinary adventures never end here in Nam.

I've also come to realize why the Vietnamese are so skinny. Most of what they eat requires a LOT of effort. In America, we're lazy - the majority of our seafood comes cracked and the skin on our meat, peeled. Not the case in Can Tho. A homeless guy on the streets of New York holding up the infamous "Will Work For Food" sign wouldn't realize what he got himself into over here. After cracking so many crab legs and extracting only the tiniest bit of meat from them, I just want to give up. My stomach might not like this, but my waist line is feeling otherwise...

Christine and I found a doughnut shop today. And yeah, you heard me correctly - DOUGH-NUT! I can't even begin to explain how happy this made me. It was like Christmas morning. So much for the ten pounds I thought I was guaranteed to lose here.

But if chocolate frosted doughnuts are involved, I really do NOT care :-)

Foot Fantasizing Mosquitoes

These mosquitoes have foot fetishes. If they were human, they'd be sexual perverts. But unlike human beings who fantasize about feet, these guys actually leave their mark when they're done taking what they need from me. At least a pervert would just make out with my foot and BOUNCE.

Who's the first idiot to ever tell somebody "stop scratching" in reference to mosquito bites?! That, my friend, is an impossibility. I know it just makes it worse...but taking no action at ALL certainly doesn't make it any better!

I wake up with at least ten new bites every day. No matter what. I now find myself wearing sweatpants and long sleeves in this tropical heat. I didn't understand why so many Vietnamese were dressed for the blizzard of '96 when it's always eighty-plus degress outside. Now I get it. Pretty dumb to doubt the people who have lived here all their lives. Stupid American girl!

Aside from my less-than-satisfactory physical state of being, today was good. Really good. Christine and I finally have internet in our house - yay! Finally something else to do at night time besides watch the same movies replay on HBO, again and again and again...

Today it rained. A LOT. I didn't mind, though. When it continuously rains, things cool off. And the second it stops raining, it gets even hotter than before. So I was more than happy for the all-day downpour. But I'm quite less than happy about...

THE FROGS! Yep, we have frogs. Lots of 'em. There are tens or hundreds of them outside my house right now, hiding in the grass, making SO much noise. They've taken the word "ribbit" and brought it to a whole 'notha level. I thought at first this sound was their mating call - it's VERY commanding. But, as An informed me, I was wrong. They just get louder when it rains. I still don't understand why. Maybe they're just bitchin' about their houses getting flooded. If that happened to me, I'd probably make the same irritating noise, too.

Thursday is my only day off from teaching. Thank God for that. Not that I need a break from three-hour work days. But any excuse I can get to stay inside and avoid the brutal heat is fine with me. Maybe once my little friends outside shut up, I can finally get some sleep...

Pronunciation, You Devil

One of my favorite things about New York is simple, but essential: it’s a pedestrian-friendly city. People walk everywhere. If you own a car, it just becomes a nuisance. Street cleaners become your arch nemesis. You end up cursing the damn city, the damn car and the damn stupid fact that you even own.

Can Tho is, among various other things, the complete OPPOSITE of New York in this sense. Nobody walks. Motorbike taxi drivers have become my best friends. But when I do feel like stretching my legs, it’s at my own peril. Something is always blocking my way – whether it’s a person (who’s not moving) or severely damaged sidewalks that are still awaiting reconstruction – I can never just go. The sidewalks are more like obstacle courses. And unlike New York – where everyone is either looking down at their feet or staring straight past you – the opposite applies here: everyone is looking at me. Everyone.

That being said, I didn’t walk to school today. I motorbike’d it. I won’t be doing this every day, but financially speaking, it’s only fifty cents each way – not too much of a burden on my budget. I also wanted to be there before my students got to the room: every time a teacher walks into a classroom here, they all stand up, and don’t sit down until you do. Embarassing! I figured being there beforehand might catch them off-guard…and it did. Although this time, instead of standing up, they all bowed their heads upon entry. Looks like I’m getting treated like an empress either way.

Today was my first day of class with the freshmen. I had about fifty or so in my class and although this seems unmanageable, it’s not – they never speak! They’re quiet to the point where it’s almost unbearable. So, conventional teaching methods, out the window – time to open up the door to creativity, and beyond!

I wrote three simple words on the board at the beginning of class. In capital letters it read: ENGLISH IS CRAZY! The students got a kick out of this. And it’s so true. Mastering the English language is an incredibly difficult task to accomplish. The rules always change. Nothing is ever constant. And that can be severely frustrating for a student whose future job rests on their ability to listen, speak, read and write in English.

When the majority of the students were in their seats, I passed around a yellow sheet of paper. There were two columns – one titled “Vietnamese name” and the other “English name.” I explained to them that I wanted their birth names as well as what they would like to be called in class. I do this to make it easier for myself – pronouncing their Vietnamese name is just super embarrassing, on my behalf– and it’s also fun for them. When the last student returned the list to my desk, I had to laugh. There were typical names like David, Jerry, Christina and Sam. My top four favorites, though, were definitely Pea, Mighty, Sky and Navy.

The first exercise I had them do was stolen from Christine – thanks, girl! I divided the class in half and had one group stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the back wall, and the others stand the same way in front of the chalkboard, facing the group opposite them (setting them up like this was a task all in itself!) But when everyone was in place, I gave them simple directions: pick a partner across the room, and ask them questions.

They all looked at me as if I were crazy. Nobody said anything. I finally screamed “TALK!”, and they started to shout questions at one another, in English:

“Do you like school?”

“You have brother or sisters?”

“You have dog?”

Thirty seconds in, a sweet-looking Vietnamese boy with thick-framed glasses and a white button-up said to me, “Teacha Kelly, when we all talking at once, we can’t hear each otha!”

I looked at him, smiled, and simply said, “That’s the point!”

I let this go on for five minutes or so. They all kept smiling and looking back at me, not really sure what their crazy American teacher was forcing them to do. When they were all back in their seats, I enlightened them:

“This exercise was to teach you how to speak like an American –LOUD!” They all laughed at this.

The next activity I had them do made them nervous at first. I passed out ripped-up pieces of paper and asked them to write out a secret about themselves that nobody knew. More blank stares. More shy smiles. No pens moving.

“It doesn’t have to be a HUGE secret,” I said, “just as long as it’s different.” Some more uncomfortable shifting in their seats but a few more pens at work. Nice.

When they were done, I asked one of the girls in front if I could borrow her slightly empty pencil case for the exercise. She was more than happy to oblige. I went around and collected all the neatly folded (instead of the anticipated crumply pieces) of paper, and explained the rules:

“I will go around the room and ask a student to pick out a secret from the pencil case, and read it out loud to the class. When he or she is done reading, they have three guesses. If they don’t guess the correct person on the third try, the person who wrote the secret has to stand up and say ‘It’s me!’”

THAT was the part that freaked them out. Several students shouted “Oh, no!” and dozens more were nervously giggling. The first girl I went up to looked like I had asked her to place her hand in a woodchopper when she reached inside. When she read it aloud, it sounded like this:

“I rearry ate on-in.” What?!

I asked her to read it again, and she gave me the same response. Finally I took the piece of paper from her and read it myself.

“Ohhh”, I said, now realizing what she meant, “I really hate onions!”

The class laughed at this. I did too. Not exactly what I would have expected someone to write as a personal secret. But, I thought to myself, would I really want to share my deepest and darkest with a bunch of strangers? Probably not.

There were other exercises and other copied charts during today’s lesson – which runs three hours, by the way – but if I continue, this blog post will go on for days. I’ve already learned one very valuable thing from teaching, though – you get back as much energy as you put forth. I don’t have any prior experience teaching English to university students, but I do know what keeps the classroom alive: laughter. The best teachers that I had in high school or college were ones with a sense of humor, and if I can continue to keep my students’ interest level in learning English at a high, then I think I'll leave Can Tho with the satisfying feeling of a job well done.

Cabin Fever

So I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I can’t WAIT for school to start tomorrow. Christine and I have only taught two classes each so far, and that is not NEARLY enough to keep ourselves focused on our jobs at Can Tho instead of obsessing over our current physical conditions. We both look like lepers with the amount of mosquito bites we have. There’s no internet in our house, probably never will be. We’ve tried four different Vietnamese internet companies and all have refused to give us access. They don’t “believe” that we’re here for as long as we say we are. They won’t sign contracts with “foreigners” because we might just up and leave. Even a signed contract from Can Tho university by the HEAD of the Education department won’t cut it for these people. They just don’t trust us. Is it because we’re white?!?!

Every time I get fed up with the heat, or the slowness of the people, or the bugs, or anything else, I just have to keep telling myself one thing: I CHOSE to come here. I knew what would be in store for me, so I can’t feel too bad for myself.

Oh, and more about the bugs: mosquitoes suck, but I have cream to defend myself from their attacks. Little geckoes roam free on our walls and ceilings, but they never end up in my bed, so they’re presence doesn’t irk me too much. Also, they eat mosquitoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner – HUGE bonus! However, I thought we would be centi-and millipede free. Guess what? We’re not! Upon arriving home from the post office about twenty minutes ago, I saw a dried-up, hundred-legged creature right next to my hardwood sofa. Lovely. If one of those ends up in my bed, I just might be on the next flight home to New York.

If it weren’t for the kind nature of the (majority) of Vietnamese people, the perspective on my experience here would be vastly different. Having a few other English-speaking teachers as neighbors helps, too. The students, as I’ve said, are so sweet but so shy, so it will take at least a few more weeks for all of them to get acclimated to their new classroom environment with a REAL, live American teacher!

Black Hawk Down is currently playing on HBO for the millionth time this week. I guess it’s cool that the only two English-language channels we get are HBO and Max, but they play the same movies ALL the time. I’ve been reading way more than channel surfing lately, so I guess that’s one more benefit to add to the short list I’ve got so far.

Okay, all I’ve done in this blog is whine, whine, whine, so I’ll stop now. I’ll have myself some dim sum for lunch at one of the very few but very CLEAN Chinese restaurants in town. That might make this scorchingly hot day seem a little bit better. Oh, and another thing: bathrooms. I now have the LOWEST standards ever for bathrooms. As long as it’s not a hole in the ground and there is at least half a roll of toilet paper left, that’s fine with me. You can’t ask for too much in Vietnam, after all.

"If You Feel Like Crying, I Won't Judge You..."

Space. One aspect of American culture that I’ve definitely come to appreciate in this past week is SPACE. Nobody has any of it in Vietnam. And there is no exception for travelers. We are just as crammed and tightly packed as everyone else, forcefully jammed together in a chaotic mess that sometimes I feel a tad bit claustrophobic. Maybe that makes me sound like a brat. I can’t help it. I’m an American girl...I need my SPACE!

Hmm, so where to start with this week’s misadventures? Perhaps I’ll begin by describing the suffocating crowds and heat in Hanoi, or the not-so-friendly people we encountered during our visit up North? Or maybe you folks at home would like to hear about my visit to Phu Quoc island, the romantic get-away for various European and American couples alike, and our ingenious decision to visit this mystical place during the time of year when it rains, ALL the time? Or maybe you’d like to hear about the roommates Christine and I didn’t know we had, during our stays at various hotels in the South. Of course, I’m referring to the three-inch long cockroach at our hotel in Rach Gia (pronounced rock-ee-ah) and the dozens of fire ants that eerily crept around our mosquito nets in Phu Quoc. Ahh, so many great stories that have derived from a week that was anything but great.

One thing that gets me the most, though, is how unfriendly other Western-looking people seem to be. Jody Cohen, the woman who trained me during my Oxford Seminar class for TESL certification, let us on to a little secret: “Many other 'white' people traveling around South Asia," she said, "are there for a very specific reason, and most likely, not the same as all of yours…”

“So why are they there?” the class asked, in unison.

And her reason was simply this: "They are there, either to escape a past life and start anew, or simply because they just didn’t belong at home."

At first, I thought she was a little judgmental for saying this. What did she know about the past lives of total strangers who were wandering throughout the Far East? But over the past couple weeks, I’ve begun to realize that she’s totally right. These people don’t want to be seen, they just want to blend in. And that’s not a very easy thing to do in Asia if you’re Caucasian and over 5’7”.

I could let this bother me, but that would just ruin the rest of my time here. For now on, when Christine and I travel throughout Southeast Asia, I’m making a conscious effort not to flash my humble smile toward anyone who looks anything like me. And I think this is good, because it will keep me from cursing my own kind of folks.

Okay, enough of that. On to the better stuff. Err, better isn’t really the right word here, but I guess we’ll go with it for now…

Hanoi wasn’t all that bad, really. Just painfully hot and painfully boring. The lake, Hoan Kiem, is quite beautiful, and we took some nice pictures around it. We also went to a prison museum, where pictures of American soldiers held captive during the American war (known as the Vietnam war for you, folks!) were everywhere. A couple still shots of John McCain, too. The funny thing about these pictures, though, was that it showed these soldiers in every possible state of being besides miserable: we saw them engaging in recreational sports, having Christmas dinner together, laughing with one another. This museum was very biased (from a U.S. standpoint, at least) and made these boys look as though they were on vacation. Strange.

The only other touristy thing that Christine and I did was visit the Temple of Literature. I wasn’t all that impressed with it, but I also didn’t feel too great during our visit that morning (thanks, Tiger beer!), so I wasn’t really feeling much of anything. We were happy to fly back to Can Tho, unload our dirty laundry and pack up all other odds and ends before heading off to Phu Quoc island. Yay! Finally! A beach!

Ha. No. Any word but “yay” and “finally” came to mind by the end of our second day in Phu Quoc. We knew this was the rainy season, but we didn’t know that this implied constant downpours, every day, with little to no sunshine for us to enjoy. Christine and I put our feet in the water for a total of two minutes before we had had enough. Seeing a beautiful ocean endlessly sprawled out in front of you is the last thing you want to look at when you can’t go in it.

The most unforgettable part about this trip was undoubtedly the ferry ride. I’m using the word ferry very lightly here. This boat was going SO fast (as the green-faced and seasick passengers could tell you) and the waves were SO rough that at one point, we both thought the ship had submerged completely below the surface. It was very reminiscent of that scene in Titanic when the captain is standing at the wheel and millions of tons of saltwater are pushed up against the glass, momentarily ready to burst. Well, okay. Maybe it wasn’t THAT intense. But for a good five seconds, visibility was zero. And so was our hope of getting to Phu Quoc in one piece.

We’ve got a cute little saying here in Vietnam when things just don’t seem to go your way. T-I-V, homie. This is Vietnam. Deal with it, whether you want to or not. If anything, this trip has certainly built my character, if not my desire to travel during the rainy season ever again…