Homeward bound

As my time in Vietnam comes to a close, I’m packing up my suitcase and heading home to catch up with family and friends before Christmas.  The past twelve months have been a great learning curve and I feel I now know far more about the TEFL industry, Vietnam and myself: having grown in more ways than I could ever have imagined before setting off on this journey.

A hot and humid, but amazingly diverse year with immense highs and lows, great food, awful chocolate, frustrating and amusing situations – in equal amounts, wonderful travel destinations and vast quantities of quirky moments: some of which I hope you have enjoyed sharing with me.

All in all it’s been a great way to temporarily satisfy my travel bug (which constantly works away in my brain space adding more ‘must see’ destinations to its list).  I’ve travelled to all the major destinations in ‘Nam as well as seeing some of Cambodia: as I’ve already said, somewhere I’d never envisaged visiting.

I wish I could thank all the people who have contributed to making the past year so unique, in ways they could never understand: from warm hearted strangers on the street to colleagues and close friends.  All of whom have contributed to restoring my faith in people.  The management at my school have been fantastic, the professional development opportunities far exceeded my expectations, and thanks for making me feel like The Queen of the Jumpies!

The smiles and laughs my students have given me were worth all the hours of planning and preparation (not to mention perspiration!) – I just hope they continue to learn from the foundation I have given them.  I am sad to leave, but keen to see old friends again and excited about the new ones I will make in the future.

What next year holds no one knows, but I can guarantee I will be back with yet more travel tales to raise a smile, and a few eyebrows.  Be sure to check in from time to time for more updates.  For now, it’s goodbye swimwear and sunglasses, hello socks and central heating!  What am I most worried about?  Reverse culture shock?  My extremities turning blue due to the UK winter and my poor circulation?  No – it’s suppressing the urge to walk between endless streams of traffic and having to learn my green cross code again! TBC…

Much love and thanks for reading.

TTFN!

A xx

Teachers’ Day

Dubbed as ‘awesome’ by one of our managers at a recent meeting, we’d heard lots about this day.  The 20th November every year marks teachers’ day in Vietnam.  A lot is made of this in Vietnamese schools, with students preparing to spoil their teachers with gifts and hold large assemblies to honour their educators.

With weekends being our busiest time it was convenient that this year Teachers’ Day fell on a Sunday.  Four classes later I came away with money, flowers, toiletries, a handbag, coffee and telescopic laser pointer pen: quite possibly the best teaching gadget ever.  I spent all day getting the attention of dawdling students by flashing the laser around and indicating to things on the whiteboard using the extending pointer: tons of fun.  Flowers were a popular gift all round, much to my male colleagues’ disgust!

A xx

Củ Chi: confined conditions

Having read quite a bit about the resourcefulness and sheer determination of the Vietnamese people during the American War, I felt it was only right I pay a visit to Củ Chi during my time in Saigon.  For the uneducated out there, these vast multi-level tunnel networks, covering more than 250km were home to thousands of Việt cộng soldiers.  They were also inhabited by such beasties as spiders, snakes and scorpions, and the lack of light and reduced air flow only added to the uncomfortable surroundings.

 

Bearing all this in mind, I jumped on a coach and prepared myself for some terrifying tunnel trauma.

Upon our arrival, our guide explained the complexities of building such tunnels, the three layer system, necessary air vents, exits to the Saigon river: it all seemed very well thought out and dare I say it, almost civilised.  After further explanations about the effects of agent orange and napalm bombs, we watched a video showing guerrillas preparing ‘uniforms’, making sandals from old car tyres and placing booby traps, in carefully chosen locations, on which to impale and injure the enemy.

Next, we were shown a narrow concealed entrance to a level 1 tunnel and were given the opportunity to enter.  Naturally, I fancied a go and jumped in like a rabbit down a warren.  Placing the cover over my head, it was difficult for others to see where I had gone.

Now you see me... 

...now you don't!!

After a comprehensive explanation of the various booby traps employed by the Việt cộng, we were taken to the tunnels.  The section of tunnel that is now open to the public has various ‘escape’ points.  Having heard the tunnel has been made larger to accommodate fuller framed Western visitors, I was pleasantly surprised walking down the steps… only to be met with a tiny tunnel ahead.  On my hands and knees I made my way through, almost immediately noticing the heat and lack of fresh air.  How people stayed below ground for so long eludes me.

 

I have often wondered what memories are concealed behind the tired, worn eyes of the older generation of Vietnamese people.  Each, no doubt, have their own harrowing memories of the war and all that it brought to this country.  After a short sample of those confined tunnel conditions I have a whole new level of respect for the people who fought for their country with such selflessness and unquestionable patriotism in frankly frightful conditions.

A xx

Learning right from wrong… and left

Last weekend a strange thing happened during my second class of the day.  One of my students, on task and thoroughly absorbed in her writing, sat scrawling using her left hand; something virtually unknown in these parts.  As children, ‘lefties’ are instructed to go against all natural instincts and use their ‘right’ (in both senses of the word) hand.

Rumour has it; parents take it in to their own hands to solve this problem until their children learn to use their ‘right’ hand.  I’ve witnessed my Jumpstart pupils picking up pencils, crayons and board markers with their dominant ‘wrong’ hand, only to correct themselves and struggle on with the other.

Western ‘lefty’ colleagues are ridiculed by all and sundry – be it the teaching assistants, students or laundry ladies as they write their name on receipts.  It’s something people openly guffaw at and see as circus-like.

Thank you to the parent’s of my ‘lefty’ student for restoring my faith in modern Vietnamese parenting: there is hope.

A xx

Cockadoodle-don’t you dare!

During one of my days off this week I was rudely awoken at 4:15am by the sound of a cockerel crowing.  This is nothing new here in ‘Nam, during my first week in the country my accommodation was arranged by the school.  Unfortunately, they opt to house all of their new teachers in a guesthouse on one of the busiest roads in the heart of backpackerland.  Not only do you have to deal with the noise from the traffic, drunken party revellers and locals shouting in the beautiful tonal language that is Vietnamese, but you may also find your neighbours own one of these god forsaken birds.  Cock fighting is common in these parts, so you can expect to see many cockerels strutting down alleyways, tethered by bailing twine or trapped inside wicker basket prisons on the pavement.

So, in the wee small hours, bearing all this in mind I very calmly surfaced from my bed, closed the bathroom window and door, managed to ram my ear plugs in to the appropriate orifices and placed my pillow over my head.  It seemed to do the job, until 6:00am, when the bird got a second wind and resumed crowing.

Now, I like my sleep and having already been disturbed two hours previously I was not to be messed with.  This time, I very calmly surfaced from my bed, opened the bathroom window and door, managed to ram the shower head out of the appropriate gap in the window and turned my shower on full.  It seemed to do the trick, the bird ceased squawking; however, the shrill, tonal shouting from one of my neighbours was something I hadn’t bargained on.  C’est la vie – I call it karma: you wake me up, I’ll wake you up a little more!

Surprisingly, the sound of silence resonated over night until I woke naturally the following morning at around 9:00am – bliss.

A xx

Happy Halloween

Yes, even here in ‘Nam there is no escape from the Pagan harvest festival.  Ok, so we know every man and his dog ‘celebrates’ Halloween as an excuse to dress up as a disembowelled zombie or the like, but it all seemed a little strange doing so here.

Jumpstart fancy dress competition

The school make a big thing of it, encouraging the Jumpstarts to attend lessons wearing fancy dress costumes, whilst Junior, Senior and Elite classes make posters, carve pumpkins and write poems respectively.  It’s a nice touch, but can go a little too far.  As part of the weekend’s celebrations we were instructed to take our Junior classes (6 – 10 year olds) to the Haunted Halloween House (a.k.a. two of our largest classrooms with an retractable adjoining wall, suitably decorated).

I have two Junior classes, one of which has a very small, timid, although extremely clever six year old student.  I have likened him to Rainman in the past and see big things ahead of him in the future; or I did before he was subjected to the Haunted Halloween House!

Upon entering the ‘house’ (armed with my camera to catch some magic moments), we watched a video showing scary screaming faces etc, after which one of the Teaching Assistants, who had donned a witch’s mask, black cape and green, warty monster hands burst through a black curtain, popped a balloon in my students’ faces and quickly fled.  You can imagine how much screaming and grabbing of random limbs took place on the part of my students.

Now, trying to get 18 young learners towards the looming darkness and fake cobwebs/plastic spiders hanging from the ceiling of the next section took some effort: from both myself and my teaching assistant.  I didn’t know I was capable of walking with 3 children pulling against each of my limbs, but we got there in the end after persuading them it may be scarier to turn back, than to carry on to the exit.

Having made our way past numerous office staff dressed as corpse brides, zombies etc we reached the final section.  When Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ started to play the kids seemed to calm a little, until the green lighting highlighted the outlines of an army of zombie corpses that were approaching!  By this point my students all recoiling to the corner of the room, trying to make themselves as small and unnoticeable as possible.  Also by this point, I regained full control of my limbs and took the opportunity to capture this magic moment on my camera for posterity!  The lollipop rewards upon our exit made it all worthwhile and fifteen minutes later all was forgotten… until bed time no doubt!

  

The flash from my camera added a nice 'lightning' effect,

but sadly doesn't reflect the true ambience of the room! 

A xx