1 month left.

Almost every day now, I have that fear and sadness hit me about going home within a month. I use to remember before that my time in Vietnam wasn't that short and I have all the time to go and do a whole bunch of things. However, now with one month left, that is not the case anymore and within that month, there is so much for me to do. From finals to projects, to volunteering, to trying to spend time with family, there are few rare chances for me to go and explore Hanoi except during the night time. In the day, my days are so packed with things to do that it's crazy. i want to go out and explore, eat everything, and do something new each day now. The past few days coming back from the Southern Trip has been packed with all these things to do and it's scary. In a sense I am ready to leave Vietnam, because I am ready to go home and see my family and friends. But I'm not ready to start living my life how it was in America again. I can't even think about what it was like before I went to Vietnam. Each day I wake up with the feeling I have to do something, go somewhere, eat something new. I flip through the lonely planet desperately trying to find a guide to this new something. Sometimes it ends in success, others in failure. After all, it is a tour book made for tourist, sometimes you don't want to go to really tourist areas. However, i realized it will be the simple things that i miss the most. Waking up for a banh mi in the morning and eating sua chua nep cam, crossing the street, walking around Pho Co, hanging out at the same bars. Maybe I need to just soak in everything that I've been doing and will miss of Vietnam rather than trying to go and find new adventures. My life n vietnam has become one great adventure and maybe it's time to come back down to reality.

Service Learning Week 10 = Individual

Time is dwindling down and there is little time left for us to complete our project. The other day we bought new paint, blue and red, in order to paint clouds and stars around the column to represent the name "Sao Mai = Morning Star." We thought this idea would have been a great one except when we realized that the colors we choose were the color of the American flag...

Looking at it this way, we were almost disgusted with the idea to continue painting. Here we are, these American Vietnamese kids going into Sao Mai with all these thoughts in our head and preconceived ideas of how improve, better, and help the institute of Sao Mai by volunteering there. And now we're going to come in and paint your playground the color of the American flag?! We did not want the people of Sao Mai to think of us in this way or look at the playground and see some kind of message like that in it. It's crazy how much one individual has that kind of power and one idea or misunderstanding or over look can possibly result into something more.

So here we are, with half done blue clouds and one giant read star along random columns, not knowing what to do with the paint some more and not knowing how to fix it. Going back into the classroom to volunteer, it got me thinking about whether or not our project would have been better served if it was somehow related to the classroom now. Being outside of the classroom and coming back in, I see a different way the teachers and students behave now. In my classroom, the newest teacher has been given more responsibilities now, however the control that she has over the children is still lacking. It's like the children know she's a noOb and so they don't pay attention or respect her as much as the other teachers, or it could be the fact that she still doesn't know how to handle them alone. Anyways, when a single person enters the classroom, one individual, it disrupts the whole program of the class. If it's a volunteer like myself, the children would be more incline to play with the new comer instead of listening to the teachers. If a new teacher comes in, then the children are around someone they are not use to and so they have to adjust and become familiar with that new individual. One extra individual in the class can change the behaviors of the others.

Southern Vietnam

The past 10 days I was lucky enough to travel throughout Southern Vietnam, going to Saigon, Can Tho, lang Vinh Hanh, Rach Gia, and Phu Quoc. The things that I have experienced there are hard to sum up because so many things has happened:
1) Saigon; meeting my fraternity brothers and going to eat at Nha Hang Ngon, Cen Tech nighttime sky view, Lush club, backpacking district, eating Oc, shopping, more backpacking district, drinking beer on the street, and the famous Apocalypse Bar. Going to the Cu chi tunnels and going to District 5, known as the Chinatown and seeing all the temples there.
2) Can Tho: riding through a Thang Long farms, staying at a Nha Nghi, eating Hu Tieu, karaoke, floating market, Long Xuan Market and food hopping all around.
3) Homestay in a far away village near the Mekong Delta where the food was delicious with fish, veggies and rats, sleeping with the mosquitoes, going on a boat to catch fish, walking through the jungle and bird sanctuary where the green waters is a sight to behold, visiting a Mosque and the people of a Cham village, and the different temples.
4) Driving to Rach Gia before reaching the Superdong where the waters and rough and the speed of it was intense that made a lot of people sea sick before reaching Phu Quoc.
5) Being completely free and roaing around the entire island from the Southern point where the most beautiful beaches are to the northern tip seeing Cambodia, and visitng Chua Su Moun where the monks invited us to have tea and fruit with them and chatting it with them.

These past few days have been amazing and am so thankful that I was able to experience all of it. The only thing that would have made it any better is if I had the chance to share it with my parents. Thinking about it, and knowing that I only have one month left before going back to America, i feel extremely sad and confused. I'm confused about what to do with my time here, do I try to make a list and do everything on that? Should I just continue living my life here as it was and enjoying it as it is because I will never live like this again, or should I start somehow, someway to plan and scheme of coming back here in the near future after graduating? I guess, time is creeping up on me and it makes me confused on how I would like to spend this time here. I still have a lot of schooling to complete and things to do with family before going back, so I'm not sure where my priorities are. However, I do know that whatever I do now until I leave, I have to continue documenting and recording every single bit and pieces of it so that when I come back, my parents can share this experience with me.

Service Learning Week 9? I forget - Society

Right now we are in the middle of our project for Sao Mai which is painting the out door playground of Sao Mai. In trying to paint the columns, we're faced with the dilemna of what exactly it is that we want to paint. We've had many ideas and swapped visions a lot. We finally came up with with one that incorporated the theme and name of Sao Mai within the playground. Sao Mai means morning star, so we had this idea that we would paint the columns full of clouds and shooting star to go with the theme, and to incorporate the children, have grass on the ground that would be made up of the children hands. We went up to the office to ask permission again if we could just use the children help in doing this and they said that it probably would turn out ugly because they had done the whole hand thing once before and it didn't look good. However, they liked the idea of the theme of Sao Mai being incorporated into the painting. One of the ladies who worked there walked us over to her computer where we found out she knew english and was the one doing all the translation, brochures, and presentation slides. She showed us a picture of a star that was being formed out of the hands of people where they would do like a peace sign and connect the together and that created a star. She told us the symbol behind this hand star was that society and Sao Mai want to work together and create this school, so it was a symbolic of the helping hands of society. This got me thinking about in terms of society, who helps who. I wonder who the presentation of So Mai is for because it's in English, so therefore, it probably for other people from foreign countries. Thus, it looks to the society of foreign countries for support, but just because it is from somewhere outside of Vietnam doesn't mean that the support from that society is any less. I think it terms of society, vietnam's society and foriegn countries' society work together to create on big society in order to help Sao Mai.

What does an Ao Dai really mean?

Today I went to visit my aunt and we were talking about how I wanted to get an Ao Dai made in Vietnam and how much all of the costs are and such things. We were talking about how the modern Ao Dai of today with like the halter top Ao Dai or the the ones with no neck, or puffy sleves, or really long tails, how they don't look nearly as beautiful was the classic ones. yea, there're more modern but not necessarily any more stylish. Then, all of a suddent she dragged me upstairs to try on her very own ao dai and wanted to give me it instead of going to get one made for me. I thought that this gesture was really kind of her and it got me thinking about what an ao Dai really means to girls and Vietnam. I have worn plenty of Ao Dais in my lifetime, almost every year I had to get one made for me because of weddings and other celebrations. Wearing an Ao Dai to me was a symbol of traditionalism and classic Vietnamese beauty and that each Ao Dai that I have worn was connected with a special event and meaning. Like this Ao Dai I wore to my cousins wedding or this one was for my grandfather's funeral.. etc etc. I could never think to part with any one of them and because that they are tailored to fit your body , that each ao dai specially belongs and and was meant just for you.

now here I am with my grand aunt's Ao Dai and she is so dearly giving away to me, another ao dai to add to my collection and meaningful events in my life. I just couldn't believe that she would give me one of hers because I thought that there was so much more meaning in them. When I asked her if she was sure, she said yes, that she had no occasion to wear them anymore and that she knew right away that they would fit me. Therefore, this Ao Dai is probably the most special one in my closet since it was given to me by my aunt from Vietnam.

Service Learning: Week 8 - Toleration and Acceptance

Working in Sao Mai, there has been many ups and downs. I think in my own ways that I have become more tolerant and accepted of this place. Starting out, I had this feeling that there would be some way to contribute more in the classrooms and with the children. However, coming there I realized that there was not much I could contribute to the school, or at least in the same way as I had hoped. Working there for over 2 months now, I have become more tolerant and accepted within Sao Mai and of Sao Mai. I have come to realize that a lot of the procedures and practices of the classroom, that I use to not like, such as yelling at the kids and hitting them, or the way they teach things here, that I have grown to accept and understand their practices and teachings. I have come to understand why the handle the kids the way that the do. When the teachers yell at them, it isn't to be mean or out of frustration and anger necessarily, but when raising their voices, it gets the children attention more and when they talk like that, the children listen. So now, when I walk into the classrooms, I no longer have this strange feeling as to why the teachers are treating the children this way or in this teaching method. Being there over the past 2 months I have observed and come to understand their teaching methods and have accepted them. Sao Mai is a very organized school with already so many things such as financial support since I saw one of the patrons coming into class the other day asking the teachers if they had met their "p3 level" or something like that. I asked the teachers who he was and they said that he was one of the patrons and the one that sort of started and gave Sao Mai it's curriculum. I realize that the practices of Sao Mai have been established for such a long time and that if there was something ultimately wrong about it, or that the teachings weren't helpful to the students, then the school and all of the other schools in the districts would probably be shut down already. Therefore, I think that I have come to accept that Sao Mai as an efficient school and that it has to be doing things right if the school has been going on for a while and has many family who wants to send their children there.

I have also accepted my part in Sao Mai as well. When I come to volunteer, I know that my presence helps in watching over the children and doing little errands for them such as setting up tables and cleaning up. It isn't a lot of hard work or some great contribution on my part, but it is helpful in the classroom. I now mostly enjoy coming to class just to see the children and teacher and watching their progress on a weekly basis. I like to see the children who when I first came to volunteer that they couldn't say anything and now they are sounding out sounds and some of them even words. It is nice to see the teachers and children and just talk and interact with them. In doing this, I have accepted Sao Mai and I think the teachers have accepted me.

I survived SAPA!!!

1)Went on a nice train ride there and arrived in the freaking cold at the Lao Cai train station.
2)Ate some bombass Com Ran and Thit and Chao Ga.
3)Went to Dragon's Jaw and saw an amazing view of Sapa Town, experienced the fresh air and misty morning dew, took wonderful pictures and ate seaseme ice cream.
4)Went shopping around the market and got suckered into buying a bracelet from a cute hmong girl.
5)next day, went on a survival hike to Ban Ho and needed assistant from our little Hmong friends who were trekking through that mud like it was nothing while we had to nearly hold on with our dear lives to survive.
6)Bombass food at the stay home once we survived all of the mountain trekking.
7)Thank you Anh Thai for organizing our excursion and playing tour guide. I will gladly go work for our company if you ever open a tourist agency.