Our Time in Ben Tre

 Dancing with the Kids

 Ca Lookin Classy

 The House We Built

 The Brady Bunch on a Train (6 people packed into a closet for 20 hours...yes)

 Riding Across "Phoenix Island"

 Dinner

 Not My Thing...

Last Day at the School

You Know You've Been in Vietnam for 2 Months When...

•  You’re excited when there’s toilet paper
• Speaking of toilet paper, it’s a treat when there is a squatter rather than just a whole in the ground
• You don’t look twice at that one motorbike piled with 5 people, 2 live chickens, 1 pig, and a couple of bamboo mats
• You feel like something’s missing when a  fish or chicken head isn’t in dinner’s soup
• You're hotel might also sideline as a brothel 
• Stripes and poka dots together doens't seem so off anymore
• You have started measuring things in cement bags ex: “I’m so hungry I could eat 2 cement bags full of rice!”
• You're use to the restaurants doubling as the family's living room
• Your hair has yet to come out of a braid or ponytail
• You might not like the stench of the market, but now you can at least tell the difference between some of the smells-squid, dried shrimp, durian, raw meat, fish
• Last night you dreamed of eating a hamburger (with peanuts and salmon on top?), and the night before, a Chipolte burrito.  Turns out malaria pills give you weird dreams, and we are all craving American food
• You have replaced your morning makeup with a bucket of sunscreen and insect repellent
• A lizard falls from the sky onto your arm as you’re eating your rice (just happened to me!)
• Your conversations include all the American food you are going to eat when you get back
• One minute there’s a caged live chicken in front of the restaurant, and after you order, the chicken is gone
• You’ve taken a nap 2 feet from a national highway
• You haven’t been on Facebook once
• You’re use to the “more than occasional” lizard or cockroach hanging around in your room
• You’re confused when there’s no rice on the table
• You are no longer fazed by the yells, hollars, hoots, and stares
• You’ve stopped comparing bug bites - we all have too many to count
• You have no idea what the “Top Ten’ songs are on iTunes or what movies are out
• You no longer think that all those people with masks are doctors or their patients
• You’ve finally learned how to properly wash your clothes by hand
• You’ve had someone drive by on their motorbike and try to snag your purse (happened to Devyn-we won!)
• You don’t look twice at all the crazy food- scorpions, cobras, eggs with baby ducks inside, congealed blood, etc.
• You’ve eaten enough rice to fill a swimming pool
• You can successfully walk across a street in Saigon without flinching-imagine: NO crosswalks, no traffic rules, motorbikes and cars everywhere
• You know how to order dog meat, although you will NEVER eat it!
• You can take regular naps on a bamboo mat on the cement floor without getting a crick in your neck
• You have mastered the art of the chopstick – or at least, relatively
• After Quang Tri, you don’t think Saigon is that hot
• You haven't watched TV-no Bachlorette or Pretty Little Liars 
• You fell in love with the country and are sad to leave the yummy food and friendly people

Some Pictures!

The Lunch Lady's Backyard

 Don't you have a whole family of cows and a giant python (with a live chicken no less) in your backyard!!??

The gang in our SNAZY orange uniforms getting ready for lunch

The Bike Ride to Our New Worksite

Our Daily Trek Through the Jungle

The Family's Soon-to-be Old House

Their house is the small one in the front of this picture.  The larger house belongs to an uncle.

Hello from Ben TRE

First, I have been spelling our town name wrong.  It’s actually “Ben Tre” not “Ben Tri.” Oops!  Second, I broke a kid’s arm….but we will get to that later!!

Alright so we are officially in Ben Tre and have gotten new roommates.  My roommate’s name is Than-super cute, tall, and a little shy.  She doesn’t speak English as well as Mushroom, but we laugh a lot, especially when we don’t understand each other.  Instead of saying “huh?” or “what?” when she doesn’t understand me, Than always says “yes?”  I can’t count the times I’ve kept talking thinking she was just answering my question when really she wanted me to repeat it.  OOPS!

Ben Tre is pretty awesome.  We are totally in the jungle.  It’s actually in an area called the Mekong Delta-lots and lots of trees, rivers, and streams.  There is a major difference here though.  Every time we leave the guest house, we all have to wear these bright orange shirts (super cute…not!) and tell the government, The People’s Committee, where we are going.  Oftentimes, they will follow us around to see what we are doing and stuff.  It was weird at first, but now it just seems like extra security for us.  Also, the food here is delicious.  Last night we had my favorite so far: sticky rice with peanuts! YUMMY! The best part of Ben Tre is the FRUIT! It literally grows on trees everywhere and you can pretty much reach up, grab something, and eat it right then and there!  They are also famous for their coconuts and coconut candy-it’s everywhere. 

We actually got to tour a one of the candy-making factories.  They boil down coconut water till it’s really thick, add sugar, and then make a GINORMOUS chuck of hot taffy before they cut it all down into little pieces.  We all got to have some samples…BUT they were durian flavored! UGH.  I don’t know if I’ve talked about durian before BUT it’s nasty!  The fruit itself is this huge, green ball of spikes and smells like a combination of garbage, dirt, and nastiness!  You can smell a single durian from 10 feet away. BLAAAHHH. Don’t worry, I’m not being offensive.  The Vietnamese all laugh at us as we pass their durian stands!  They all know it smells terrible.  According to Tri, “It smells like hell, but tastes like heaven.”  I’ve tasted it, and I think it still tastes like hell.  The smell is so bad that the government in China (I think) has made it against the law to carry durian on any form of public transportation.  And the funny thing is, the people here love this stuff…it’s in their candy, crackers, smoothies, anything.

Okay, enough about that.  So we are actually only going to be building one house for the next three weeks.  We don’t have enough time and people to build the second one.  We wake up every morning around 5:30 to leave for our bike ride on time.  The bike ride is awesome.  We ride through busy streets avoiding all the crazy motorbikes carrying pregnant pigs, live ducks hanging by their feet, and buckets of baby chickens.  Then we turn onto this tiny sidewalk that runs through the jungle and over lots of tiny streams.  After about 30 minutes, we have made it really deep into the jungle and park our bikes at this nice lady’s house before walking further back to our location.  The trail back to the family’s house is barely even marked.  We have to cross 3 of these things called “monkey bridges.”  They are bridges that are just one or two poles of bamboo or a fallen coconut tree.  We actually had to have them put some more bamboo sticks in so we could cross them without falling into the water; but of course, the local people practically run over the normal without any issues.

The family that we are building for is one of the poorest in the whole village.  The mom and dad supposedly have some sort of mental issue.  They can’t speak clear Vietnamese and are unable to do normal work and usually just live off of the land with a little work here and there.  We were told that they will sometimes help out the other villagers with small tasks.  However, they can’t differentiate between different dominations of money, and some of the villagers know this and don’t pay the family what they deserve.  They live in a tiny shack made of dried coconut leaves.  It is literally the size of king-sized bed.  They also have a 15 year-old sun named Ca.  He is the nicest boy with a huge smile, but, when I first saw him, he looked like he was no older than 7.  He supposedly has some mental issues too (but really you can’t tell from looking at any of them that something is wrong) and was going to a special teacher until she left a couple of years ago.  I’m not even sure if he goes to school now.  He is awesome-he loves to help us build his home or show us his sweet fishing techniques.

Getting supplies to the house is pretty hard.  We either have to take it from our guest house on the 30 minute bike ride or transfer it from a boat that they bring up one of the small streams.  Around 11:30, we all ride our bikes to another lady’s house in the village for lunch and to rest (we all lay out on bamboo mats on her front porch-VERY hot and lots of bugs).  The thing that makes me really sad is that Ca will come with us to lunch so that he can get a bike ride to the school later (it’s very far from his home and he doesn’t have a bike), but he doesn’t eat with us.  The only thing I have ever seen him eat is some random fruit he picks off the trees; I’m not sure if he ever has breakfast or lunch or dinner for that matter.  I started bringing him and his cousins some bread and bananas in the morning to help out but they don’t like taking it.

Anyways, after we all chill, it’s time for SUMMER CAMP!  We all head over to the elementary school for two hours of chaotic fun.  The first day, only 20 kids showed up, so our plans to teach 8 different classes didn’t work out so well (things like PE, music, art, science, geography, etc.).  BUT, the next day, they told all of their friends and TONS of kids showed up and kept coming.  I teach PE and the kids love it.  We tie these colorful ribbons around their heads to distinguish their different teams (they all look like mini ninjas) and play lots of field-day games, soccer, baseball, anything.

The kids are the CUTEST THING EVER!  Bao and I have already come up with nick-names for a lot of them: Wisdom  (the next leader of Vietnam), Confu (short for confused), Punk (crazy soccer dude), and baby (the tiny 4 year old that loves to come with her sister).  They do get tired REALLY quickly so that has been a little difficult, but things are going great!

Okay, so finally, about that broken arm…So yesterday, one of the elementary school teachers was just chillin at the school and was PERSISTANT that we play with him and some construction workers at their stadium (really just a small field).  Turns out, he was completely drunk!  He was falling all over the place, interrupting our classes, trying to hook Devyn up with one of his friends, etc.  We were all trying to be really polite but he was a bit of a mess.

Well, we decided to meet them at the field after teaching after all.  We all started playing a great game-the other team was really good and a lot of high-schoolers started playing too.  Well, after about an hour of playing, this kid and I go for the ball and hit each other REALLY hard…it was a LOUD tackle and everyone was asking if we were okay.  I was fine, even though my shin was pulsing, but when I looked at the kid, his wrist was twisted.  Turns out, after the tackle he went flying through the air and landed weird on his arm.  I started FREAKING out and kept telling the boy I was so sorry even though he probably didn’t understand anything that I was saying!  The kid didn’t cry one-it was like he was in shock or something.  The drunk teacher, of course, decided to come over and try to twist the arm back EEEEEK!  We all stopped him and another adult took the kid on his motor bike to the hospital.  Well…we decided to call it a game after that!

When I got back to the guest house, I immediately found Tri, our program director, and asked him if there was a way that I could pay for the injury-most village children do not have insurance and the cost to fix a broken arm is very high for people here.  He called around and found out that  the boy had dislocated his wrist or something and, somehow, the doctors were able to pop it back in and wrap it up without any major problems or costs.  THANK GOD! Well, at least he can always tell his friends about that American girl that broke his arm!? Let’s just say I didn’t play the next day L

Quick overview of the coming weekend:

1.  Planning for the “FUN RUN” we will be throwing on Saturday, July 30^th.  It’s a short run for the entire community complete with t-shirts and prizes. Coca-Cola is sponsoring the event and donating money for a scholarship fund for the poorest kids in the village.

2.  A soccer match against the local, competitive team. (Hopefully, I won’t hurt anyone again!)

3.  A personal interview with a Vietnamese War Veteran

Should all be fun and interesting!  

Missing cereal, apples, salmon, salads, and chocolate!!!!

xo

Logan

Mushroom at her best!

The Best Roomie Ever

Shroomie!!! I will miss you soooooo much!

  

Purty Pictures

 Me and Devyn on side of a mountian in Quang Bing

 The boat ride to the caves

 Our finished restroom

The restroom team!

Goodbye to Quang Tri

The first half of our trip has come to a sad end.  I had to say goodbye to everyone at the youth center, the principles, constructions workers, the Vietnamese roommates, and, most importantly, my little Mushroomie.

BUT, before I go into all of that, let’s catch you up!

Okay.  So, we ran into another BIG issue last week.  Katie, a Duke student, had her stuff stolen from her room for the SECOND time!  She was robbed the first week we were in Quang Tri.  The robbers took her laptop and wallet!  This time, the robbers snuck into her room while we were all outside in the front of the hotel (I was teaching the whole neighborhood cardio dance! SO fun!)  They broke her window, slashed her luggage, and stole her big, expensive camera and her ipod.  So long story short, we had to switch hotels last minute and everything was pretty chaotic.

Anyways, that weekend, after some of the craziness settled, we were able to go to the most beautiful site that I have seen thus far in Vietnam.  We went to a town called Quang Binh and went inside these GINORMOUS caves.  We all got into these wooden, dragon boats and went up this beautiful river into the “wet cave.”  It totally looked like we were in Hawaii with the turquoise water and green, jagged mountains.  The caves are up for becoming part of this year’s “7 Wonders of the World” and were featured in National Geographic a couple of months ago.  We went really deep into the cave (over 20 minutes) and it was awesome-lots of stalagmites thingys!  Then we hiked up tons of stairs to the top of the mountain where there was a “dry” cave.  We all kept saying how crazy it was that we could just walk around the cave and go wherever we wanted-if this was in America, there would be guards everywhere, fences, ropes, etc.

That Sunday, we had to head back to the restroom to finish everything up.  At the end of our stay in Qunag Tri, we ended up building an entire new restroom (with a sweet mural on one side) and renovating the old one.  It’s pretty amazing to see that all the hours we worked and sweated through finally made something that this community and school really needed.

On Monday, we woke up early to visit each of the sites that our Duke Engage team built-the restroom and the parking structure-to take pictures.  That night, we had a closing banquet with all of the people that worked with us at this completely open restaurant right along a lilly pond.  After dinner, we all headed over to the final cultural show at the youth center.

There were over 20 performances-lots of kids dancing, singing, doing ballet, rapping, break-dancing, and karate- all filmed live on Vietnamese television!  My cardio dance skills really came in handy.  I taught our entire group the dance to “Waving Flag.”  We had to practice A LOT before the big show, but it ended up going great!

Alright, so as soon as the show ended, things started to get very sad very quickly.  This was pretty much going to be the last time we would ever see these kids.  I totally lost it and started balling when one of my favorite soccer buddies came up to give me a gift and started crying.  Then more and more of my high school soccer boys started crying!  It was SO sad. For over an hour and a half, we were all crying, hugging, and taking tear-filled.  The worst was when we all had to board the bus and drive away L

The next day just got worse.  I had to say goodbye to my best friend, my Mushy, Mushroomie, Shroomie, Shroom aka Mushroom! She is the happiest, craziest person I know, and is so determined to be the best that she can be.  I will never forget her or her crazy-good rapping skills! "What's up dog!" Hehe

Saying goodbye to all of the roommates that we had grown so close with over the past month was terrible.  We spent so much time with these kids-- getting to know all of their quirks, sweating and shoveling alongside them for hours on end, teaching and dancing, and laughing through all the funny times and translation confusions.  Let’s just say it was one, big tear fest!

After saying goodbye, we boarded a train for a 20, yes TWENTY!!!!!, hour ride back to Saigon.  You know those pictures of the trains in places like India with people piled into them, stacked in every corner and crevice, even riding on the roof…..well, this wasn’t that bad, but it’s definitely a close second!  We were told that we would have 2 private cabins for our group.  Sounds nice right??? Well, turns out that the “cabins” are tiny rooms the size of a large pantry with SIX beds inside.  It was hilarious, suffocating, fun, and terrible all at the same time.  We all ended up getting a good laugh from it all, but geesh…it was scary.  And don’t even get me started on the bathroom situation on that train!!!!!

Okay, so anyways, now we are in Saigon and have only 24 hours until we meet our next set of roommates.  It’s actually really tough because it feels like we just broke up with our best friends and have to turn around the next day and make new ones.  It’s hard to think that I could ever get a roommate that will be as great as Mushroom, but I still have to remember that this new group is so excited to meet us and there is no reason why it shouldn’t be as great as the last group experience.

After we meet our roommates tomorrow, we will have 2 days in Saigon to plan for our trip to Ben Tre, the southern part of Vietnam.  It will be monsoon season there so there will be TONS of rain in the afternoons.  Alice told us that this place will be even more rural than the place before, which I am actually really excited about.  In Ben Tre, we will be building 2 different houses for needy families in the morning and then teaching subjects of our choosing at the local elementary school in the afternoons!

                Time for round 2!

Xo

Logan

Hue and the Perfume River

Me and Allison

Hi again!

            Alrighty, here it goes.  So this past weekend we went to Hue.  This is the city that all of our roommates go to college in.  It is super pretty and definitely my favorite place thus far.  Surprisingly, there are TONS of tourists there.  Most of them are French, and in all the markets they kept calling me “Madam.”

The city is super pretty (cool jungle)and has the Perfume River that running through it.  On the first day, we visited lots of different monuments.  We went to this place where all of the Kings lived (VERY similar to the “Forbidden City” in China).  We also went to a bunch of the Kings’ tombs/burial areas-super ornate carvings and statues.  Each “tomb” was this HUGE area that looked like a giant, decorated park.  We also went to this thing called a Pagoda which is some sort of religious temple and got to see all of these monks chanting and singing.

Then we ate at this AMAZING five-star restaurant right on the river.  We all got to eat this cool, crunchy rice that is cooked in little individual clay pots.  They also had all this stuff that had been steamed in leaves (I call them Asian tamales).  Ummmm….some kids tried the fried, frog skin but I was NOT one of them.  Sorry I’m not sorry!

That night we ate at this Italian restaurant because Alice thought that we might all be missing American food.  We had weird pizza and desserts….it was HILARIOUS to see the Vietnamese kids pick at and push around their food.  Mushroom was not a happy camper, and neither were most of the other Vietnamese kids. HAHA !  It was so funny to see them act like we usually do around all the strange Vietnamese food.  We also tried to tell them that this isn’t really “American” food (aka-the food was pretty bad and we didn’t want to give them the wrong impression).

That night we got to take a boat ride (on a sweet dragon boat) up the Perfume River.  Traditional musicians and singers in these beautiful Kimono-like outfits performed for us!

We ended up spending the night in Hue so that the roommates could give us their own personal tours of their city on Sunday.  Mushroom and I had a ball!  We got to ride everywhere on her motorbike which is totally the best way to see Vietnam.  We drove through markets, rice patties, farms, the countryside, gardens, everything…

First we went to this village known for its arts and crafts.  We got to go into this lady’s house and use this black ink to smear onto stamps and then press onto hand-made paper.  Then we got to paint them and roll them up into bamboo holders.  Then we went to this old man’s house where he makes these beautiful paper flowers.  We each got to make a petal by wrapping paper and a string around this wooden thing and then hammering it…mine came out terribly!  But my little Mushroom decided to buy me a whole bouquet!

Then it was off to the market to buy supplies for our lunch.  Mushroom and I joined Joey and his roommate Hien at Hien’s house.  Hien’s mother made us this amazing salad thing with super thinly sliced vegetables. It took her all day to make it and it was yummy!

Then Mushroom and I went to this beautiful garden and looked around before hitting the neatest market ever (we spent about 2 hours there).  Finally, we ended at this huge place called the Co-op Mart.  It’s kinda like a multi-level Walmart with a food court.  We decided that is would be fun to sit down (finally!) and paint pottery.  We were the oldest kids by at least 10 years but it was worth it!  All the kids kept laughing at my pink, poka-dotted elephant and would ask Mushroom if I was crazy! Ha!

This week has been UBER tiring!  Bao’s soccer tournament started on Monday and I have been playing soccer nonstop since, LITERALLY!  We play morning, noon, and night!  My girls’ team has lost every game so far, but I am still so excited that they were willing to play against all of these boys!  They all started off really scared and nervous, but really started to get better towards the end of the tournament.

Tomorrow is the final day of teaching...so sad!  I am going to miss them all so much!  They all keep coming to the guesthouse to play soccer with me, look at my pictures, and listen to my music.  The kids have ALL asked for my email address, yahoo messenger account (I don’t have one), and just recently told me that they can’t find me on facebook!  I feel like a celebrity!  Just kidding??  My class is super excited about the letters I am having them write to students in America.  They’ve brought in pictures to attach and most have written over 3 pages.  Should be fun for them to have American pen-pals!  To celebrate the last day tomorrow, we are going to throw a big party with movies, music, and All-American pb&js! 

The restroom we are building is coming along as well and should hopefully be finished by tomorrow (fingers crossed).  We doing all of the finishing touches and are even painting a sweet mural on one wall.

This weekend we are heading to Quang Binh, Mushroom’s hometown, to see neat sea caves and more tunnels!  Should be fun!  Can’t believe we leave for Saigon on Tuesday (20 hour train ride UGH).  I will miss these roommates and all of the great people I’ve meet along the way (we get new roommates for the second half of our stay here).

Ahhh, can’t think about that now….gotta go play badminton with the school girls.

Xo

Logan

Our Typical Bike Ride

Presenting: Mushroom and Logan aka Best Roomies Ever! (Plus Joey)

The Gang at our Work Site

Some of My Soccer Buddies

The last picture I took of the beach before my camera died

Yes, those are cows in the background!!!

Where to Begin....

Okay, so a LOT has happened since I lasted posted….sorry.  They just keep us sooo busy it’s hard to find time here to ride my bike over to the coffee shop to get on the Internet.

Anyways, our project is really coming along.  The other group (they are building a parking structure at the youth center) should actually finish their project this week (a week early!)  We have already built up four walls of cement bricks and pretty much finished the foundation of our restroom.  We will have to put the roof up soon and do the plumbing part.  Oh and by the way….we found out very quickly that toilets in Vietnam are VERY different from the ones in the States.  They have these things that we have been calling “Squatters.”  You literally squat over this hole thingy.  At one particular placce, it was just a flat, cement floor that you were suppose to go on and then wash away your stuff with the water bucket.  Let’s just say that held it that day!  Luckily, our hotel/guest house has the kind of toilets that we are use to.  I’m not sure what kind of toilets we will be putting in ours though.  When we finish all the construction, I am hoping that they will allow us to paint some sort of mural on the side.  It sounds like the people here don’t really care for that sort of stuff, so we will see…

This weekend was really interesting and fun.  We had a tour that started at 8 in the morning (late for us!) and took a bus to a bunch of different religious and war relics.  We actually got to see an old church that had been completely bombed but was still standing. 

We then went into a Vietnamese cemetery.  I know, it sounds kinda strange that we would be going into one, but they are actually very beautiful.  In the Vietnamese culture, people really worship their ancestors.  They all have these different shrines in their houses and spend TONS of money building the grave site that will hold most of their family members (think Mulan only a little different).  Our leader, Alice, told us that her parents use to fight over sending money to help build the grave or getting their son braces.  Each grave looks like its own mini Asian temple with intricate colors, dragons, and details.  

After that, we went to this bombed chapel where Mother Mary was said to have been seen (even the Vatican confirms it).  We also went to the DMZ (De-militarized zone).  This was the dividing barrier between the North and South of Vietnam and acted as the boundary and MAJOR war zone during the war.  Alice told us that the equivalent bomb power of 7 Hiroshima Atomic Bombs had been dropped here.

Then we were off to the tunnels.  This was SUPER cool!  In the war, about 400 people lived underground for 6 years!!!!!  They dug these MASSIVE tunnels that spanned miles and miles and housed hundreds of families.  They even had a school room, bathroom, baby nursery, and meeting area.  The tunnels protected these people from the bombs that constantly fell from the sky (America never even knew these people were living underground).  We got to walk around throughout some of the tunnels.  The tunnels weren’t super tall, but I couldn’t get over how deep in the ground they went!  We have now had 1^st-hand experience digging through the concrete-like soil, and I can NOT imagine digging tunnels more than twenty underground!

Finally, we ended up in my favorite part of all: the beach!  This was the most gorgeous beach I have even seen, and, of course, my camera decide to die just as we were pulling up (luckily others got some good shots).  There were VERY few people on the beach.  Lots of small, “Asian”-style boats had been pulled ashore.  Devyn and I and a few other boys got our bathing suits on and ran into the water.  It was the perfect temperature and not too salty either.  Dev and I went on a walk as the sun was setting, and then Max and I went on a run as the food cooked. SO fun!  Also, the place we were eating was RIGHT on the beach.  They literally pulled these bamboo mats up onto the beach and we all sat on the ground and ate fresh crab and shrimp! YUM

Of course, on the ride home, Mushroom and I HAD to start rapping!  It’s our thing now!  We sing everything….every time we talk, we rap or sing (aka: I’m going to the bathroom la la la)  J

Anyways, the next day we had a free day.  A bunch of us rode our bikes 45 minutes (VERY LONG and that’s only one-way!) to Tien’s house!  She lives in a small village and her family was SO excited to see us.  They have this cute, little house that has chickens and a small cement pond in the backyard.  We all got to catch the catfish in her pond.  Her dad would hit them on the head with a mallet (sorry Kayla) and then we would slide them onto skewers to roast over this cool oven/fire thing, and eat them with our lunch.  Her mom and sister made us the yummy meal and we all ate in the traditional fashion: all sitting cross-legged on the ground.  Her dad is an Oriental Medicine doctor and had all these viles and glass containers full of bizarre, dried up plants and fruits.  It was really funny when he should us this one leaf that he makes a tea with and is the natural “Viagra!”

This week has already gotten off to a great start.  After work last night, we all rode our bikes to Phong’s house after buying food from the market.  We had this WAY TOO SPICY noodle dish with pig ears and then this stuff called sticky rice (my new favorite-it’s just like the name sounds only it is a different plant than normal rice and that’s why it’s stickier).

Everyone is really excited for this weekend because we will be traveling to the city where they all go to college.  Mushroom is going to show me her dorm and take me around on her motorbike.  We are also supposed to go out “boozing” (what they call drinking).  Should be fun….

HERE ARE SOME OTHER RANDOM THINGS:

For the past week and a half, me, Bao and Juan Pablo (Duke kids), have been playing soccer with the local kids every night at 5.  This is totally the coolest place I have ever played soccer, and it is SO much fun!  We ride our bikes to the town square that has a really open area where lots of boys play soccer.  Lots of people come out to watch us play.  On one side of us is the river and on the other side is this huge Asian-looking temple!  It turns out, I’m actually pretty famous!  In our school teaching, I have had different boys come up to me and know my name and ask if I am playing soccer that night, and I’ve never even meet them!  It turns out that no girls here would ever play with the boys, so they all think it’s cool (I hope) that I play! 

On another note, I have started going on runs during the down times at our work site.  We are starting to get to more of the technical stuff while building the restroom and sometimes find that only two of the ten people are actually needed for some particular task.  So I have started running down the village roads, through the jungle, with anyone that wants to join.  They are such beautiful, long runs.  I run on this relatively flat, dirt road with the mountains in front of me, a river beside me, bare-foot farmers tending to their wet, green rice patties, and roaming chickens and cows chillin around me.  The village people usually stare or wave, and I really can’t blame them. 

Ummm…another thing that I thought was so interesting was when my roommate, Mushroom, was put in charge of bringing the first-aid kit to the work site each day.  That night, she read the entire first-aid manual/handbook and checked all the supplies inside of it to make sure they were there and to know what they look liked.  I guess I thought that this was so strange because no American would sit down and read that thing.  I mean, I would just assume that when the time comes, I would just open some things, rub em on, and put a band-aid on it.  I think this really points to the Vietnamese’s strong work ethic and desire to do their own assigned tasks correctly.

Also, something else that I find a little strange is that on the works sites, almost all of the Vietnamese kids and ALL of our on-site, Vietnamese construction workers wear flip-flops.  I mean, we are hammering away at things, mixing cement, carrying bricks, and all this stuff, and they all do it with practically bare feet! Pretty impressive, especially since no one seems to ever get hurt!

Off to play soccer now! More to come…..

xo

New Updates! Check Them Out!

2 new blog posts and a video (the market)

Funnies

So, are roommates are SUPER EXCITED and fun all the time.  Every meal we have with them turns into this shouting and laughing extravaganza!!!  They love to tell us funny stories and jokes.  Half of our laughs are just from having no idea what they are actually saying!  Here are some funny things that some of the roommates have said/done:

• Today, at lunch, one roommate told us that “Lots of times, people eat mushroom and then laugh all day”
• Last night, we were all in tears because the girls were showing us their inappropriate hand gestures….just imagine them trying to explain them!  It was great, especially when an American, Bao, on the other side of the table started making the signs without knowing what they meant.
• Today, at the work site, they kept asking us to help them pronounce “Cement.”  They kept saying “Semen” and we all had a good laugh trying to explain to them the difference between “Cement” and “Semen”

An update...finally!

HIIIIII

Right now, Devyn and I just found the coffee shop with wifi that is about a five minute walk from our guest house…We had to go in a couple of different ones while everyone looked at us like we were crazy.  We had to buy a coffee to use it but it is SO worth it! Also, their coffee here is really cool-it sits in this metal container above your cup and drips down sort of like a mini coffee maker, filtering itself---totally tastes like chocolate.

Time for the update!

On Saturday we took a 1 hour 30 min flight (who knew Vietnam was so big?) to the central region.  We are now in city called Quang Tre.  It is very different from Ho Chi Minh.  Unlike the huge city before, this is a pretty small town next to a river and it is UBER, UBER hot and dry!!!  We are staying in a guest house similar to the one before.  I have learned now that a guest house is sort of like a hotel but the government owns them.

At the airport, we got in a bus and went to pick up our new roommates at their school.  I was super nervous but my roommate is AWESOME! Her name is Nhung…but she tells everyone to call her Mushroom HAHAHAHA (She is SUPER tiny and very cute).  So far, we have gotten along very, very well!  She loves the picture book that I got her and keeps saying how “beautiful” my family is (I haven’t told her how crazy we actually are yet).  She takes me around the markets and helps me to bargain with all of the ladies.  She even gave me this really cool wooden book mark that her dad gave her and a necklace.  Today, after she saw me picking at my nail polish to try to take it off, she went out and got me some remover!

It’s a pretty big deal that she gave me things because most FAMILIES make only about $1,000 a year, and even though all the prices are much cheaper here for Americans, it’s still expensive for them.  Her dad is a police man and her mom works on their farm where they grow peanuts, rice, corn, and some other stuff that I didn’t really catch lol. 

The market here is SOOOO crazy and neat.  There are SOOO many things to see and buy.  It is set up right along the river and there is some pretty gross and strange looking things in the food market part---tons of raw meat, fish heads and parts, baskets of dried sardine heads and maggots, strange looking fruit, HUGE piles of salt on these open baskets, and lots of NASTY smells haha. 

But it is really cool and everyone LOVES us.  They want us to take pictures with us; they follow us around; and they tell our roommates that we are “so pretty and beautiful” Well duhhhhh J

Last night we had our opening ceremony with all of our roommates and local officials at this really cool restaurant in the jungle that was directly over a lilly pond.  They even had these 2 monkeys just chillin in a cage!  We at this huge 10 dish meal (family style) and people would get up on stage to perform.  It was sooo funny because ALL of the Vietnamese officials stood up to sing songs and give speeches.  It was like our own Karaoke bar….we kept saying how this would NEVER happen in America.  People were pretty much fighting for the mike.  All the Americans got up to sing a Vietnamese number song we learned in class and then started shouting the YMCA.  Then we had a huge dance party…super fun!

Our full schedule starts this week. We have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, work till 11, eat lunch, then from 2-5 we teach English to middle schoolers, dinner at 6, and then we are supposed to plan with our group the next day’s teaching lesson.  WHEEEEEWWWW! It’s a LOT!

There are two separate projects: one at the local youth center in the middle of town to build a parking structure and one in the rural village to build a restroom at an elementary school.  Devyn and I are working on the restroom.  It is an AMAZING ride into the village.  We ride down the small town’s main road and then get off on this dirt path and ride along a river, through rice patties with mountains in the distance, and cows just chillin in the fields.  The elementary school for the village is actually pretty nice.  It is very, very open.  There are no doors and a few windows to let the breeze in. 

So this morning, we had to wake up at 4:30!!! To get to breakfast by 5 (I had my favorites noodles: Beef Pho) and then we rode our bikes about 25 minutes to the site. I couldn’t believe it was actually hot and the sun hadn’t even come out yet.

We had to pull out and rake up TONS of weeds and lots of creepy bugs, frogs, and lizards in them!  Then some of the group set off to bend and cut the steel for the frame of the building.  I went to start digging the holes and it was THE HARDEST WORKOUT EVER!  For 4 hours we swung, hit, and tried to dig holes in the driest, hardest land ever.  It took us the whole time to just make 4 separate, square holes that were each a foot deep.  It was really, really tiring but everyone had a good time too!  Afterwards, it was off to lunch where everyone CHOWED DOWN!! We were all starving from all the exercise and ate EVERYTHING in silence hehe.  Our bodies were so sore, all we could do was eat (I was too hungry to even bother using the chopsticks) 

In the rural areas, all of the meals are served family style.  However, unlike the US where there are big spoons in each dish to serve yourself, everyone just sticks their chop sticks in whatever they want and sometimes puts it in their own bowl.  UGGGHHHH….this is a little difficult for me seeing that I am a GERMAPHOBE, but so far, I’ve been too hungry and had to get over it (don’t expect me to stay this way once I get home though!!!!)

Now Dev and I are in the coffee shop just chillin.  We have a 3 hour break to eat lunch and rest before we have to ride our bikes 20 min to the youth center to teach the kids….over 120 kids from all over the local villages signed up for the class but we have no idea how much English they already know.  Should be interesting…..

The local market!  So neat!

Street Food Video!

Video of the restaurant that we ate at.  Anthony Bourdain (Travel Channel Food Guy) featured this place on his show.  They serve these HUGE crepes filled with shrimp and veggies and who knows what else! Super good!

Some Pictures!

The ally where our "guest house" is!

One of my favorites, Beef Pho!

Me and Devyn

A typical street

New Experiences

So it's only been 2 full days here in Ho Chi Minh City, and already we have had some very interesting experiences:

• I have eaten some good/bad/strange things including:
• Fish meatballs and fish patties (not my thing!)
• Octopus
• Crazy mushroom things
• TONS of rice noodles (YUMMY!)
• ummmm very interesting looking pork,chicken, and beef (strange, often fatty cuts-you don't really know what you are eating and don't really want to know)
• An awesome "Hot Pot" lunch (it's like fondue at the Melting Pot, but instead of cheese, you cook all these different meats, veggies, and noodles in a spicy broth right at your table)
• fruits that look like eyeballs, tye-dyed sea urchins, and red garlic cloves 
• Fish sauce (actually DELICIOUS and doesn't taste like fish at all--you use it like soy sauce on rice, meats, and noodles, and it actually tastes better than soy sauce)
• Spring rolls (famous Vietnamese rolls filled with veggies and shrimp-kinda like eggrolls but not fried)
• One kid ate a fermented egg (An egg with an actual DUCK EMBRYO-a crunchy duck skeleton-inside......uhhh ewww, could barely watch!)
• Animal Encounters:
• Rats 
• Cockroaches
• Ants (all over my purse!)
• Dogs
• Our lizard friend, Kim, and MANY of his buddies

Although some of this sounds pretty gross, it has actually been an AWESOME adventure thus far!  I have pretty much LOVED all of the food thus far, but I have really struggled with the whole chopstick thing.  I even carry around a silver fork in my bag from home, but I haven't pulled it out yet because I'm afraid that it would be rude.  So, every meal I try some new technique-prodding, poking, twisting....it takes a lot of effort but I guess it's good in that it forces me to eat slow.  Another strange thing about going to restaurants is that there are no napkins.  They do have these wet wipes on the table, but you have to pay if you use them...we learned this the hard way!

Yesterday we had a lot of free time.  We went to this awesome palace, ate our Hot Pot meal, did lots of looking around, and ended up walking in the SCORCHING heat for well over 4 hours!  

Today we started taking our intense Vietnamese language and culture classes.  For 6 hours each day for the next five days, we will be trying to learn as much as they can force into our brains!  This language is CRAZY DIFFICULT!  There are all of these weird symbols and squiggles above every number.  It's been hard, but fun and interesting at the same time.

We are also learning a lot about the Vietnamese culture as well.  I was a little scared coming here because I was worried about how these people perceive Americans after the war.  We did kill hundreds of thousands of their people and, being Confucius, the Vietnamese worship and greatly respect their ancestors.  I was pleasantly surprised to see them all look at us with smiles, especially as we completely butcher their language (one kid was trying to say he was volunteering here and was actually saying that he was making love while in Vietnam!)  They have a saying that they truly seem to live by: "Let bygones be bygones" (MOM-They must be watching Aly Mcbeal! HA!)

On another note, all of us Dukies keep talking about the Vietnamese culture.  These people are so relaxed, and it's a really nice change of pace from our typical lifestyle. Everyone seems to have some sort of shop on one of the busy roads.  There are no doors--it's like those garage doors that they just lift up in the morning.  The families live upstairs.  Throughout the whole day, everyone just sits outside their stores on the streets, just chillin.  They oftentimes sit around tables that look like our "kiddy tables," playing cards, sleeping, people watching, or eating a pile of rice.   

It's been so exciting and super exhausting, and so far...no complaints or food sicknesses! 

xo

Finally Here!

Wow! Can't believe I am finally here!

We first flew 13 hours to Seoul, Korea from Los Angeles!  I was actually pretty scared about flying into Korea, but the airports are EXTREMELY nice and have a bunch of fancy stores in them- Louis Vuitton, Gucci!

Then it was another 6 hours to Vietnam!

It ended up being a total of 21 hours of flying time alone! It was pretty painful, but the Asian airliner was really fancy and GINORMOUS!

We got to our "guest house" pretty late at night.  Not exactly sure what a guest house really is....we do have a receptionist but the actual building it only one, open hallway with a few rooms inside.

We had some funny encounters in our new room.  Devyn and I's bathroom is kinda strange.  There is just a shower head on the wall, no curtain, and it drains out the floor.  There's also large, plastic buckets for doing laundry.  Also, we had our first power outage last night while we were unpacking.  Someone was even taking a shower when it turned pitch black...guess it's going to happen a lot.  We also have a new friend...."Kim" the lizard.  He likes to hang out on the window right net to my bed......YES!

Anyways, woke up early today for orientation.  The streets here are super busy with tons of small shops and people everywhere.  It is super, super hot; yet, all the locals wear long clothing and sometimes face-masks to cover themselves.  Many of them cannot afford sunscreen (the avg. Vietnamese person makes around  a 1,000 US dollars a year) and also, being "whiter" is viewed as being prettier, so they really try to cover up.  There are TONS of people on little mopeds and the streets are absolutely chaotic.  We actually had to have a lesson on how to cross the street.  It's all about aggressive J-walking.  You just gotta keep walking and don't look back (extremely scary when hundreds of motorcycles are zipping past you, yelling, and honking their horns!)

We ate in this really cool restaurant where the ladies were making noodles outside.  We ate a traditional Vietnamese breakfast called Pho ("faah").  Noodles for breakfast....these people are on to something! :)  It was DELICIOUS!

Then it was on to our walking tour!  It was all we could do just to keep up with our little, speed-walking adviser Alice.  Of course, I managed to get myself COMPLETELY lost from the group in the first hour!  We were in this super busy market and I was too in awe of all the super STINKY smells, piles of candy and clothing, raw meat, dried fish heads, and strange noodle dishes to really watch what was going on. As soon as I looked up, the group had magically, yes magically, disappeared.  It was really scary.  I had no map, no phone, and couldn't speak the language.  Luckily, I found another girl in my group (panic attack averted), and we, of course, assumed that we had been in the front of the group and everyone else had gotten lost too; but really, it was just us. We ended up having to walk for over an hour, trying to find our way back.

But all is good now!  We finally found our way, although it was definitely an adventure!  Tonight, a local student is taking us to his favorite restaurant and is then he is going to help us buy cell phones (a much needed device now that we know I can get a little distracted haha!)

Really, I didn't know what to expect of Vietnam, but is definitely a very busy and exciting city that is actually pretty modernized.  We get starred at a lot, but I guess we do look like a lot of confused giants.  This whole week we will have Vietnamese language training as well as Vietnamese culture and history teachings!

More to come!

Miss and love you all
xo

Getting Ready

So my mom will tell you, I like to wait till the last minute when it comes to packing.  I decided it might be a good idea to start getting my stuff in order and figure out everything that I will need!  It still hasn't settled in that I will be on the other side of the world in less than 4 days!

I don't know how much internet service I will have, but I will try to keep you all updated! Can't wait!!!

XO