As you can imagine, trying to experience as much of a country as possible while also enjoying a vacation can be a difficult thing to balance. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (formally known as Saigon), Vietnam Friday night late and didn't make it to our hotel bed until around 1am. Our morning began at 8:30 am with a tour that Bri had found online called Saigon Unseen. Normally when we travel we tend to steer away from tours but we had decided that a tour would be the best way to see as much of the city as possible in a short amount of time. Of course this wasn't your run of the mill air-conditioned van or a double-decker bus tour. In a town of 10 million people and 5 million motor bikes how could you pass up the chance for a tour on the back of a motor bike!
Matt on the bike with our lead guide Saul. He spoke more than enough English for our tour purposes.
The weather was beautiful and sunny. Bri and I were basking in the warm weather compared to the cloudy, clammy cold we were experiencing in Shanghai. Bri took this picture at the beginning of the day and then spent the rest of the day trying to find a caption for what I looked like on the bike with Saul. My favorite two descriptions were that he was a ninja turtle and I was his shell and that I'm a kangaroo and I just let Saul out of my pouch for a bit of sunshine. Feel free to make your own captions and have a laugh at my expense.
Besides the allure of the motor bike the second draw of this tour was that they took us to parts of Ho Chi Minh a tourist might not stumble onto in their first couple days. We drove through the main park which was packed with people preparing for the Lunar New Year celebrations. Then it was off to a couple of interesting markets packed with Vietnamese shopping for the holiday. Saul said it was only slightly busier than normal but I couldn't see how the first market could have held anymore people. The interesting/disturbing thing about both markets but especially the first larger market was that nobody bothered to get off their bike. You just motored through at a snails pace and pulled off when you needed to buy something. There was a parking area that was packed with scooters so I assume some customers or stall keeper got off their bike but it sure didn't seem like it when we were driving through the chaos.
Most of the people in the crowded middle of the street are moving along slowly on motor bikes.
After the market we drove around the alleys and side streets. Bri and I immediately felt that generally speaking the people of Ho Chi Minh were more friendly than the people of Shanghai. Next Saul wanted to show some of the developing parts of Ho Chi Minh. We saw some tall condo/apartment buildings but nothing you wouldn't see in KC or Denver. Then he took us to a section of town that had been a poor and crumbling part of town. It had been cleared of tenants and most of the "buildings" had been demolished in order to prepare the land for development. I was surprised at how optimistically he spoke about what the developers would build and how he wanted me to continue looking at the billboard that had illustrations of what was coming. On the other hand Bri and I were asking, "What happened to all of the people who lived here?" and "Who is living here now?". There were make shift homes which were nothing more than campsites all around the area and it didn't look like any development had started at all. Saul said the money for the development had stalled but it was still coming. The people camping were homeless and looking for jobs or people working temporary jobs in the city that did not want to find or pay for housing of higher standards. It was bizarre when he even took us to the Fire God Temple which was in the same neighborhood but had been saved for spiritual reasons for now. It was surrounded by similar sights to the picture below.
One of the nicer shanties.
Bri had to use the toilet at the Fire God's Temple. Yea, that's the toilet...the whole in the corner. At least there was a partial wall for privacy.
From the temple we saw another market and a cool river market where the boats just pull up and sell their goods along the river. After stopping for Vietnamese coffee (very strong but usually mixed with sweetened and condensed milk and served on ice) which both Bri and I enjoyed all week we were taken see a mall and a more developed neighborhood. Again Saul wanted to know my opinion on the "developed" part of town asking whether the mall looked like one in America. I told him it looked similar from the outside but quipped that the parking lots were way too small because we all drive cars not motor bikes.
There were other stops but the main highlights were lunch (surprised?), the Cao Dai Temple and the War Remnants Museum. We'll talk about the War Remnants Museum and our thoughts regarding that when we share pictures from the Cu Chi Tunnels which we visited on our return to Ho Chi Minh later in the week. Here are some pictures of the other two.
Stopped for some pho for lunch.
The alter at the Cao Dai Temple. Each of the bright colors represents one of the major religions that were combined to form the Cao Dai religion.
School starts tomorrow so its back to reality for us. There will be more pictures soon. In the meantime you're welcome to send us your favorite caption to the first photo with Matt and Saul on the motor bike. We'll post any that make us laugh especially hard.
We're heading back to Shanghai tonight. This trip has been more of an adventure than we planned for at times but also everything we had hoped. It was a great blend of seeing a new culture and spending some time on a beach. Here are some pictures from our hotel balcony in Nha Trang. A lot more pictures and stories will follow this week.
One
of our friends and fellow teachers, Liz Wilson is from New Zealand. Kiwis as they call themselves talk extremely fast. Since Matt and I are both from areas of the United States where people usually
speak slow enough that you can figure out what they're saying no matter how
they pronounce it, we have a bit of difficulty with her accent. The first few weeks she was a lifesaver
in giving us pointers on Shanghai.
Matt and I would listen carefully as she spoke and when there was a
break in her speech we would look at each other seeing if the other one ‘got
it’.
Liz
teaches math and this is really hilarious to me because the way she says math
sounds like ‘meth’. The way she
says six sounds like ‘sex’ and the way she says deck sounds like 'dick'. Well my friends I know this sounds like
I am a sixth grader but I like to say in my best New Zealand accent that “My
friend Liz teaches her math classes to her six students on her neighbor’s deck.”
We have time off of school from the 20th
to the 29th of January because of Chinese New Year. This is a huge holiday in China and from
what we hear, it is a good time to get out of the country. So we are headed to Vietnam. Vietnam also celebrates Chinese New Year
but we hope to not be bothered by the fireworks and celebration while sitting
on the beach. Here is a link about
Chinese New Year; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year
For our trip to Vietnam, we are flying into Ho Chi
Mihn City to see some historical sites and then going to Nha Trang for some serious
beach time. Here is a link for Nha
Trang; http://www.nhatrangtravelguide.com/
We hope to have a lot of stories and pictures to share with
you when we return to Shanghai.
While home for the holiday most of the questions
that I got was about my job. I
realize that this was a rather ambiguous topic and I intend to clear some
things up.
This fall when I arrived I had no idea what to
expect. I would not have even been
surprised if they would have said “and who are you? Oh, the physics teacher’s
wife. You are going to be teaching Spanish.”
Instead, I had an office and a title, Student
Support Specialist. This was a
brand new position at the school, which proved to be good and bad. The good part was that I could define
my role. The bad part was that I
found this very difficult. Being a
private school, they were not ready to fully monitor students’ progress in
a way needed to maximize my position.
They were very nice about it and tried to make the best of it. I began doing small groups. Each grade level team got to pick what
they felt the greatest need was for them and I then did time everyday with a
small group from each grade.
1st Grade- Math extension
2nd Grade- Reading support
3rd Grade- Social Skills
4th Grade Reading support
5th Grade- Math extension
This was fun and challenging, I just had no way of
telling, other than my ‘gut instinct’, whether I was doing any good. Around the end of October the MS
principal approached me and asked if I would want to help with some Middle
School kids if I had time in the afternoons. I gladly accepted and was greeted warmly to the Middle
School Support Team. They gave me
a list of around 10 kids that needed some support with organization, advocacy
or ‘reminders’ to get things done.
I took on this role fully.
I felt much more useful at this level.
Two weeks before Winter break things changed. A middle school English teacher quit on
the spot and they needed a fill-in.
I took the job and there was talk of me taking over full time second
semester.
On the second to last day of school the Lower School principal called me in and said
that the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teacher was
resigning at semester. He would
like me to take over at the beginning of the second semester. I accepted and braced myself for the
unknown. So, one week in here is
what I know;
-My co-teacher is awesome and so helpful
-I have my very own classroom again
-I have around 50 students
-Students come in with other students at their grade level for 40 minutes
a day.
-When the other students in their classroom go to
their Mandarin Language class, the students needing english help come to us.
-Much of my humor and well-developed jokes are
lost on them.
-They are smarter than me, many of them speak
three languages, bouncing from one to the other effortlessly.
-They are accepting and patient with me.
So far, so good.
When we were planning to come here we were
constantly asked “you are going to teach English then?” our answers were “no we are teaching in
our regular content areas”
Well, now friends I am teaching English in China
but ironically not to Chinese students.
Bri's post motivated me to get back to this after about a month off. I've been meaning to post about our last holiday since our return 10 days ago but life's been busy. The first week back from a break and the last week before a break bring added stress for teachers. We have a week off for Chinese New Year next week so its been a blur and it is hard to keep the kids productive.
Bri and I learned some interesting things about ourselves over break. It will be easier to share a few of those than summarize our entire break.
1. We miss the little kids in our life so much when we're away. We're lucky to have facetime and skype to stay close and check in but those don't compare to holding a little niece or hearing two year old Kinsleigh calling your name when she wants you to get the Cheetos off the counter. We filled most of our free time with the kids in someway.
2. I'm getting old. All of the swinging kids from my arms and crawling on the floor were rough on my shoulder. I'm going to try some traditional chinese medicine and I'll blog about that sometime. It was all worth it though.
3. Our lives revolve around food...and we like it that way. Bri and I laughed that we could recount each day of the trip by what we ate. Each meal reminds us of who we saw or what we were doing at the time.
4. We're very thankful we've chosen careers that allow us to spend so much time with friends and family. Heading back to Shanghai after a three week holiday we kept asking ourselves how our friends and family that don't have that time off ever rejuvenate or have time to just be.
5. We're very lucky to have so many homes. It was odd how arriving at so many different places on our trip made us feel at home.
I was really surprised the night we returned, after traveling for about 23 hours from door to door Bri said, "I'm surprised to say this but it in an odd way it feels good to be back." It was a weird feeling but I felt the same way. We'd been home, but we were home again.
That thought was revisited the next morning. I was unpacking and I yelled down the hall, "I only took 4 pairs of socks home before holiday and I brought 12 pairs of socks home yesterday." Then I paused, and thought about it. We both laughed that I had used the word home twice in the same sentence in reference to two places, nearly 7,000 miles apart. That really summed up our trip, besides spending over 24 hours in a plane we felt at home in numerous ways and at numerous places. Special meals, the smell of fresh air, familiar sights of a city or of a past job, but most often laughter and conversations with people we love, friends and family.
A couple days after returning I received a letter from Granny. It ended with a line that fit this blog perfectly.
In case the note is hard to read on your screen it says:
P.S. 1/10/12- Jerry's lunch had a chinese fortune cookie: Your HOME is a pleasant place from which you will draw happiness.
That captured our feelings from the trip and summed up why so many things could make us feel at home. However, as I write this I'm wonder...in a week we should be on a beach in Vietnam. I anticipate that will be a pleasant place and I hope to draw happiness from that experience. So could Vietnam be home too? And by the way, did you know when you eat at a chinese restaurant in China you don't get a fortune cookie! That tradition began in San Francisco. Now I'm rambling....
As many of you know, I was quite sick in
November. It started with a
cold. I thought that I was feeling
better so Matt and I went for a full day of Christmas shopping at the Apparel
Market. This included a lot of
haggling for the right prices. By
the end of the day I was beat. All
of Sunday I slept and Monday the doctor told me that I had bronchitis. Going to the doctor was an adventure in
itself. The general practitioner's office is on
the fourth floor of the hospital and figuring that out was about a ten minute conversation
of pointing and acting with the guard in the lobby.
The doctor’s name is Dr. Luang. She is Chinese and
speaks very good English. She gave
me peace of mind with her kindness and caution. Later in the week I seemed to be doing worse so I returned
to see her. At this point in the
week I was so run down that I was willing to do whatever it took to feel
better. Dr. Luang said that she
was concerned that I was beginning to wheeze and was seeing signs of
asthma. She decided to admit me into the hospital so that she could do a more intensive round
of antibiotics and constant breathing treatments. When she said that the antibiotics would have to be
administered intravenously I said thanks but no thanks. Unfortunately, I could not get the
whole sentence out because I was wheezing and coughing, it seemed that my body
knew better. I went down the hall for them to begin the IV. Now, if you know me, you know that
needles bring about a strong reaction usually manifesting itself in childlike
behavior including but not limited to; crying, yelling, shaking, pouting,
standing on chairs, hiding, running away, or giving death threats. I warned the nurse of this and asked
“are you good at this?” She
nodded. After they royally messed
up the first hand and went onto the next one I was fully pissed off. The first ‘practice’ hand looked
like a golf ball the color of grape jelly was growing under my skin. (Hold on while I take a break to get
through this memory) It hurt real
bad and when they were done I was unable to properly use either of my hands,
one was growing a plum and the other one was obviously out of commission
because it had the IV in it. Perhaps a non-needle fearing person would think I
was overreacting. I, on the other
hand, thought my mother would be proud that I did not physically harm
anyone. With tears still coming
down my cheeks and snot dripping out of my nose (how was I going to blow it with no
hands?) I made it upstairs to my hospital room. The room was quite large being about
four times larger than any of my Jewell dorm rooms. If you walked into the room you would have no idea that you
were in China. It seemed very
normal and Americanish. Matt
showed up after school released a few hours later and brought some requested items; my laptop, all of
the seasons of Six Feet Under, my earplugs, chap-stick, deodorant and a
hairbrush. The hospital ordered
supper for both of us from Element Fresh.
Element Fresh is one of my favorite ‘Western’ restaurants. Matt fed me (stop rolling your eyes) and
left me to my TV marathon. The
next day they took the ‘good’ IV out because it was causing another
abscess. When the doctor came to
see how I was doing I tattled on how awful the nurses had done with the
previous IV. She sent in the Head
Nurse for my next awful experience.
This time they used the crook of my elbows (I am sure that there is an
official name) since my hands looked as though I had colored them green. This time I was very clear about my
expectations. “You get one shot at
this okay?” After a few breathless
minutes of literally poking around she said “Maybe try other arm” If you know me, stop and imagine how
this went over……. Yep, you got it.
“Are you kidding me? Um,
no, I told you that you only get one shot. Sorry. How are
you THIS BAD at doing this?”
In the end, I gave in.
Something about outrage and bronchitis mixing into
a fit of coughing really killed my argument. She did okay on the next arm.
Throughout my three days other than the needle
thing the stay was as good as any hospital stay could be. I was maybe the only other person on
the whole floor with six nurses helping me out. They were very kind and helpful. My favorite part was at shift change. All six nurses would come with the new
six nurses beginning their shift, into my room. This made 12 nurses around my bed staring at me and speaking
in Chinese. I felt bad that I had
not prepared a performance. The first night when I showed them my badly bruised
hands they made sympathy noises and I felt validated. The doctor came by twice a day to check on me and even came
in on her day off to see how I was doing.
She told me later that she called some of her colleagues to make sure
there was not more that she could be doing. She was more worried than I had known. She thought the bad air quality in Shanghai had
something to do with my slow recovery.
In the few weeks following the illness I was on a
variety of medicines (which included a hallucinogen that Matt will have to blog
about later) I carried an inhaler
around with me and would have to use it after climbing stairs. I felt the need to explain to any
passerby on the third floor that I was not this out of shape, I had been sick.
It
has been many weeks since then and I can say that I am healed. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers
during that time.
Oh, I must mention my mother’s reaction. Many people asked about how she did
during this because they can imagine how a mother would feel having a daughter in a hospital so far away. This was the email that she sent that I
did not get to read until I got out of the hospital:
"I am freaking out, how are you feeling, I think you need to come home
and recoup after you get out of the hospital....there is no way you are going
to feel like going back to work. love you"
I love Mom and am
proud of her will power. Give her
a pat on the back if you see her and tell her good job for not calling the
embassy to have them send me back home.
