Finally ready...

I've wanted to make a calendar with our pictures for a while. I actually have used a couple of different companies to make them, but when I got the final product in hand, I wasn't so pleased. I finally found one, though, that offered exactly what I want. A desktop calendar with our photos, captions and dates marked for Vietnamese holidays. Woohoo! I'm stoked. Here's a composite of all the pages:



And of course you can get one yourself! I'm charging $8.99 and the couple extra bucks will go toward the shipping of all those clothes to the Tam Ky Baby Orphanage. I'm also selling some of the not-as-useable-for-Vietnam stuff on ebay to pay for postage, as well. All these shirts and pants have been sitting here for far too long.

[I've tried a dozen times to get this button to work, but nothing seems to help. Ugh. So, if you want the calendar, hit me up on paypal. Donate [at] teresaandkids.com is the address. So much for simple and easy.]
THANK YOU!

just another day at the beach

We'd been warned. Sam Son is a tourist spot and gets busy, they told us, but on our first few visits the beaches were fairly empty. No more. Every time we go, it seems to get busier and busier. Even on Tuesday evening, the place was packed with hundreds of people fighting for their own spot on the beach and in the sea.

I finally relaxed my ban on renting any sort of flotation device and with the help of Etty's conversational Vietnamese skills, we rented two big inner tubes for us. And when I say "us" I use the term loosely; again, I sat on the beach guarding our belongings while Stuart, Audrey, Becky and Etty played in he incoming tide. I graded papers and fought off the stream of hawkers with a brisk "Khong" and a wave of my hand.

Then, as usual, the storm clouds came in. We'd been there for nearly an hour and a half, so it really was time to leave in order to get back for my meeting at 7:30pm. The immense dark clouds came over us a bit slower than last time, no fear-inducing black skies this time.

Audrey couldn't help but wonder what it was about Sam Son that resulted in storms nearly every time we vist. Ah, we're just lucky, that's all.

mother nature

It was a beautiful afternoon for the beach, but Stuart wasn't feeling well and decided to stay home. So Audrey, Dung (my co-teacher), Ettie and Becky (the British teachers), and I headed off to Sam Son without him.

The beach was more crowded that I had seen before, full of umbrellas, kite sellers and people of all ages. We set up our spot randomly and I hung back to watch our stuff (a good excuse for 'fat girl syndrome'). I ended up moving twice as the tide came in, licking at our bags before I noticed its approach.

The others played while I read and a couple of hours passed fairly quickly before I noticed the sky darken a bit. Then I saw the sky behind us and the enormous cloud that looked more like something out of "Independence Day" than a natural formation. I checked the time and notice that Stuart had called. Three times.

Maternal instinct kicked in and I knew something was wrong, so I immediately called him. The phone rang and rang and rang, my panic increasing with each unanswered ring. Finally he picked up. "What's up, buddy?" I asked, but before he could answer I could hear the thunder behind him. He was caught in middle of a massive thunderstorm, alone.

I assured him we'd be home soon, piling our stuff together as we spoke. "Come back soon." The lifeguard had signaled with his red warning flag and whistle that everyone was to get out of the water. Now. As we put shoes on and began our sprint off the beach, it was impossible to ignore the sudden darkness and the ominous clouds that were covering us at breakneck speed.

I snapped one more photo and we headed for the taxi, but realized as we got closer that it was simply a white car, not a taxi after all. So here we stood in the pouring rain, wind whipping and not a taxi to be seen. In fact, the streets, sidewalk and beach had been instantaneously deserted. We tried to phone the taxi, but my mobile wouldn't work. So Dung did what one does here, I suppose, she started flagging down cars.

Maybe it was our sorry looking state, but the third car that came by took sympathy on us and we quickly piled in to his SUV (in Vietnam?). Come to find out, the driver is a friend of the University president. What luck! We drove home, watching with more than a little worry in my head and heart as the lightning bolts ran from as far up as we could see, all the way to the ground. Strike after strike, followed each time by the deep roar of thunder.

By the time we reached the campus, the worst of the storm was over, evidenced by the limbs strewn about and the enormous puddles we trudged through to get upstairs to our room, where Stuart sat, safe and sound, eating instant noodles and watching Spongebob on DVD.

noon at Sam Som

It's been a long time since someone invited me to a hotel room in the middle of the day. Okay, it's actually never happened. So it came as a surprise when, on our excursion to the beach with my students, Tuan asked me (and my kids) to come with him to a hotel. Sure, why not. I motioned to the kids to come (palm down, four fingers beckoning) and they did, peppering me with questions, spoken quickly so he wouldn't understand: Where are we going? Some hotel. A hotel? That's what he said. Why? I don't know. For how long? I don't know that either.

We blindly followed him down two blocks to a building, unmarked apart from the numbers above the three doors interrupted by three large windows. We were given Room 106 by a woman (the owner?) and shown in by both her and Tuan. He assured me that we could rest, said something about three hours and promptly shut the door.

The kids turned to look at me perched haphazardly on the end of the twin bed nearest the door; them expecting some answers, me not having any. So I BSed a bit. Well, you know in Viet Nam everyone takes a nap after lunch, Tuan knows you are tired. I mean, come on Audrey, you fell asleep on the way here. We're all gonna rest and then we'll head down to the beach.

Neither of them were particularly excited about this plan of hanging out in a bare hotel room for the next hour or three, but there wasn't much to be done. I tried to get them to lie down. Stuart let out the hermit crabs he had pilfered from near the fisherman earlier in the day, allowing them to click-click across the tile floor. Audrey tried to rest, as did I, but the third person in the room just couldn't stay quiet. Until he went to use the bathroom and we quickly dozed off in the silence.
Our rest didn't last long. Making a grand entrance from the bathroom, Stuart explained all the intricacies of this particular bathroom. It stinks. The toilet doesn't flush. The sink only works when you turn the shower on. The toilet paper is wet. Another only-as-a-last-resort bathroom. It ended up being that for all of us.

After almost two hours of almost falling asleep, demanding quiet, begging for the whining to stop and pleading for the crabs to be put back, we moved outside the room, within earshot of the rest of our crew, and the kids sang songs, walked around, got a little stir-crazy and woke up everyone else with their antics. It didn't take long for everyone to don their swim clothes (short and tanks for men, jeans and long-sleeve shirts for women) and off we went, students, children and teacher-18 in all, down to where the water came onshore.

Sam Son, redux

So tired, but here are some photos from today's trip to Sam Son with the students from my morning class.

The painted "zebra"


The fishermen/women were cleaning their nets of small crabs, shells, and octopus babies.


Little wildflowers, perfect for pictures.

Audrey was so tired, she actually slept most of the way there.