final score

Today my students in Thanh Hoa finally found out their TOEFL scores. It's been a long, hard road for them; they attended classes 20 hours each week, with 20 hours of lab work required on top of it. For just about a year. It's been a lot of work and the test took hours and was so difficult. Many did not receive the passing score, I've been told, but some will be given a chance to up their scores with a crash course on the TOEFL and a re-take.

It's scary because so much relies on this one test score. For those who scored too low, they will be required to take the course over again or pay for the course (an amount that equals a year's wages for many).

The test is difficult, but IIG has not done very well with their textbooks, listening materials or keeping teachers. They did not encourage anyone to stay until it was too late (they never even mentioned the possibility of staying on to me until I said we'd be leaving and the same happened to Dung [pronounced more like Zoom]). It's been frustrating to watch as teacher after teacher passed through, often staying for less than a week and a few so-called teachers who stayed for less than one day. IIG's disregard for the teacher and for the students has resulted in students not being fully prepared for the big, enormous important TOEFL test. And that upsets me.

I miss those friends and students so much and every day I wish for good luck for them. With Tet approaching, I hope that the new air and life of spring will not only bless me, but my students as well. They all deserve it.

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!

i love mango

I hadn't had lunch yet, so on the way to get the kids from school I was daydreaming about what I'd eat when I got the chance to stop at a store. Fruit sounded good. It always does these days, but the choices are limited to apples or bananas. Sure there are some others out there, but my favorites are so expensive ($3 for one Asian pear?! Who can afford to buy them?).

Pondering my lack of choices, the thought of mangoes burst in and I couldn't get them out of my mind. Oh how I ached for the sweet nectar of mango, so juicy it slides down my chin and I have to stand back to avoid being dripped on. I miss having a nice thick oval piece, sliced off the side of a deep yellow mango, cut into squares, right up to (but not through) the skin. Sucking the delicious meat of the peel, saving the pit for later. It's the best part, if you don't mind the stringy bits.

I never knew that memories of mango could bring me to tears.

The cold, damp weather lately makes me crave the warm days of the spring, when I didn't realize just how lucky I was, licking mango juice from my fingertips.

Happy Teacher's Day

Today is Teacher's Day in Vietnam, a fact I was ignorant of until this morning. I woke up to several nice emails from my students in Thanh Hoa, wish me health and happiness. It was the perfect way to start my day. I'm so grateful for all the students and what they have taught me and I'm so glad that I have made some impact on them. That they haven't forgotten me or my love for them, makes me happy.

The kids and I are currently pondering ways that we can do more. It was an amazing experience to live in Vietnam and to feel like we were making some sort of difference. For me and Stuart, being here leaves us feeling a bit empty and lost. We're trying to figure out a way to do more without more money. Heck, I can't even pay my meager rent these days, I surely can't be handing out money. But, maybe there's something we can do. Any ideas?

She's a published author!

Yea for Audrey. Here's the article. You might not be able to read it, but that's okay... you should just buy a copy of the magazine. Seriously, support New Moon and these kinds of publications. They are rare these days.

The pictures are of Audrey with Thuong (I think) and Truc at the Home of Affection, Audrey with Kieu/Emma at the Baby Orphanage and a shot of her. The other is some stock photo of Vietnam (we've got better! -haha).

And here's a preview of her book we're working on. It's the story of a girl named Quy (kwee) who lives in Vietnam. This is the first of a series that she plans to write. My former students Ha and Man helped out with the translation. Her grandma is helping her color the illustrations with watercolors. Whee! We'll be working on pictures over the next couple of weeks and will have books ready for Christmas. If you are interested in getting your own copy, please let me know via our Vietnam With Kids site.

I haven't cried this much in years

When I decided we were coming to Viet Nam last December, part of the stipulation was that the kids would have a big say in when it was time to go. Little did I realize it would be so hard to leave.

Audrey, in particular, has had a difficult time here and while she says she's glad we came, she wants to go. And I promised we would go back for 4th grade, if she wanted and she does. So what's a mom to do? Break a promise?

Well, let me tell you, I tried to find any way I could to get out of the keeping the promise short of a flat-out "No. We're staying." And that didn't seem like the good-mom thing to do.

There are other issues, as well. Namely family pressures to come back. Audrey hasn't been eating as much as she needs to and has grown little (if any) since we left Tam Ky. Stuart's falling behind in schoolwork, despite threats of repeating 8th grade.

So, with a very heavy heart I told my dear students, that I, too, would be leaving them. I don't know that I have ever cried that hard in public and I had to do it in two classes in the same day. Last Monday will live on in infamy as the day I couldn't stop crying.


I dissolve into tears at the oddest times. When I'm scrubbing laundry. Or walking home from the market. Or making another dish of fried rice. Or writing this blog entry. My sadness about leaving pervades all I do and try as I might, I can't seem to get past it quite yet.

I had high hopes of coming back for another four to six weeks while the kids had a needed break in the States, but flights are too expensive to justify the trip. If I can find cheap flights, I'd be back here at the drop of a hat.

Guilt lingers over me and I feel like a failure. As a teacher. As a mother. As a woman. Against my strongest desires, I will take my kids back to America, to a life of food stamps and not enough time together. This saddens me in a way that few could understand.


Here, I have been happier than ever before. I love my job and I love my students. I love the simple life in Thanh Hoa. I 'm lucky that I can spend 20 hours a day with my kids and I can provide well for them. Unfortunately instead of using the money that I have worked so hard for to travel, as I had so hoped, I will spend every last dime to get them home.

But not without a bit of fun on the side. I did promise them Hong Kong Disneyland, as well.

My contract ends in two weeks. The end of this life, at least for now. We'll head off to Sa Pa, hopefully with some of my students joining us, then during the first week of July we will fly to Hong Kong, then visit our friends in Shenzhen before heading to Shanghai where we'll catch a tiny plane to Vancouver, B.C. We're hoping to get our legs under us again there and spend a couple of days in Canada before taking the train down to Portland, Oregon. Home, though it doesn't feel like it to me anymore.

So, while I mourn my loss, the kids eagerly await seeing friends and family. Our close quarters force me to be creative in my expression of sadness. It comes when I am alone. Or like now, as they are sleeping and I lie awake pondering our future.

How's the weather?

Funny how a subject that is supposed to be mundane and reserved for television news can be such a hot topic. Around here the weather is always talked about, even if it's only to remark on the incredible heat.

This morning Thanh and I discussed the recent thunderstorms and it seems that a house was hit on Sunday night. For some reason I hadn't even thought of it even being possible that the lightning would strike something, despite seeing it shoot straight down. From what he explained, most places are equipped with lightning rods to prevent injury and total destruction from the sky-riding electricity strikes. Guess it didn't work this time, but no injuries reported.

Again, the clouds have rolled in and the lightning has begun. Last night's storm was minimal so I'm not expecting much tonight (but who knows?). Maybe, just maybe the rain will hit hard and we'll again get to express our amazement at the storms here in Viet Nam.

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Our camera is fixed (thanks, Keith!) and will be on its way back to us on Sunday evening when the new Canadian teachers return from their jaunt to Ha Noi. We were supposed to be on that train, as well, but there were no seats and the only two bunks we could get were in completely different cars. So we stayed and they'll bring it back to us.

Until then: Audrey and her gargantuan carrot nose. The things are HUGE here, no doubt about it.....

taxi ride

We returned to Thanh Hoa on Sunday night, smack in the middle of an incredible thunderstorm. It had been visible from the train and as we pulled into our local train station, it was clear that this was the epicenter. The rain poured down like someone had opened the floodgates and in the 20m (or so) dash to the taxi we got completely soaked. The taxi driver was kind and pulled out a warm towel for us to dry our arms and face off and turned on the air-con. The rain continued to pour and as we drove out toward the main streets, we could see that it had been raining for a while; the streets were flooding up from the gutter and over the curb.

As we drove toward the big Le Loi statue in the center of town, the driver took a right unexpectedly and I gave him the big "I'm confused. What are you doing?" look. He replied in Vietnamese, of course, and all I got out of it was nuoc (water) and mua (rain), so we did some pantomiming and figured out that the water was too high on the road for us to take it. But so was the next street and the next and a few more after that. He ended up pulling next to a bike that had stalled out to ask the woman if she knew the best way to Hong Duc (as least this is what we pieced together from the words Audrey could pick out). She pointed us further along the street we were on, so off we went.

Finally there was a road that wasn't flooded over, but as he turned he didn't see the concrete heap lying in the middle of the road. I did, but all I could do was make some gutteral yelps and it wasn't enough. We bumped into it. By this time, we're feeling a bit sorry for the chap, out here in the rain, having to drive all over town, banging up the car, etc.

We managed to wind our way around and suddenly I knew where we were again, heading straight up Le Lai toward the university. Stuart and I discussed the need for a tip for this guy, debating the numbers. As we got nearer, I used the easy-to-understand hand signals to show him how to get us around the back of the school where we could actually enter.

Our total was 41,000VND, about 10,000 more due to the circuitous route. We'd decided he deserved more than the 9,000VND tip that a 50,000VND bill would have left him, so I handed him a 100,000VND bill and waved off the change. He didn't quite understand, but with some more pointing between the meter, the money and him, he understood. The other almost 60,000VND was for him.

Forever I will prize the look of realization on his face. He was so happy he crossed cultural boundaries and gave me--clearly someone of the opposite sex--a big hug, then reached back to shake Stuart's hand. Then said the only thing in English we'd heard all night: "Thank you."

We all floated on a cushion of happiness for him for the next while and I'm still so happy I could help out. In the States, I'm so poor and can rarely help others out, even when I really want to. Usually I'm on the end of being helped and while I'm always grateful for the aid of others, it's so nice to be the one to offer it instead.

banh da

One of Stuart's favorite snack is banh da. Made from rice flour, covered in sesame seeds and dried, they are then cooked over the little charcoal fire, making them puff a bit, for us at the market. Her fan was used for both the stir up the fire and to cool down her face. This particular seller is often very kind to us and can convince Stuart that he wants one almost every time. She was gracious enough to let me get her photo today and it's one of my new favorites.

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Thank you to everyone for your kind words, both here and via email, regarding my grandpa's death. I'm grateful for each and every message.

Audrey's turn at the keyboard

Today it is friday the 18th of May, and today we did a lot of things. I mean, really the day isn't even close to over, 'cause its 12:10 at lunch. So, this morning, i woke up at 9:45 and i had some Frosties® from Ha Noi, then i waited for my vietnamese class to show up and i waited and waited and waited then at 10:20 they arrived and i brushed my hair quickly 'cause i forgot to do it before when i was waiting forever. We had our class and talked about legos-i have some because we bought it yesterday at the mall-then my class finished and mom asked me if i wanted to go to the market and i said ''nahh'' but about a quarter of a second later i said ''yeah actshully''.

So me and mom went to the market and first, we were walking by and a fruit seller yelled to us,''ay!'' and we looked and there, right in front of me about 7 feet away, were rambutans!!! i was SOOO happy. i haven't eaten a rambutan in about 3 months! i love that taste of yummy rambutans! so we got a huge bag of rambutans and the lady who sold them to us mumbled in vietnamese and pointed toword the pinapple. We thought that she was pointing to the peanuts right beside the pineapple (and the pineapple was behind the peanut stand) so i said to mom, ''i wonder if they're cooked'' and mom said ''i don't know, maybe''. Then after we bought the rambutans, mom saw the pineapple and we soon reolized that she was actshually pointing to the pineapple. Then we bought 2 pineapples and headed off to the vegitable\meat\fish area and we had bought potatoes, garlic and onion. Then we had seen at the stand we were buying at, right beside us were really really really un-ripe pineapple. They were SOOO green. I didn't want to think of how bad it would taste! uulgh!


Then we went over by the meat. We saw pork-everything. Pork-intestins, pork-feet, pork-tail,pork-snout, pork-ears, pork-face, pork-liver, pork-EVERYTHING! Then we had bought our meat and walked a bit, then we saw chicken eggs! yay! we usually eat duck eggs! i dont like duck eggs at all. I like chicken eggs way more than DuCk eggs! So we bought the chicken eggs and some rice and 2 coconuts. Then as we were walking mom's bag for the coconuts broke and we had to carry them by hand. when we were also still walking i said to mom ''weren't we suposed to buy water also?'' then we had an idea that we could come back later and get some.

thats what happened to day so far.

what is that sound?

It's the mating call of male cicadas.

For the last week or so, in the afternoon and in the evening, a very loud chirping instantly rises from a low background noise, to an overpowering song coming from the trees both in front and behind our room. Their lovely mating call gets loud enough at times that you have to raise your voice to be heard over it. Quite astonishing, actually.

The only thing I know about cicadas (ve ve) before today was that they come out every 17 years. Well, that's the American version, or one of them at least. According to my incredibly knowledgeable students, this cicada is the annual sounding for the beginning of summer.

According to Wikipedia, the male cicadas are the only ones to make this sound and in an unexpected way. Unlike crickets, these bugs use their bodies as a resonance chamber, controlling the sound with the muscles and can alter the tone by moving their bodies away from and toward the tree. Rumor has it, they can reach 106db. I don't doubt it.

I don't know how big they are; I haven't seen them yet. But I keep looking, though the sound sort of freaks me a little. What if they swarm? The sounds is amazing and it swells to a crescendo in mid-afternoon and later in the evening. Check out Stuart's recording.

Proof

For those of you who can't hear him scurrying around in the night, this morning we had visible proof of the rat's continued stalking of our family. He manage to chew through the bag, pull this piece of bread out, drag it off the table and halfway behind the refrigerator. He was all over the room last night, climbing on the wire to charge my cell phone (about 8 feet off the floor-don't ask why), knocking over bowls on the table and running over the computer printer and both desks. It was quite annoying and even my heavy sleep didn't keep me from noticing. At one point, Stuart heard it, too, and remarked at its new bravery. Before it had simply come in and hid behind the fridge chewing plastic.

But I think we solved the problem. And when I say 'we', I really mean Stuart.

He climbed onto the table in the kitchen (where the burners sit) and shimmied up onto the door (no knob for his feet). There he sat, straddling the top of the door and leaned forward pushing the slippery glass window shut. The rat's only entry, the window between room and kitchen/bathroom, has been blocked. The internet cable comes through that window, so it couldn't be completely shut, but the gap is now less than 1/4" and as much as I am shocked and amazed at the capacity of rodents to get into and through small spaces, I think this one is just a tad too small.

If it gets in now, with the door and window shut, and with cement walls.... Well, I'll be speechless.

water-free living

Running out of water has become an all too common occurence; five or six night a week our buiding runs dry after dinner. There's a limited amount of water to supply the entire dormitory and with the sunny (laundry-washing) weather, it's become a problem.

Today the problem was worse and the entire school seems to have no running water. It ran for a short while this morning, then without any explanation or warning, it was gone. All day long. Late this afternoon we noticed girls walking toward the gate carrying red buckets, then walking back within minutes--buckets filled to the brim. Aha! There's water somewhere. Audrey and I borrowed a red bucket from our neighbor and set off to find the water source.

It was this well, so I stuck the bucket in and scooped it up, dragged it home and poured it down the toilet (ew!), then we headed back for more to wash dishes.

Showers were impossible, so people made do with what they had. One girl was washing her hair using a smaller bucket and a wash tub. Later, when we went to the market for dinner, there was a whole pack of men standing in their gymn shorts, lathering up, then rinsing with buckets pulled from the well. Where's the camera when I need it?

the infamous dog meat

Yep, we ate it.

Last night, we joined one of my students as she celebrated her upcoming wedding (it was held today). As the Westerners, we were considered a good luck charm, but no one was too interested in our appearance. A nice change of pace. Immediately after arriving, we were ushered to a small table, with the ubiquitous plastic chairs, where we were served green tea.

Soon enough Hong directed us to another table were our food was set up: sticky rice, rice noodles, beef and greens, grilled dog meat and duck embryos. We partook of everything except the duck embryos; I simply cannot do that one. Surprisingly, the dog meat was pretty good. Stuart first tried the liver (unbeknownst to him that it was organ meat) and he wasn't impressed. "It doesn't taste." Audrey braved it next, even after being told it was liver, though she was a bit leery. She agreed--tasteless.

Tuat suggested we try the actual meat, not organ, and it was a hit. Audrey took a bite and surprised us all with "It's really good!" and took another bite. Stuart liked it, too, and after swallowing the bile that was rising in my throat, I took a small bite. Not bad, really. A little tough, but a good taste.

Wait, did I just write that?

After downing the infamous meat, we moved on to dessert--some watermelon slices. The kids and I are big watermelon fans, so they went down pretty quickly and Hong was nice enough to head to the yard and get us a fresh bunch of bananas. Right then and there, bananas off the tree. Pretty cool.

Then, it was time to move again, to the after-dinner stimulants. In the center of the table sat two plates-one with a pack of cigarettes, the other with betel nuts and their accompanying betel leaves rolled with powdered limestone. Betel nuts are peeled, combined with the leaf packets and stuffed into the side of the mouth where it is chewed, producing a lot of red saliva and a drunken feeling. I had no interest in trying it, though several people joined in. We just watched in awe, listening to the explanations of its addictive power, importance in the Vietnamese wedding traditions and its purported ability to prevent cavities (though no mention of the high incidence of oral cancer).

After another ten minutes or so, we were given a bag of cake desserts and the rest of the banana bunch and the group of seven of us headed back to the motorbikes for the drive home.

this little piggie went to market

Nearly every day we head over to the fresh market, across the street from the university. We've become familiar faces while the sellers have become familiar to us. Our knowledge of Vietnamese words for fruit are tested each time we visit the neighbor fruit ladies. They call out greeting and ask if I want xoai (mango), tao (apple), cam (orange) or any other fruit they have for sale. Some, I do not know the name or flavor, but I'm working up the bravery to try.

In the afternoon, the fishmongers show up with their tubs of more varieties of fish than I knew existed. Some are still alive and flip-flopping for attention. Others are left dead and whole, others (large tunas, it seems) are already cut into sections. There are, of course, loads of shrimp, squid, prawns, and small crabs. **Notice all the people looking at me taking their picture. We were even more of a draw with camera in hand.

We've been lucky and the pineapple lady has been there for the last few days. We just tell her how many pineapples we want; usually hai dua thom and she grabs a couple of ripe ones and cuts it up for us right there and then. She uses a big butcher knife to cut off the skin (is that what it's called on a pineapple?), then does this fancy little spiral cut around it to take out the "eyes" (right?). I've gotten pretty good at doing myself, but often I'm lazy and let her do it for me. I gotta be lazy sometimes.

And the vegetable are sold from at least a dozen little sellers, mostly selling the exact same thing: poatoes, onions, squash, garlic, carrots, and a few other unnameable vegetables. Today, a new one was found: stick-length green beans. I had no idea they could grow this long, nor can I figure out exactly how they do it, but do it they must. We saw them at several sellers, so it must be the season for gargantuan green beans.

And as we've only seen in Thanh Hoa.. the horse-drawn cart. On the opposite side of the road is the entrance to the market, complete with requisite booths and motorbike parking.

Strange sighting of the day

A girl holding her hair up so it wouldn't get tangled in the spokes of the bike she was hitching a ride on. Probably a good idea considering the length and the extraordinary pain that would result from the hair/bike combo. Ouch!

Long hair seems to be particularly admired here. There are daily sighting of hair to the knees, but yesterday we saw a girl with hair that fell almost to her ankles.