Manchester United

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2nd July
First morning in Hue consisted of a blitzing visit to the orphanages. The youngest child we saw was a two month old baby at An Hoa. I have been placed mainly with young children ages 7-14 which suits me fine but there’s one placement where I look after and play with 2 toddlers. I’m not sure I’d be terribly keen on being toileted on by the youngest babies! There’s a fair bit of teaching in Hue, though obviously not with the youngest children. In Vietnam education is not free but in the orphanages the education is provided for by the government, with charity assistance, or solely funded by charities. In many of the orphanages there are several children who do in fact have parents but they are simply too poor to offer to their children what these orphanages do. Later that afternoon, I had to do my first lesson plan for Thuy Xuan orphanage, the orphanage where I now spend most of my time. We looked at colours, objects, animals and then matched colours to various things. Some things they already knew but apart from that their English is at a rather basic level. This orphanage probably know more French than English because they are funded by a French charity. Later that evening I went out with a few of the volunteers to a tea garden/cafe/bar for a drink, watching rats jumping over the water feature, fish swimming in the pond and the Vietnamese version of the numa numa song playing in the background.

6th July
In Vietnam, I say I come from Oxford but I live in Manchester thus avoiding the usual response I get from mentioning the word Oxford. However, this creates it’s own problems because not only have everyone in Vietnam heard of Manchester United but it is also their favourite team. This initiates a conversation about football and ultimately the question as to whether I am a supporter. Through experience I have found it better to simply say yes as they are always much happier and conversational with this response. The Vietnamese tradition of giving you the answer you want to hear (if they don’t know) rather than the actual answer leading to tricky problems when asking for directions. In the afternoon, after doing a little bit of shopping, I was on my way back home with a flat tire when I met two cyclo drivers. They were very nice and pointed this out, calling out another guy and started chatting. Manchester United came up and guess what? It was their favourite team! The third guy came and pumped up my tires for me for free while I chatted with these cyclo drivers who made me promise to come back and visit them. I have found people in this central region incredibly friendly and welcoming plus so keen to learn English. Completely unlike Saigon where it’s all money money money. I went home with the intention of packing for my weekend trip to Hoi An but this got left to the very last minute and involved throwing everything in a bag just as the taxi was arriving. I did however find a lovely penguin chocolate bar until I realised it had been on 3 flights, numerous other travels, persistent melting and resolidifying, attacked by ants and crushed by books. Needless to say I didn’t eat it.

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Comments

[Annie Sloan]

Gekko
Love the gekko - do you remember I used to sell beaded wire ones in the shop? Annie