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Published: February 9th 2009
Beachfront restaurant
Kim's friend owns this restaurant and we are free to pop in anytime to lounge around the pool area or take a dip in the ocean. Now to make you all super jealous, I will update you on the latest adventure that I've embarked on! I am staying in a smaller city on the coast of Vietnam called Nha Trang. There are about 300,000 people here and it is a beach town. There are a lot of foreign tourists who visit the area and hotels are springing up every month. Of course the world economic slowdown has everyone worried and the woman who runs the bar where I work says that business is already down 30%. This is the high season here, and there are vacancies everywhere.
The woman who runs the bar is Kim Le. She's a 58 year old woman with a heart of gold and an iron fist. She lived in Canada for 10 years, but returned to Nha Trang and quit her computer programming job to start a bar. She now owns several other businesses in town. She wanted to address the problem of homeless kids, kids who spend their days hawking to tourists and don't go to school and kids who are drawn into prostitution. She opened a drop in school (2 classrooms) at the back of her bar and staffs
Garlic Fried Shrimp
Delicious, but a lot of work to each. Cost - approx$1.15 it with volunteers that she puts up at a house she has rented. There are 5 of us staying at the house. I have my own bedroom. One of my colleagues at the house is Gloria who is a retired airline employee. She and I have hit it off well and chum together. The other three volunteers are much younger but great kids. Christina and Mark are from Luxembourg and are both 18, just graduated from high school and wandering around the world trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. The 5th volunteer is Leanne, a beautiful 23 year old from Manchester England. She recently graduated from university but with the economic situation in England, she's not able to find work in her field. So she's decided to stomp around the world for a while and hope that things get better back home. We're a very compatable group. Gloria and I are the den mothers making sure the "kids" have a fully stocked fridge, and they make sure us "more mature" ladies have great adventures. Yesterday, the kids took us to their favorite restaurant, "The Bull's Penis". Actually the food was great. I didn't try
Bull's penis which was on the menu (tastes like beef but is kind of chewy) and I watched Mark chow down on Roasted Sparrow. I didn't have the heart to eat the sparrow either, but I did try a little of Leanne's roasted porcupine.
We are just getting started giving classes to the "kids" which range in age from about 10 to 25. There are a lot of College and University kids who only go to school for half days and they come for conversation practice. The younger kids are still celebrating Tet and haven't really started coming. Maybe tomorrow. I'll update you next time on the school and the young people I work with.
Love ya!
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Darlene Chorney
non-member comment
Hi Flo - what a brave sole you are!!
Hi Flo - I am so proud your courage and am in awe of your adventure! You look healthy and happy and I can't wait to hear more news of your trip. Thank you for including me on your blog - take good care! Darlene