School Visits

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Guess what we did on Monday morning - went to school! Ngan and Mr. Khai took us to visit a local private school (k-12). We met with the principal of the upper school and the lower school. Once again, Ngan served as translator. Each time we were served green tea during the visit and spent lots of time smiling and nodding! Their elementary school is grades k-5 and the upper school is grades 6-12. We visited the upper school first. Jed was swarmed by a group of 6th grade boys who were quite excited to see all of us. He said it was like being attacked by a gang of Konnors (a friend from home who is “really hyper and woo woo woo all the time”). The kids could not get over how big Josh was - and then called the biggest kid they knew to come to meet us and take a picture with us. Turns out he also spoke impressively good English.
Josh noticed that the kids in class were very well behaved and attentive, more so than students at home. But once they were outside the classroom they were pretty much as loud and boisterous as American kids are. We visited the elementary classroom and the kids all stood up to say “hello” when we walked in. It was a fourth-grade class in which they were studying traditional Vietnamese literature. Just before we left the teacher asked the class if they would sing us a song. Before we knew it, they were singing Jingle Bells to us in English. We all thought that was pretty funny. We took a quick visit to the lunchroom, which was definitely as loud as any school lunchroom I have ever been in. Jed found the little gymnasium upstairs and it had two basketball hoops - each one with a 6-foot rim. That was definitely pretty fun for him!
We had lunch at a great outdoor restaurant right next to Hoan Kiem Lake, around the corner from our hotel. The sun came out for the first time since we arrived, and the temperature shot up to the upper 80s (at least, that’s what if felt like). In the afternoon, Ngan took Josh to visit her old high school, Hanoi Amsterdam. The sophomore class was doing a project on American culture and Josh got to serve in the role of outside expert. He had a great time answering questions and playing the role of authority on all things American. They talked a lot about politics, debate and also applying to colleges. I think the highlight was that Josh got to ride on a motorcycle taxi to get there.

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