Snow Day in Vietnam!? Cyclone Day rather...

Elsbeth writing…

Yet again, it’s been a long time since I last posted an update and much has happened, so grab a cup of coffee, get comfortable, and be prepared for a long blog.

I like the idea one of my CELTA groupies had for her blog. So here’s the short version first if you are in a hurry (which I know many of you usually are): We moved into our new house last Friday, I’m renting a motorbike today, and Monday we had a “snow day” because we were supposed to get a Cyclone, which never came.

Now here’s the long, overly-detailed version. Where to start? We’ll go in chronological order. Many of you probably already know that Ellyn was mugged over a week ago—last Sunday. It was pretty crap that it happened to her, but we can be thankful that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. She was already laughing about it within a few hours.

Last week was another busy week. We started our Vietnamese class. It was good, but the pronunciation is so difficult. You have to remember what all the accents mean and get them exactly right in order to be even slightly comprehensible with a native speaker. It does put your own English teaching into perspective, though.

We also went to the orphanage in Vung Tau for the first time last week. It was a good experience. I was asked if I could teach adult classes there (to the staff and older kids) for an hour each Saturday. I’m thinking about it, but I’ll do something there for sure. We’ll see. The kids were really sweet and after taking a tour of the facility we tutored them for an hour in English. Then we took them next door to a Vietnamese café/shop. The kids got pop and we had Vietnamese coffee. It comes with this little filter contraption which is placed over your cup. You wait a little bit for the coffee to filter through and then pour it into a cup of ice for iced coffee. Although I’m not big on coffee, it’s pretty good. I know you’d love it, mom and dad :-). It was a clean little shop, a nice place to sit, but obviously poorer as many of the shops here are. The kids seemed to have a good relationship with the friendly, parental owners.

On Thursday we had our second day of football at the beach. It was a lot of fun. Although playing with a bunch of big guys—and me obviously being small—you can’t walk away with out a few scraps, bruises, and painfully stubbed toes. We also went swimming, but the waves were freakishly high and dirty. It was high tide and I didn’t want to venture out very far. I could just feel the rip tide tugging me at waist deep. I banged my head anyway trying to body board.

Then we moved into our new home—an actual house this time—on Friday. There were three people living here already—two guys and a lady, all teachers at ILA. She moved out the other day and we moved up to her bedroom, which is quite nice. It’s spacious, has nice furniture, there’s a balcony, and windows that let in lots of light. The best part, however, is the spa/sauna/shower in the bathroom. I have to admit it was a bit intimidating trying to figure this thing out, but I think I’ll like it. It’s way fancier than anything I’ve ever had at home, although I still really miss our good-old-fashioned sauna. The two guys are still here. They’re really nice, but one is planning to leave at the end of the month (maybe?), so one of us will take his room. It should be a good place to live. I’m glad we are FINALLY settled in.

This weekend wasn’t super eventful. Now that we have some money Ellyn and I went shopping. She rented a motorbike on Saturday. Today I’m finally going in to rent a motorbike. I’ve looked around a bit and the one I was looking at wasn’t available a few days ago. Anyway, we’re contemplating just buying bikes and then selling them later…there’s pros and cons to that though. I can’t wait to get my own bike and be more independent. Steve taught me to drive to on Sunday. It’s pretty nerve-raking driving with the traffic here in Vung Tau. I also still need to get coordinated with all the new shifts and levers, but hopefully I’ll get used to it soon. The drivers here are crazy. I thought the traffic was nuts in HCMC, but it’s worse here because not only are they faster, they’re lazier drivers.

Ellyn and I also bought some heavy-duty, Space Balls-style helmets. We also bought cell phones. Sad, I was enjoying my freedom without a phone attached to me wherever I went (not that I ever talked on it much), but it’s good to have one now. We also got into a very maternal phase this weekend. We cleaned up the place a bit, threw the filthy rags which lined the floor in a corner and replaced them with new rag rugs, bought garbage cans, towels, and did laundry.

Then we had a “snow day” in Vietnam on Monday because there was supposed to be a cyclone heading our way. However, it never even reached us and the day was only pleasantly overcast. We were already at school when we got the news. I was quickly trying to prepare lessons and contemplating only going to the first hour of Vietnamese lessons, so it was a fantastic relief. Wohoo, three-day weekend! They were really battening down the hatches in the Co-op Mart across the street when we went in to get a few things. They were putting colorful tarps over all the cases and sections of the store. I’m not sure if it was because of the cyclone or renovation. We ended up bumming around that night. We went to Tommy’s Bar and had nachos. Yum. It was a pretty long, lazy weekend in Vung Tau as usual.

So now it’s almost the weekend again. Today I’m gearing up for another game of beach football. I think I’ll wear shoes this time….