Rural Development in the Mekong Delta

Hi everyone! Sorry not to have posted in a long time, but I literally never have a single free moment! Co Thanh has scheduled us completely solid, so it’s been really hard for me to find any time to write more than my journal! Anyway, I spent the past two weeks in the Mekong Delta! We headed down south to learn about Vietnamese agriculture and rural development! It was the perfect place to go because the Mekong is the epitome of a developing agriculturally based economy! It’s going to be impossible to write down every single thing that happened, but I’m going to try to talk about some of the highlights of the past two weeks! Here goes!

We drove 4 hours south from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho along the brand new highway, which is Vietnam’s first. Everyone in Vietnam seems to be very proud of this thing, like it is going to bring them more prosperity as a result. We were able to drive much faster than on the road to Dalat since it’s 4 lane. Drove past beautiful rice paddies the entire way. Crossed huge bridge over Mekong River, then had to take a ferry to cross the 2^nd part of the river. Co Thanh says we are some of the last to use the ferry since a new bridge is almost completed. Never used a ferry before, so enjoyed the experience! We arrived at our hotel, which in Can Tho which is a really nice place. We had a lecture from a renowned professor from Can Tho University on agricultural development. A lot of it pertained to my potential ISP topic, so I was very interested and made sure to get his email address so I could email him in the future with questions. Co Thanh says he is very famous in Vietnam, and I believe it. He was late to fly to Hanoi to meet with some government people about agricultural development in Vietnam. Really interesting lecture!

That night we went to a local restaurant to meet the other SIT Vietnam students! The other program is based in the Mekong and is focused on ecological issues. I think I got the better program because I get to travel all throughout Vietnam! I didn’t talk with them very much because I was at the end of the table with some Vietnamese students from Can Tho University. We talked and enjoyed our dinner, then returned to our hotel , which has a really fun rooftop. Beautiful city (bigger than I expected—millions of people), and they have glowing kites flying clear up high in the sky, much higher than any building—I thought they were UFO’s at first! Two Vietnamese students joined us on the roof and we had a fun time getting to know them! More nice people, I love meeting new friends!

The next day we visited the floating market of Can Tho, with a pit stop at a rice noodle farm! We walked down the street and through a back alley to the bank of the Mekong River. We climbed into a long, rickety, looks-homemade boat, and headed off into the Mekong. It was so cool to see all the houses lining the side of the river and learn how these people live their lives—the Mekong is life. We boated about 15 minutes up the river and through some side canals to a small family house. The family makes rice cakes and sells them at the market. We were taught the process that they do every day. They make 1000 of these rice cakes per day. They look like huge rice crepes, about 1 foot in diameter. The liquid is placed on a big heated drum and spread around into a circle, where it cooks in about 30 seconds. Then a girl takes a big wooden mallet and wraps the crepe around it to move it to the bamboo sheets for storage and transport. I got to try making the pancake—a lot harder than expected. We then toured the rest of their home. The family also raises pigs and sells them. I helped water the pigs, thinking *swine flu* the whole time, but I got the vaccine so I’m sure I’m ok!

We loaded back into the boat and boated up the river to the floating market. Such a cool experience to see all these boats pulled together (some have make-shift engines, some are paddled by Vietnamese standing on the back like a Venetian gondolier. Everyone was selling fresh produce, throwing it back and forth between boats and yelling back and forth. We drove through waving at the locals, smiling at the few other tourists on fancy boats driving through, and buying fruit along the way. We bought watermelon and bananas-delicious! Didn’t spend much time, but its not like you can get out and look around---everything happens in the middle of the river!

We kept moving up the river to meet a local farmer, Bac Hai at his house. We were dropped off by the boat captain and were welcomed to the My Khanh Village, a large river village with 10,000 people. They are a developing village that is using sustainable and advanced development techniques in their production. We met with The Chairman of the Village’s People’s Committee, The President of the Women’s Association, and the President of the Farmer’s Association in the village. We learned a lot about their different model for rural development, focused on organic and sustainable farming. They have an integrated farming system called VACB which means Garden, Pond, Pigsty, and Biodigester. They are trying to make all the small local family farms use this model for their farming. We got a tour of their little farm. Basically they raise pigs, rinse their feces into a 20 foot container on the ground (mixed with the household excrement), where it decomposes in 30 days into methane gas and organic fertilizer. They collect the methane gas to use for their own cooking, and use the fertilizer for their fish pond to feed their fish. They then harvest the fish and use the fertile silt from the bottom of the pond to fertilize their fruit garden. It’s a really neat system and is almost completely sustainable. SIT has funded and helped build their biodigester and a few other biodigesters in the area, so it was really special to see how helpful the past students’ work was.

Later we drove to Hoa An, which is a small town located in the poorest province in the Mekong Delta. We stayed for a week in the Hoa An Biodiversity Center, living in dormitory style accommodations. We had 2 rooms, with 6 and 6. Guys and girls are put together in the same room. We have bunk beds with mosquito nets around us because the bugs are REALLY bad down here! There is a full staff of experts devoted to agricultural and rural development within the Mekong, as well as a full staff of cooked us delicious food for every meal! The Center is focused on technical training, microfinance, and sustainable development.

We then ventured out into the surrounding area, guided by a director of the center, Phat, who took us down a road through rice paddies and huge grass fields. Surrounding all the rice paddies are trenches dug down each side filled with water. This is where the farmers are raising fish and shrimp. Since it is the dry season, the water is very low. During the rainy season the paddies would be full of water. Hoa An is a ways away from the actual Mekong river, so farming here is a little more difficult because its hard to regulate the amount of water going in and out. The soil is very acidic so the farmers must choose crops that can survive in different soil conditions.

We heard a lecture from the assistant director of the Hoa An BioCenter on the center’s functions, which are technical assistance to farmers and laborers in developing new methods for production, and also microfinance. The microfinance is very interesting they have two projects: one is funded by OxFamUK and is a small program (started at $1500 and is now around $3500) that has set up a group called the Saving Women Groups. These groups consist of 15-25 women on a rotary basis. They are able to apply for micro loans of around 1 million dong that they can use to improve their lives. The other group is larger (about 4million dong per loan) and is a partnership with Michigan State University and Can Tho University. They always provide free technical service to the people who they give the loans to, to try to make sure that their new endeavors are successful.

One afternoon we were assigned to teams of two, given a translator, and told to head out into the field to interview two families each about their daily lives. I was paired with Amy, and Co Thanh acted as our translator. We were heading to really rural homes far from Hoa An Center, so we hopped on the back of some guy’s motorbike (no idea who he was) and were driven down the highway, through the town, and up a gravel road along the river for 15 minutes. We were riding through areas of shacks, but they were all right along the river and it was a beautiful drive. There were bridges we crossed where my legs were literally hanging over the water because they were so narrow. Really fun trip. We were dropped off clear in the boonies and walked over a bridge along the river. We had to cross the river once more, but had to use a monkey bridge, which is basically some tree branches tied together, one to walk on and one to hold as you shimmy across. Seriously wobbly and shaky, and high above the polluted water (15 feet) but I made it across! We walked into the second shack we saw and were greeted by a woman and her adorable children. We were introduced, and using Co Thanh as the translator, interviewed this woman about her life. We all sat on the floor of her shack, which is just open to the outdoors, and she turned a fan on and gave us some bananas and some soda. She was from a few towns over and had originally been landless, but the government had given her the land she was on when her father died. He had been a war veteran and so they had given the land to his wife, who then gave it to her children. She and her husband are laborers and they have 2 children, 4 and 9. They were wonderful to meet. She told me she is very involved in the Saving Women’s Group (from Hoa An Center) and had gotten loans from that group in the past. She raised pigs, fish, and eels while her husband labored in the construction business. We talked about the effectiveness of the local government, about her cultural traditions associated with Tet Holiday, about her children’s education, her other associations, etc. She showed us around her land, and we gave her a present of MSG and other spices as a gift for welcoming us.

We walked to the next house to interview and found out that the woman was the sister in-law of the previous woman. Thus she had a similar story. She gave us some iced coffee and we talked with the woman and her husband. They have a young daughter and a son who was 16, although I thought he was 8 or 9. Not sure if he has some kind of physical problems like malnutrition, but he was tiny. His mother told me he had “lost his motivation” for school and had dropped out that year. They didn’t know whether or not he would be able to go to technical school, although they did want him to get an education so he wouldn’t have to be a laborer forever. I hope he does go back to school! We finished our interview with the other family (who also got lots of loans from the Hoa An Center) and said our goodbyes and gave our gift. Such an interesting experience. Glad to have Co Thanh with us because we were able to fully understand each other!

One day we learned about and participated in organic farming! We were picked up by the river by a “special boat.” It was pretty typical for the rivers around here, put together with old wooden boards and powered by a make-shift motor and small propeller at the end of a long pole. What made it special was a little plaque inside of it that said “Funded by SIT.” Apparently, a previous semester’s class had pooled their money together for this guy to buy him a boat since he had no way of getting the produce that he’d grown to the market. Co Thanh and previous students had built him a biodigester the year before and the students had decided to buy him a boat!

He drove 6 of us in the boat down the river to his house (the other students walked) and we got out at his neighbor’s farm, which was the home of another family that had been given a biodigester by SIT. They had a plaque in their garden that said Biodigester Funded by SIT. Really cool to see how these things have affected their lives so drastically. The pond in their yard was also paid for by SIT students. As a symbol of gratitude, the farmer had us go fishing in his pond for our lunch! We got some long bamboo rods, tied strings to them, and put whole live shrimp at the bottom. We all sat around for about 20 minutes and pulled about 10. We then walked across the long monkey bridge over the river to the other farmer’s house to sit down and learn about the process of organic farming. There are six steps involved. We went through the 6 steps with Phat, one of the directors from the Hoa An Center. After he taught us the steps, we went out to learn how to do it firsthand. We had to create piles of compost. First we made a stack of grass in about a 6x5ft area that consisted of 6 layers of grass about 6 inches deep each. After we made each layer, we would soak it with a mixture of water from the river and a fungus powder. When we had completed all the layers, we put a tarp over the pile that would stay there for 3 months while the fungus broke down the compost.

We then moved to step two, which was to turn the compost into bio-compost. To do this, we took one of the piles that had been sitting for 3 months, broke it apart, and moved it into another pile, again in layers. By then it looked more like dirt. As we created the layers, we soaked everything water mixed with a bacteria. This would turn it into a bio-organic matter that could then be used as fertilizer!

After step 2, we moved into their mosquito-net covered field (since they don’t use pesticides) to learn how to fertilize the ground. I was assigned to hoe the ground and prepare it for the fertilizer. It was such hard work to break up the ground into little pieces, and by then it was around noon so the sun was beating down. Plus the heat was intensified in the net, so the whole job was pretty miserable. When we had sufficiently broken down the ground, the girls came around and threw the fertilizer all over the two rows we’d made. We watched the farmer as he taught us how to plant the seedlings . We then went over and picked some green beans and lettuce that had already grown for our lunch! We had lunch that was provided by the farmers. We ate the fish we caught, plus rice and wonderful vegetables from their garden that we had just picked! Delicious meal and so kind of them to welcome us to their home! They had two sons (11 and ??—I think the malnourishment here makes them so small because I can never guess their ages). After lunch we returned to Hoa An Center. Walked back to the van this time, which was neat because I crossed all these crazy little monkey bridges, and tons of family homes (shacks). It is nice to be able to wave to the familes I passed and say hello (I’m getting good enough at Vietnamese that I can say hello to adults and children and ask them how they are and a few other things—finally)!

The next day we installed the biodigester at the farmer’s house! We woke up early for breakfast, and quickly got ready to go. We walked about a mile down the gravel road that we’d been down on our forest walk previously. At the end of the road, we hopped into two boats—one was the SIT boat that we’d been in the day before, driven by the farmer we’d spent the day learning about organic farming with, as well as a new farmer who owned the house we were going to work at. I guess all these canals and channels are connected—someone told me that you could take a boat from just outside of Saigon all the way down the Mekong Delta! Anyway we had about a 10 minute boat ride down the river—still love waving to the locals as we ride down the river—everyone stops what they are doing to stare at us. Most of these people have never seen foreigners in person before—I feel lucky to be able to find a place that’s still so untouched.

Anyway we arrived at the farmers house and were introduced to his family—husband and wife, with two kids. They were an extremely poor family—no electricity in their house. They have about 10 pigs, a pond which they use to raise fish, an outhouse, and a small field of rice. We immediately jumped right into the project. The day before, the experts from the Hoa An Center had come to dig the 20 foot trench for the biodigester. They dug it the day before with a large team. Wish they had let us dig the entire thing, but they were worried that because it’s the hot, dry season, that we wouldn’t get it done in time. Anyway, they left some for us to dig, which we did pretty quickly. The soil is basically fully clay, and it was heavy and hard to move. I was happy to have my conical hat in the blazing sun and humidity. When we finished digging, we were taught how to install the biodigester. We went around front and assembled the apparatus, with Bac Bay, the biodigester expert, and Phat, the Hoa An Center manager directing us. It’s basically a big bag with 3 layers, tied around pipes on each end. We made another, smaller bag to hold the methane with 2 layers of thick plastic. We used old strips of tire to make tight seals and wire and duct tape to secure everything. We then placed the bag in the trench, connected the pipes from the bag to the latrine and pigsty, then Lily and I made a brick enclosure around the entrance of the pipes and bag—with mortar and bricks (with the help of Phat, the farmer, and the Hoa An Center experts. We hung the methane bag and connected it to the biodigester. They had to connect the methane bag to the family’s new stove the next day since the stove wasn’t quite ready. Overall, the entire process took us about 4 hours, plus however long it took to dig the trench and however long it will take to attach the stove (which isn’t long). I was amazed by how relatively easy and fast the installation of the biodigester was! These things that cost only $150 and take so little time and expertise to install can help these families so much! Very inspiring to see the reaction of the family as we finished the project—they were so grateful to us for our help! They provided us with a large, beautiful, delicious lunch in their home, cooked by the family and other women that we’d met in the previous days. Fun celebration of our work!

One day we celebrated National Women’s Day by judging a cooking competition that was cooked by a few of the Hoa An staff and a few local farmers! Co Thanh was the official judge of the three teams. The first team cooked some tofu dishes, the next cooked chicken, and the last one cooked eel and dog meat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That team won of course, and there were all these celebrations for the winning teams. We then had dinner, and we got to sample all the dishes—that’s right, I tried the DOG MEAT! It was cooked and I dipped the little piece in the sauce. I put it in my mouth and chewed, nearly gagged, but kept chewing and eventually swallowed. Honestly, it was one of the more disgusting things I’ve ever eaten—pretty sure that even if I hadn’t known what it was, I still would have thought it was terrible. It tasted like a mix of teriyaki and bm to me, so I would never recommend it! It was chewy and gritty and muscle-y—gross, but its awesome to say I’ve tried it!!!

After dinner we had our Hoa An cultural exchange! All the farmers we’ve met came with all the Hoa An Center staff to participate. We basically sang songs to each other (we sang a new song I’ve learned and really like on this trip called Wagon Wheel )and they sang multiple songs for us! Then we played this funny game where we each had to do a little performance for them and then the crowd voted which of us was SIT Hero, Miss SIT, and Friendship SIT! I had to act out a chicken, a fish, and a cat. It was very funny because apparently the animals “say” different things in the US than they do in Vietnam, so Chicken was hard for them to get! They kept guessing duck, and I’m awkwardly cockadoodledooing and miming a chicken in front of like 30 people! Anyway, they all thought it was funny and I was voted Mr. SIT! I sat in front with Lily who won Ms. SIT, and Emily, who won Ms. Friendship and we were given homemade crowns (the girls were made from flowers, and mine was made from thatch and snail shells and random thatch grasses) and were given flowers and took lots of pictures with people! The people were so excited to get to celebrate our departure with us, and everyone had a fun time!

After our week in Hoa An, we traveled to other areas of the Mekong Delta. Specifically, we visited Long Xuyen, a city that is smaller than Can Tho but still bustling with activity, and Chau Doc, a crazy little town close to the Cambodian boarder that is the home of Ba Chua Xu, or the Goddess of the Realm—a symbol of the folksy spiritual beliefs that still remain in Vietnam. We also visited Tinh Bien, a tiny little town that is comprised mostly of the Khmer ethnic minority group who originally came from Cambodia.

In Long Xuyen, Vy took Brady and I out into the town to look around. I thought it was a really neat town—a little smaller than Can Tho, but it had a really neat vibe. We explored the outdoor market, which was huge and expansive. They were selling everything from sea food to souvenirs to special pastries. It was fun to walk through because this town definitely doesn’t have many foreigners visit ever. We were the center of attention—everyone was trying to talk to us and sell things to us! I was able to use some of my Vietnamese to tell people I speak only a little Vietnamese and to tell them who I was and why I was there! Fun to be able to start interacting! Vy and Brady and I met Co Thanh for dinner at her favorite vegetarian restaurant in the town. We had a big dinner and drinks for 20,000 dong ($1). After dinner, Co Thanh treated us to some delicious smoothies from a shop on the street near our hotel—so delicious!

The next day We drove to An Giang University’s Center for Rural Development (Long Xuyen is located in An Giang province) and had a talk on the issue of Damns on the Mekong River. They were proud to show off their facilities and kept telling us to come back and study with them—they want more Americans involved in their University!! I’ve never thought before about the consequences of building a dam on the river. Because the Mekong stretches through around 6 countries, there is no single regulatory force to control the river. China refuses to cooperate with the downstream countries, who suffer from irregular water flow, ocean salinity penetration, etc.

After lunch, we left Long Xuyen for Chau Doc, the center of Vietnam’s folksy religion! We checked into a hotel and had a brief lesson about Ba Chua Xu, the Goddess of the Realm. She is apparently some kind of goddess statue that many Vietnamese make pilgrimages to because it is believed that she can provide health, success, happiness, etc. We walked up to her pagoda through a town that I can really only describe as weird—definitely the weirdest place I’ve been in Vietnam—not sure why, maybe related to the folksy religion. We entered the pagoda with the permission of the police. The whole place was packed with people who were praying and making offerings to the Lady of the Realm. The statue was inside (no photos allowed) and it was basically a large, colorfully painted stone lady surrounded by incense and other symbolic objects. Behind her were swirling neon lights and color wheels. The haze of the incense, the people wailing and praying, and falling to the ground, plus the lady surrounded by the swirling colors, it reminded me of a scene from a movie where someone tries acid or something for the first time. Very weird and extremely gaudy—this place was unlike any other religious site I’ve ever been to!

After that we walked to Sam Mountain (where the lady was supposedly found) and climbed up the steps that go all the way up the mountain. There are little stands all the way up, a few small pagodas run by nuns, rest stations with hundreds of hammocks overlooking the mountain, and what appeared to be a few homes. We climbed up for about half an hour (the mountain isn’t too tall) to see the view from the top. Gorgeous! The mountain is mostly surrounded by rice fields, so we got to watch the sun set. On one side of the mountain was the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, which was cool to see. We met some Americans, a group of British kids, and a few Germans at the top, which was funny and unexpected in this small town! After sitting for a while, admiring the sunset, I headed to the mountaintop altar, where there was a group of Vietnamese people praying. One lady there turned out to be a medium, and as I got there she started entering a trance. She suddenly flopped down on her knees, and started scooting all around the altar, yelling and singing. She took out some money, got up and ran down a few steps to where Brady was standing and gave him the money. At this point she was laughing like crazy and she started to try to get others to laugh with her. She danced around some more, then grabbed a woman from the audience and suddenly started to hit her. I think she was hitting out bad spirits or something, because the woman did not protest or react, instead she seemed to be going along with it. I was filming the whole thing, but at this point, I started to feel uncomfortable, so I left, and we all walked down the mountain together.

The next day we traveled to Tinh Bien where we stopped at the meeting hall for the town’s People’s Committee. There, we met with the vice-chairman of the People’s Committee, and also with a few representatives from the CARE organization that were working on a project called the Pacode Project, which basically works with the ethnic minorities (especially the women) in the town. Most of the people in that town were Khmer, or people of Cambodian decent. They have remained closed off from Viet culture for a very long time and only now is the government trying to help them improve their lives. The Pacode project is a mix of microfinancing, education, and technical assistance, much like the Hoa An projects. After this we went to Cam Mountain to look at the Pacode implementation process. This mountain is the home to many Khmer people, so we had a very interesting time learning about the help they were giving this community. This was at the top of the mountain, so we piled into SUV’s that took us up the steep grade of the mountain that our bus couldn’t have handled. The Pacode Project’s biggest achievement was the recent completion of a sanitary well that the people could use as a source of water.

After viewing the well we traveled to the very top of the mountain to view the giant Buddha statue that was just recently built to attract tourists to the mountain. There was a beautiful view, lake, pagoda, and Buddha at the top, a nice, albeit, touristy stop. We met with a Khmer lady, and Carol, who’s parents are from Cambodia, was able to talk fluently with her, which was really neat for her and for us to hear.

After Cam Mountain we headed to the Tra Su forest, a national park that had been a “forgotten forest” for decades. This place isn’t even a tourist destination for the Vietnamese—it’s literally in the middle of nowhere—it took us an hour of driving on dusty roads through fields to get to a place where we had to leave the bus, walk to a boat, then walk some more. We finally got into another boat and entered the forest. It was unbelievably beautiful and untouched—it reminded me of swamp scenes in Jurassic Park, because everywhere, there were these beautiful white birds. It was a mangrove forest, so we had to take a boat to get through it. The water was covered in bright green algae—it was like a magical forest! So beautiful! We took a boat through the waterways, we got stuck 3 times on shallow areas and narrow passages, but made it to our lunch destination! It was a beautiful hut overlooking the river and forest with a beautiful meal prepared by the warden of the forest and his wife!! We had a feast in this “forgotten forest” and everyone was really in awe of how beautiful the scene was. The warden and his wife were so nice to welcome us, and he told us to come back to visit again! After lunch we got into some row boats, and a guy paddled us silently through the forest, so we could look at the birds and beautiful scenery in peace. Such a beautiful ride! At one point we rounded a corner, and hundreds and hundreds of white birds suddenly took flight all around us! Of course our two boats were the only ones around, so we felt like we’d truly entered a forgotten, enchanted forest! Wow!

After we returned to Ho Chi Minh City, we quickly began our 2 week-long homestay! I packed up my bags and met my homestay brother, Son, in the main lobby! He’s a great guy! 18 years old, really fun, nice, and great at English! He helped me get all my heavy bags to the cab, and we headed off to the Ban Tinh district, which is about a 15 or 20 minute ride from the UEH! The district seems to be very nice, but mostly Vietnamese—I haven’t seen a single white person in this district yet!! Woohoo!! His house is down a quiet alley and is definetly one of those really tall and narrow houses. He welcomed me into his house, where I met his younger brother, Minh, who I’d met before at the restaurant all those weeks ago, his mother, and his father! The mother, Ha works as a professor of accounting at UEH, and the father, Thai works as a project manager for a construction firm in HCMC. All were kind and welcoming! They have a maid, Co Hai that cooks and cleans and lives in their house like one of their own family! The house is really nice with 3 floors, and I feel very lucky to be here! They gave me my own room and bathroom, but that means that Son has to sleep downstairs on the couch. I’m definitely going to offer to have him share the bed with me, because I feel really bad displacing him!

I went out to meet the neighborhood! Everyone was a little shy to meet me, but soon we were all playing badminton together! I’m so terrible, but everyone thought that was pretty funny!

The family was so kind because they cooked things that they thought would remind me of home, including a salad (which I haven’t had in forever, so I loved that) and then they put out a huge thing of butter (rare in Vietnam) and they had gone out to buy a large bottle of mayo! I didn’t eat much of either because I wasn’t really thinking that they thought that I would love to have those things. Later they said they were confused because they thought that Americans always ate butter and mayonnaise! I felt bad not to have eaten more and quickly tried to add some more butter to my bread (which Son and I had gone to pick up on his motorbike!)

Anyway, after dinner, Son and Minh and I met up with some of his friends, including Can (??) who I’d met before, and we all met up with a few of their friends, and drove all over the town on motorbikes and then went to a beautiful coffee shop that overlooked the city, and was literally at the end of the international airport runway! We had 747’s flying over us all the time, as we sat in the cool breeze and had rum drinks! So fun, and such a surprise to find these kids who like to have a good time as much as American kids do! We had a great time, and we plan on seeing each other again soon!

My homestay family organized a xe om driver to pick me up and take me to class every morning since the family is all gone to school and work by the time I leave. The driver picks me up at 7:45 and we drove slowly, all the way to school through rush hour traffic! What a crazy crazy mess! Probably a little more dangerous than I care to think about, we rush in between motorbikes and cars and busses..there was even a motorbike next to me that hit the bus and went toppling over! I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve hit other motorbikes, or my arm gets hit by another bike’s handle bars. If people think the traffic is bad in the touristy areas (as I did), they would be shocked at how crazy the traffic is and how far it stretches down the long street to the school!

Son and I had to go register with the police that I was staying in their home. We had to make photocopies of my passport, visa, and entry card. It’s a little unsettling to think that I’m being tracked everywhere I go, but fascinating to see the process first hand!

Son and Minh and I have had a ton of fun together these past few days. I really like both of them. We’ve been playing cards, listening to music, helping each other with our homework, driving around the town, telling stories, eating together, going for dessert, and many other great thigns. I’ve been up till 3am the past 3 nights hanging out with Son, watching movies, and just talking. He’s a really great guy, I’m glad that I’m getting to know him better! His friends are all so nice, and every time we see them, they all try to speak in English, even to each other, so that I can be included in the conversation! Toi rat vui, as they say, I am very happy!

That’s all for now, sorry this blog is a little more rushed than my others, but I just wanted to let everyone know what I’ve been doing! It’s been over a month in Vietnam now and the excitement of being here is still present! There are times in class when I forget where I am and why I’m working so hard and long on this difficult language, but then, when I race through the foreign streets, alleys, on the motorbike, smelling all the foods, seeing things I never imagined I could see, it all comes flooding back—oh yah, I’m in Vietnam right now. Everything I know, can relate to, is all literally on the other side of the world. I am just really happy to be living this experience to the fullest!