Category Archives: WorkingHardOrHardlyWorking

Continued Adventures

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I have been a busy boy lately. From Feb. 20th – Mar. 3rd I was working at Dong Thap Community College in Dong Thap province, which is in the South, in the Mekong delta. Once I got back to Hanoi I had lots of running around to do: a meeting in Ha Tay; a workshop to attend; an English class to teach at a college in the outskirts of Hanoi. And last weekend, from Mar. 15th – 18th, I was working at Lao Cai Community College in Lao Cai province, which is in the mountains very near the border with China.

Along the way I was able to take some pictures–mostly in Dong Thap and Lao Cai–so instead of typing on and on, I’ll just share some pictures and fill in the blanks with words where necessary.

While I was in Dong Thap I had plenty of work to do, but we still had time for some exploring. One one occasion they took me to see a few pagodas…

…such as this one. The pagoda/Buddhist culture seems different in the South. There appeared to be more Buddhists there than at most pagodas I have visited in the North. Next, we went to the house that was owned by the Chinese man that a young Marguerite Duras had an affair with many years ago:

It has become a bit of a tourist attraction in Dong Thap, as Duras has written about the whole thing in her memoirs (and there was even a movie about it!). It’s a very old house, but very nicely preserved and decorated on the inside:

Finally, before having a beer-filled lunch and returning to Dong Thap Community College, we went to a local garden/nursery to look at trees and flowers:

On my second-last day in Dong Thap, we had another excursion. They took me to Tram Chim Park. Tram Chim is a wetlands area, home to many different kinds of birds–the most special of all being the Sarus Crane. We took boats down the winding river…

(check out the motor!) Eventually we got to a lookout tower and went up to see what we could see.

Sadly, there were no Cranes on that day. Our guide told us that they only stop here 1 or 2 months out of the year, and that they eat a certain kind of tuber that grows here.

Once we were done trying to find birds with the binoculars they gave us, we hopped back in the boats and took a different route back, and had lunch in the town nearby.

We had the biggest shrimp (prawns? I’m never sure..) that I’ve ever seen!

Lao Cai, on the other hand, was a very different sort of place. Dong Thap is in a river delta, and Lao Cai is up in the mountains. Since I was only in Lao Cai for 3 days, I didn’t have much time for sight-seeing, but I did get to spend one morning out in Lao Cai City with 2 of the teachers that I was working with there. We went to see two pagodas that are near the border with China. There is only a small-ish river separating China from Vietnam, and there is a border crossing there for Chinese and Vietnamese to cross back-and-forth.

Look, it’s China!

This bridge is only for people walking back and forth, but I’m told there is another border crossing somewhere else for cars and trucks.

I didn’t really take any pictures in the pagodas that we went to. The most remarkable thing about the first pagoda we went to was the huge tree outside of it. I couldn’t get any good shots of it–they all turned out badly–so this is the best I could do:

Also, there was a little park next door that had statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. Here I am with my friend, the rat:

That’s all for this update; check back soon for new pictures of Jane!

Year of the Dragon

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Hi! Happy New Year!

It’s about time I gave you all an update, isn’t it? December and January were very busy months. Where shall I begin..?

Work was busier than usual until mid-January. During the second week of December WUSC organized the annual Uniterra Review and Planning workshop with all of the volunteers and partner oranizations. Shortly after that, I went back to a familiar place (Ha Tay Community College) to facilitate two short workshops about soft skills (presentation skills and teamwork/team-building skills). The last big thing, which I spent a lot of time preparing for, was another workshop which I facilitated in Hue at the beginning of January; the topics were Learning Management Systems and Information Security. The last week-ish before Tet holiday, which started on January 19th, was spent winding down and wrapping up a few small tasks.

Jane has also been growing and changing a lot, as usual! She’s walking really well now, and talking up a storm. She seems to understand almost everything (in Vietnamese, at least) and can learn to say new words and sounds very quickly. Some English words are harder, as they’re long and have too many syllables, but her Vietnamese is really good so far.

It was really nice to be home for almost two weeks during Tet. It was good for Jane and I to spend more time together everyday.

You can see a few more pictures of Jane, Hien and I from Tet here.

This year the weather wasn’t very nice during Tet–mostly cold and rainy–so we didn’t get out too much, but we still managed to visit Hien’s parent’s hometowns and visited a few of Hien’s friends as well. But most of the time was spent at home waiting for people to come visit us! Well, not just waiting.. Playing with Jane, and eating and drinking lots of delicious things too!

Back From the South

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I’m back from Kien Giang! I have been back for a few days, actually, but haven’t had the time to slap together a blog post.

My two weeks in Kien Giang were really rewarding in terms of the work I was able to accomplish. Kien Giang Technology and Economics College was very organized–they had a detailed working plan covering my two weeks there–and worked with me very effectively. It was very different from my daily office routine at VACC! I’ll have some pictures to share soon (maybe this evening) once I copy them from my camera to the computer.

I got back to Hanoi on Saturday (3rd) and then hurried to the bus station to catch the last bus to Ninh Binh. I got there with 10 minutes to spare! On Sunday we all went to Hien’s father’s homeland, where that morning they had a special ceremony: they opened Hien’s grandfather’s grave, took out his bones, and then moved them to a smaller casket and buried them again at a different grave site. According to tradition, it all had to be complete before sunrise on the 4th, so of course we weren’t there to see it happen, but we did arrive in time mid-morning for thebig meal/celebration that took place afterwards. There were about 20 tables, and they invited all of the extended family to attend.

What else..? While I was away Jane continued growing and changing every day. She knows so many words now! And she’s learning more and more each day. She can tell us when she has to poo (in Vietnamese: ị). It has happened more than once, so it isn’t just a coincidence! Though some times by the time we have fetched her potshe has already finished pooing in her diaper. I guess she doesn’t just mean that she has to poo, but that she has to poo right now. She is still hesitant to try walking, unless she has something to hold on to, but she can crawl really fast.

Back Update

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Hey, guess what? I can walk again! Pretty cool, huh?

Since yesterday afternoon, my back has slowly been getting better. Yesterday evening I didn’t push it much; I just rested at the hotel and watched movies. This morning my back was stiff again, but it seems like most ailments always feel the worst in the morning. This afternoon I had to sit in a desk chair for quite a while behind my computer, and afterwards I couldn’t quite stand up straight again. It didn’t hurt much, but there was a spot in my lower back that just wouldn’t straighten out. I was trying to stand straight, but really all I was doing was pushing my chest back! That trouble spot in my lower back wouldn’t budge. So I came back to the hotel and laid down for about half an hour, and when I stood up again I felt so much better. Like I could’ve tap danced down the five flights of stairs to the lobby! (Though I decided to play it safeand took the elevator)

Now I’m back from dinner and still feeling pretty good. Laying down is the cure to all problems. And sitting will, it seems, be the cause of future problems! So I must repeat myself from my last post: Never will I sit again! I’ll learn exercises and stretches to strengthen my back so hopefully this doesn’t happen again (at least, not as seriously), and spend the rest of my life standing, walking, or laying down.

Death by Back Pain

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Yesterday afternoon while I was working with all of the students participating in the seminar here in Phan Thiet, I started to get some lower back pain. But I get back pain pretty regularly–a side effect of being too tall, I figure–and I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, so I didn’t think much of it. But then in the evening, after I ate dinner it started to get a bit more sore as I was walking around looking for a decent place to have a few beers and eat some peanuts. My search turned out to be fruitless, so I went back to the hotel. But just as I was about to unlock my door, some students were leaving. Pool?, they asked me. Of course! Phan Thiet seems to have a lot of pool halls, and I haven’t played a game of pool in a long time, so I couldn’t pass up the chance. We played some pool, and then some locals invited us to play foosball. And I love foosball even more than pool! I was mopping the floor with everybody–even with two people playing against me, they couldn’t win. Sadly, by the end of the night, my back was really hurting.

This morning I woke up and it was still bothering me, but it wasn’t worse than other times that I’ve had a sore back. By lunch-time, though.. I could hardly walk anymore! I didn’t even eat lunch. I took a taxi back to my room and laid down on my back for two hours. Laying down seemed to help temporarily, but once the afternoon was over it was hurting even more than before lunch-time. Walking was painful and slow, but I managed to make my way to a taxi and then went directly to a clinic to see a doctor. Fortunately it wasn’t busy there, and the folks that worked there were nice. I got an x-ray done, and the doctor said that there appears to be some spinal degeneration. He gave me some medicine to take–an anti-inflammatory, some sort of muscle relaxant, and something for my tummy in case the anti-inflammatory bothers me–and he told me not to sit for long periods of time, and to do some light exercises/stretches regularly to ease the pain. Never will I sit again! Now I’ll need to design a special stand-up (bar-like) desk so I can keep being a computer nerd without having debilitating back problems.

Binh Thuan Revisited

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I’ve been in Binh Thuan province (Southern Vietnam) for 9 days now, helping out as a coordinator for a WUSC research seminar. Every year WUSC organizes an international seminar between Canadian university students and students in one of the countries that WUSC works in. And this year they’re doing it in Vietnam. The previous coordinator had to leave in the middle of the seminar–a long and stupid story!–and I was the only person around who could come in and help right away. I’ll be working here for the rest of July. One month away from Hien and Janey isn’t very fun!

For the first week, I was staying with all of the seminar participants in Mui Ne, which is a very beautiful beach/resort area. On Saturday morning we took the students to visit a local fishing market on the beach that is busy every morning. And then we took them to see the ruins of some very old towers that were built by the Cham people (I think a bit more than 1000 years ago).

Monday Monday

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So good to meeeeee

Actually, Monday morning wasn’t all I hoped it would be! I went to the WUSC office this mornng intent on doing a few things, but shortly after I got there the Internet connection went dead. Having been in Vietnam for more than three years now, that wasn’t a surprise though. Too bad that I needed the Internet to get my work done. I guess I shouldn’t have frittered away my time on facebook when I first got to the office, or I would have actually accomplished something. But lately I’ve been taking it easy on Mondays, so I suppose that just showing up for work makes this the most productive Monday I’ve had in a while!

In the afternoon I had a monthly review and planning meeting with my partners at Hanoi Community College. My time is running out there, especially considering that the college will close for summer holiday during July. So that only leaves me with June and August to do as much work as I can with the oh-so-busy teachers that I’m supposed to be doing capacity building activities with (if they weren’t so darn busy!). It’s not all bad — they still give me work to do — but according to the goals of the project I’m supposed to be working with people more than simply doing things for them. I hope we’ll figure things this month and they’ll start using me more effectively.