On Thursday I was one of the lucky people who got invited to a lunch with the Governor General of Canada, as he was here on a state visit to Vietnam.I think I was the only long-term volunteer in attendance. The rest were student interns with WUSC or Canada World Youth. He gave a short speech before the meal began, and then during the meal went around the two tables, making sure to have a conversation with each volunteer/intern who was there. He spoke very highly of volunteerism, as was a really nice person in general.

Now I’m in Kien Giang province, not far from the southwestern most parts of Vietnam, to work at Kien Giang Technology and Economics College for two weeks.They are a member college of the Vietnam Association of Community Colleges (where I’m currently placed in Hanoi) and requested my assistance for some IT and ESL training. Should be interesting; I hope I can get a lot done while I’m here! I’ll miss Hien and Jane a lot while I’m away, though.

Speaking of Jane: she’s a crawling speed demon these days. She could crawl up the stairs if we let her! She always goes right for the staircase, and we have torun after her and try to distract her with something else at the other end of the room. Also, beer continues to be her favourite thing in the world (and her favourite word to say, it seems). At meal time once she sees a bottle/can of beer, she locks in on it and shouts, “Beer! Beer!” We help her to hold an empty bottle and clink with somebody else’s bottle, which she finds very amusing