babies children and babies

Yesterday, we boarded a plane in Hanoi and headed to Hue for the weekend. Hue is considered to be in Central Vietnam.We were all starving when we got in, so a few of us went to a place near the hotel and got these filled rice cakes that you put in a bowl with greens and a delicious peanut sauce as well as pork on onion sticks that you wrap in rice paper with greens and dip in a sweet sauce.

We started this morning as the Office of Genetic Counseling & Disabled Children (OGCDC) to talk about some of the facilities and programs in place for disabled children. There are still a large number of children being born with both mental and physical disabilities due to Agent Orange. On top of that, Autism is becoming a more widely recognized issue for which centers are being established where kids can learn in a more focused environment. We even got the unique opportunity to tour some of the centers and schools where these students learn.

The first place we went to was a center for students with Autism. We didn't walk into the classroom because that would have been too stimulating for the kids, but one boy walked out onto the balcony to see us. Fa has autism and is non-verbal. He covers his ears a lot. Out of pure instinct (thank you Ontario Pioneer Camp), I squatted down so that I would be face level with him. We walked over to me and looked at my intently. I started talking to Fah, and he stopped moaning and rocking and was still. I think I even got him to nearly smile. He tried to follow me down the stairs, but his teacher took him back into the classroom. As we walked back to the van, I got the chance to share with my professor and some of the other students some of what I've learned in my experiences with children, mostly through Ontario Pioneer Camp.

The second place we went was a pagoda of nuns who ran an orphanage for mainstream students and a school for children with special needs. We got the chance to play some soccer with the kid, and then were taken upstairs to hang out with the babies for a bit. I don't even know why they brought us to the babies because I fell in love right away, and it was really hard to walk away from them. This orphanage does not do adoptions because a few years ago they had an interested couple, but none of the kids wanted to leave. They had formed a family of their own and could not imagine leaving, so they don't do adoptions anymore.

We got lunch at a vegetarian restaurant that helps to sustain the pagoda/orphanage. The restaurant was beautiful, and the food was amazing.

I don't know what was in these little rice cake things, but I can tell you that they were scrumptious.

Here we've got some noodles with veggies and fresh spring rolls.

Fried zucchini with mayo and sweet chili sauce. Delicious.

After lunch, we spent some time with the students at Future School. This school has 45 special needs students broken up into different classes both by age and by ability. Its everyday classes are run in a montessori style. We got to learn a Vietnamese song with some of the students who taught us some simple choreography and directed our performance of it. We then went to a handicrafts store where the OGCDC sells crafts made by artisans with disabilities. The proceeds from the shop went to sustain some of the programs that OGCDC runs in Hue and in the mountains near here.

All in all, it was a fantastic day. I got to hang out with kids all day. I couldn't think of any better way to spend my time. I was reminded over and over again today that every child is a child of God. His radiance and love is reflected in the face of every child regardless of ability. After a summer spent away from the wonderful familiarity of working with kids at Ontario Pioneer Camp, God gave me a day to reaffirm what I had forgotten: I love children and will be working with them in some capacity for the rest of my life. What a blessing.

a whole lot of acronyms

Today was spent in Hai Duong (pronounced: "high zoong") for a field trip for our HIV/AIDS class. We toured an out-patient clinic (OPC), a methadone maintenance therapy clinic (MMT) and a voluntary counseling and testing center (VCT).

At the OPC, we were able to ask questions about how they ran the clinic, who funded their projects and some of their projects. They are funded by Live Gap (a Vietnamese health program), Global Fund, and the Clinton Foundation. The problem with all the international funding is that it will eventually dry up. Also, the money can only be allocated for resources that the donor approves. At the OPC, they run testing for HIV and for opportunistic infections that take advantage of a person living with HIV's weakened immune system. They also provide antiretroviral (ARV) medicines. Patients at the OPC can come pick up their ARVs monthly. There is a needle exchange program run out of the OPC that provides intravenous drug users (IDUs) with clean needles and collects the old ones to prevent HIV infection by needle sharing. This facility was unique in that it also had an in-patient clinic to treat for opportunistic infections and when a person's HIV infection has progressed to full-blown AIDS.

The MMT is a fascinating program. Every morning, the patients come to the MMT clinic daily to receive their methadone and then go about their days. This prevents drug users from using needles, breaks the dependence on heroine, sets up a system where dependents can step down off the methadone and reduces the incidence of new HIV infection. I would just like to take this moment to say that needle exchange programs and MMT are genius. There has been a lot of controversy about whether making these services available will lead to increased numbers of drug users or not. I've done the research. I've seen the clinics. I can say without a doubt that these programs do not encourage drug use and are proven to decrease the number of new HIV infections. These programs should be more widely used in the States. It's the long-range approach to a problem that is not going to go away quietly.

The VCT was also incredibly interesting. They use peer educators (those who were IDUs and female sex workers) to go out into the community to educate their peers about risk behaviors and the importance of getting tested. There's a lot of stigma and fear surrounding those who utilize the testing center, but this is all due to a lack of knowledge. These peer educators are trained with communication skills, how to clean needles, how to use condoms, and how to operate effective outreach. They have certain goals each month for condom and syringe distribution as well as referring at-risk people to the VTC.

Overall, it was an enlightening day. I've got a much better grasp on the HIV epidemic in Vietnam and what's being done to combat it. At lunch, we had some good times with chicken heads.

Also, I just chased a mouse out of my room. Well, I stood on the bed while Maeve's roommate chased it out of my room, but I was definitely integral to the whole process.

don't drink the blood

Class this morning for Public Health History was all about Avian Influenza. I hadn't learned anything about Avian Flu before, so this was new. Apparently, the blood of ducks is a delicacy in Vietnam, which causes serious problems when there's an outbreak of Avian Flu. There have been campaigns to educate people about the disease and its transmission. More than anything, they want people to know where their chickens and ducks are coming from.

In the afternoon, I napped and woke up to maintenance coming into my room to fix my roommate's dilapidated bed. They did knock before they came in, and I answered them, but I was napping and didn't have my glasses on, so I was super disoriented. They were very nice and fixed the bed.

I went to help teach an English class of 8 and 9 year-olds this evening. We spent some time going over fruits and vegetables with these large posters that had the fruits and vegetables in both English and Vietnamese. Then, I was with three kids, and we went over some exercises in their books about animals and telling time. They are crazy smart! They were blowing me away with their super English. I busted out a little Ontario Pioneer Camp game knowledge and we played What Time is it Mr. Wolf? The kids were running all over the place and killing themselves laughing. It was so great!

After the class, Maeve, Allison and I went to the Cinemateque. It's an ex-pat movie theater in the Old Quarter. It was so beautiful! There was an open-roofed bar with a tree growing through the middle of it. It was lit with candles and strings of lights. They were playing Billie Holiday, and the atmosphere was perfect. We went to see the movie Elephant. This theater is doing a week-long series of Gus Van Sant films (most notable of these: Milk and Good Will Hunting). The film Elephant followed a day of school that ended in a shooting. It was incredibly well-done and well-timed. Definitely a heavy subject, but at the same time, this film was more of the facts behind the day rather than any of the emotion. I bet we'll be going back to this theater!

ohana means family

Yesterday afternoon, Mave, Danielle and I went to went to the art museum here in Hanoi. There were so many lovely pieces: paintings, sculptures, laquer on wood. There were sculptures from temples that represented gods with many faces or many hands. They had so many facets and colors.There were also large doors that were intricately carved with wonderful patterns of dragons, flowers and swirly lines.

Dinner that night was eaten on the street at a hot pot place. This means that all the meat and vegetables were laid down in front of us and a hot plate was turned on where we could cook our own food to our own specifications. There was curried chicken and beef as well as papaya, eggplant, okra, onions, and a root plant. It was so fun to be able to make it all ourselves! I definitely plan to return to this place. I will be sure to bring my camera with me next time so that I can take pictures of it.

I spent this afternoon with Ngan at her house. We rode on her motorbike to get there, her driving, me on the back. There was a possibility of death as we weaved through traffic and especially as we crossed the center line to get around other motorbikes. However, Ngan is a wonderful driver and the ride was quite nice. When we got there, her mother had made lunch for us. There was bun (rice noodles), a crab and tomato soup that had bean sprouts, star fruit and many other things in it. There was fried tofu and grilled pork. So much delicious food! Lunch was followed by a siesta and playing with Ngan's nephew for an hour or two. He is not even a year old and cute as can be. Ngan's mother poured me some wonderful artichoke tea while I played with the little man.

I got to help Ngan and her mother in the kitchen for dinner. We made spring rolls that were filled with bean sprouts, pork, and and so many other scrumptious things that I couldn't even begin to know what they are. We also made these leaf rolls which were a leaf filled with pork and fried. There was beef fried with morning glory. All of it was so amazing! Ngan's mother wanted to know how often my mother called me and if I missed my parents. I answered once or twice a week and yes, very much. We took a picture together before I left with the promise of more visits throughout the semester.

From left to right, there's me, Ngan holding her nephew, Ngan's mother, and Ngan's aunt and cousin.

I guess it isn't pulled pork

On Thursday, Maeve and I went for a run in the afternoon around the nicer lake. It was bustling with older people exercising, kids playing soccer, men fishing and couples hanging out in the shade. The lake had a culture all its own, and Maeve and I were lucky to be able to both experience it and get some exercise. There was a young boy walking with his family, and, when we ran up beside him, he took off running ahead of us. I let him go for a little bit, but then I opened my stride and overtook him in seconds. He walked off pouting, but I got a kick out of it.

For dinner that night, we went to this random street restaurant that Maeve, Kim, and Allison had discovered. You sat down at these tables lining the sidewalk and the road and watched them make everything right at this giant grill. We ate chicken wings (the whole wing not just the middle part), ribs, this sweet potato-like root vegetable, and flattened sweet bread. Since they made everything on the same grill, everything had this similar smoky taste, but, at the same time, everything was individually delicious.

Dr. Bennett gave me a movie for us to watch called Hollywood to Hanoi.  It's about this woman who is Vietnamese, but immigrated to the U.S. after the American War. She ran away from home as a teenager to go to Hollywood and get famous. She was not a very impressive actress, but you can tell that she has a lot of spunk and doesn't give up easily. The movie didn't flow super well, but it still had some great things to show. It followed her journey back to Hanoi to find family and talk with people about their experiences in the war and its aftermath. It was an interesting watch.

Yesterday's lecture was given by a man working with PEPFAR through the CDC here. He grew up in Lake Norman, NC and went to NC State, so we bonded over some good Carolina times. His lecture was about monitoring and evaluation as well as some explanation of PEPFAR and its longevity. Vietnam's HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment is largely funded by PEPFAR and other international programs and agencies. As that funding begins to phase out, Vietnam will need to find alternate sources.

Friday night, we went to a Bia Hoi. There are loads of them around. They sell super cheap, local draft beer. By the time we got to the one we would stay at, they said that they were out of the local draft. We sat down and got different beer (which was coincidentally more expensive). Some guys sat down next to us, and it turns out that they were from NC as well: Smithfield and Raleigh. They had just graduated from ECU.  We talked about North Carolina and their travels thus far. It was nice to meet someone from so close to home!

bun cha!

Today was a fantastic and enlightening day. We had an hour of Public Health History which pertained to Dengue Fever and what Vietnam is doing about it. I always knew that mosquitoes are the vector for Dengue and that Dengue is more prevalent in tropical areas. Today, I learned why that it: A mosquito's life cycle is dependent on the temperature and humidity of the air. The hotter it is, the more rapid the mosquito's life cycle. In tropical areas with high humidity, mosquitoes have a life cycle of about five days, which means that they reproduce much more quickly and more mosquitoes are introduced into the environment on a daily basis making it harder to control their population. Popular methods for controlling the mosquito population are predatory species (mesocyclops-look it up), chemical spraying and genetic modification. The chemical spraying took me back to my New Orleans days. I can remember the trucks rolling down the road emitting huge clouds of chemicals as I was playing outside and booking it inside to avoid whatever it was they were spraying. I also remember our neighbor saying that when he was a kid, they would all get on their bikes as the truck rolled by and try to keep up with the truck.

We toured the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology to get a more first-hand look as what's being done about Dengue Fever. We got to tour a lab where mosquitoes were being bread for research. We saw them as eggs, larvae, pupae and adults. The adults were separated by gender (don't ask me how to tell the difference) and kept in netted boxes. For the first time in my life, the mosquitoes were the ones encapsulated in a net and I was on the outside. For every morning at camp when I killed a mosquito bulging with my blood which it had been happily sucking all night, I hope that one of those mosquitoes in the netted box was terrified by my presence and knew how easily I could crush it. The genetically engineered mosquitoes were those of the male population. They produced offspring that would not make it past the pupae stage. I didn't know we could do that to mosquitoes, but TAKE THAT!

Lunch was Bun Cha. I don't know if I spelled that right, but I do know that I've eaten it before and that it's delicious. I think I've written about it before, but, in case you are just tuning in, it is a sweet broth with chunks of papaya, rice noodles, slices of pork, pork meatballs and various greens. It seems that no matter what food we are eating on the streets, it is accompanied by a plate of greens: lettuce, bean sprouts, some grass-looking green, mint, and a purple leaf with a strong flavor.

The afternoon was spent in a class that, while fascinating, did not present much information that I didn't know about HIV/AIDS. One of the coolest parts was getting to brainstorm in groups about how to make antiretrovirals (ARVs) more widely accessible and ensure that patients continued to seek health services and take their medications. Some solutions included social marketing campaigns to eliminate social stigma, a system of referrals and accountability for local clinics to keep track of patients, and a reworking of international policies such as TRIPS (an intellectual property protection law from the WTO which applies to pharmaceutical companies among others) in order to produce more medications in the countries that need them, just to name a few.

I can honestly own the fact that I crave Bubble Tea from the shop across the street and peanuts from the school's canteen on a regular basis.

a cool breeze off the lake

This morning's Vietnamese class gave us a few more simple sentences whose pronunciations were far too complicated to make the sounds. I can now hold a basic conversation with someone if they speak very slowly and follow the script laid out in the book. Any deviation from that script will leave me completely in the dark.

I took a long nap right after class. I've been napping a lot recently. Almost every day, but certainly every other day. This could be diet related or because I have a cold. Either way, it's been a little annoying. I'm going to have to work on staying awake while doing stuff.

This evening, we went to a different street than we normally do in search of pancakes made of rice flour filled with bean sprouts and mini shrimp. Maeve, Allison and I had this same dish when we were in Hoi An. You take some greens and a section of the pancake and wrap it in rice paper and dip it in a sweet broth. It is so delicious! I will definitely be going back there for dinner from time to time. I'll try to take pictures the next time we go so that I can show you  what I'm talking about.

After dinner, a handful of us went to check out a cafe called Cat Cafe. There were a lot of cats in there. People were sitting around drinking coffee and whatnot while petting cats. Unfortunately, the Cat Cafe was too full of people, so we went to another cafe on West Lake, which we followed with a walk around a corner of West Lake enjoying a wonderful breeze coming off the water. That was when the best thing happened to me: I saw a bunch of people playing soccer. I have been really craving some soccer recently, and Kim was able to ask if we were allowed to join them and when they play. They play everyday at seven. I hope that there will be some serious soccer times soon.

best in the world

This morning's Public Health History class was focused on determinates of health. There are so many factors that go into determining the health of individuals: social, environmental, health care, and biological. All of these play into each other, so one has to be aware of many factors when deciding how to approach improving population health. The lecturer had many interesting things to say about determinates of health in Vietnam such as traffic, Agent Orange still lingering in the environment, water sanitation, gender roles and stigmas associated with diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

The afternoon was spent at a research facility called Institute of Social Development Studies (ISDS). We had a round-table discussion with one of the workers there about what the Institute does and some of its recent publications. Before the field trip, we read one of their studies on the stigma associated with those living with HIV/AIDS and their families. The report was fascinating and written in an accessible way so that anyone could read it, which is refreshing in a world of heavily-worded reports. The researcher we talked with was very open with us about their studies on maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS stigma, Vietnamese migrant workers and those Vietnamese living with disabilities, just to name a few. She said that the Institute partners with local NGOs to ensure that their research translates into action. If you are interested in learning more, you can poke around their website (which is accessible in English) www.isds.org.vn or feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

Around eight o'clock, a handful of us walked over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to watch the guard take the flag down.

 A procession of guards marched onto the scene to the national anthem.

It was such a neat moment to witness. I've seen so many US Military marches, parades and drills, so it was great to see how another country does it. Just so you know, it's pretty much the same.

The other thing that was great about being at the Mausoleum is that everyone brought their babies. I worked for a solid fifteen minutes to get this one baby to notice me, but, every time he saw me, he just stared up at me with this look of complete confusion. Eventually, his father placed him down right in front of me. I managed to get him to nearly smile by tickling his foot, but he just kept giving me blank stares. I did decide that Vietnamese babies are the cutest babies in the world. Sorry all other nations.

that lovin' feeling

I promised some pictures of the university:

 

There isn't much more to it than that. The first picture is the view from my balcony, and the second is the front view of the school. The school is a large academic building that sits next to a few dorms and an administrative building. It's a super small campus, which is nice because the dorm to classroom walk is about 3 minutes.

Friday, we had HIV/AIDS class in the morning where we learned about testing, counseling, models for tracking the epidemic and risk behavior surveys. It was a broad overview and left me wondering about more of the specifics of Vietnam. I'm sure we'll get into that more as the semester goes on. One interesting way of tracking a person's medical history is a card with a bar code on it. In theory, this card could be shown at any medical facility and a person's records could be pulled up from a large database. This is only happening in Ho Chi Minh City right now, but, if I had one of those cards, it would mean that I wouldn't have to go to multiple buildings around UNC looking for my medical records because someone decided to move them.

Friday afternoon was spent in a discussion section with Dr. Bennett's husband, Howie, who was a high school history teacher. We talked about the Vietnam war both through his experiences and his knowledge as a history teacher. He made his own opinions clear, but he was also very even-handed in his answers to our questions. The only perspectives I have on this war thus far are those belonging to my father's friends from the Army Aviation Heritage Foundation. The main point that he stressed was that every war has two sides and we needed to be aware of both sides.

Maeve and I went for a run Saturday morning at a different lake than the one we had previously been running at. This new lake is eons better than the other one. It's surrounded by trees and green space, you can run a full circle around it, it doesn't smell like a mix of urine and dead fish, and it is somehow is much more quiet. The loop was a little shorter, but we were so much happier with the overall scene, and it wasn't much farther away. After the run, we cleaned up a bit and got a lunch of beef fried rice and something beef with noodles.

Lunch was followed by some work in the bakery/cafe we found the other day. I got a cup of coffee that was the most delicious cup of coffee I've ever had. It may not have actually been the best cup of coffee ever, but it was what I really wanted. The majority of the coffee here is super strong and has an after-taste that I am not used to. That coffee was exactly what I wanted.

Last night, we went to see a water puppet show. It is a traditional performance art of the Vietnamese people that started long ago during long flood seasons when there was an excess of water. The stage was set up so that the musicians and singers were stage right and the stage was a a square pool of water. The puppets would float in the water as people behind a curtain manipulated their movements. The puppets ranged from people working in rice fields to boys herding cattle to women riding large fish. It was a fantastic display of traditional music of Vietnam as well as the dancing puppets. 

After the show, we went back to our area of Hanoi. We took a bus back from the Old Quarter, which was a lot like the P2P. It was packed full, the radio was on, and the stops were jerky. The only thing that made it not like the P2P was that the bus didn't always come to a complete stop for people to get on and off. When we finally made it back to our area, we went to a karaoke place near the school with our roommates. We sang some crowd favorites like I Want it That Way and Livin' On a Prayer as well as several songs that our roommates knew that we really didn't. The one disappointing thing about karaoke was that the place didn't have You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling. What's even worse is that no one on my program has seen Top Gun. Some people need to get on my level.

learning life

A brief run-down of the courses we are taking here:

-Vietnamese Language

-Vietnamese Culture

-Public Health History (in Vietnam)

-HIV/AIDS (in Vietnam)

-Oral History

So far, I've had Language, PH History, and HIV/AIDS. I won't even try to tell you how the scheduling works because I don't understand it at all myself. The language class is difficult, mostly because I am forcing my mouth and throat to make sounds that they have never made before, which is exhausting. PH History and HIV/AIDS are both set up as seminar courses with guest lecturers and class discussions. This is great because we get to stretch our scholastic minds with inputs from different voices and each other. I'll let you know how those are going as I get deeper into them.

My day-to-day, now that I'm in a routine, is easy to keep up with. I get up and run with Maeve, watch the Vietnamese MTV (which has music from all over the world) while I get ready and eat, got to class, eat, go to class or study, eat, and then entertain myself until it's time to sleep. I've found some really fun music on the music channel including the rediscovery of some of my favorite U.S. artists. My classes, except Language which is an hour and a half, are all 3 hours long. This is a very long time, and I find myself struggling to stay focused for that long. I need a coffee hook-up

Sometimes, to entertain ourselves in the evening, we go for post-dinner dessert adventures. I tried to get us back to a sweet roll shop that I remembered from a previous day, but I evidently didn't remember the way because we ended up being back on our road, but fairly far down from our school. This ended up being a blessing in disguise because we found a wonderful bakery/cafe. I got a pastry with chocolate inside of it and sat down at a delightful table among the brightly colored wall paper. One of the girls who was working behind the counter gave us a huge smile and walked over to talk with us. Thank goodness we had our TA, Kim, with us to translate because the girl talking with us didn't know much English and she got a serious kick out of our attempts at Vietnamese. Lan was so sweet and talkative. She gave us her number and expressed a desire to hang out with us and show us parts of Hanoi. Not only was she so wonderful, but the bakery/cafe is the absolute perfect place to do work. I have been wanting a cafe where I can read and do work comfortably while inhaling minimal cigarette smoke. This is the place. I plan to spend a lot of time there in the coming weeks!

I wanted to share a picture of me and my roommate, Ngan, and me from the Mid-Autumn Festival. We hang out, we have good times, and we mostly understand what each other is saying. In this picture, we are eating choco-pies, which are, essentially, what we at home refer to as moon pies, not to be confused with moon cakes here.

til the dawn

The majority of my day was uneventful. This morning's class was lackluster, but I followed it with some delicious, off-the-street fried rice. Then I went to Feeling Tea, the bubble tea place across the street from school. I got passion fruit milk tea with tapioca bubbles. It was so great! I need to come up with some other ways of saying delicious and refreshing.

This evening was the real show. Our roommates and their friends here at the school put on a party for the Mid Autumn Festival. We met up around 530 to help them with food preparation. We rolled rice paper spring rolls and peeled and cut fruit. They did most of the hard work, but we were able to help with some of the simple tasks. We stuffed the spring rolls with pork or beef, lettuce, rice noodles, egg, and carrot. They were phenomenal. There was also soup, these rice chips, and sweet/vinegar-y cucumber salad. I've never seen such a bounty! In terms of fruit, there was longan, watermelon, pomelo and guava.

They asked us to perform during the festivities. We attempted to sing a little bit of wagon wheel as our TA, Kim, played the guitar. Mostly, we just sang more loudly to make the fact that most of us didn't know all the words to the verse and were not in sync with the guitar. Our second performance was our alma mater/fight song. It's good to be a Tar Heel.

After our performance, our roommates showed us a traditional Vietnamese dance with bamboo sticks. The sticks are on the ground and are moved in and out while people dance through them trying not to get their feet caught. It's like jumping rope with a different rhythm. The picture below is Joey with his game face on conquering the bamboo sticks. We eventually digressed to just a dance party.

Now I'm eating this moon cake. I don't know what's in it, but it sure is tasty.

something found

I didn't really do much of anything today. I slept in super late and then sat around some more. The one thing that I did do today was go to the West Lake and walk around both the lake and the pagoda there. I got a green bean ice cream bar, which was surprisingly delicious and super refreshing for the humid day. We were walking around the lake when we saw a monument on the bank. It caught my eye because the right panel said USAF.

I got one of our roommates to translate the left panel, and this is the jist of what it said: On this day in October 1967, the Vietnamese people and soldiers captured an American Air Force Major. I guess this is a monument commemorating the shooting down and capturing of John McCain.

a capitol tour!

We got up a little early today and began a city tour of Hanoi. We saw Ho Chi Mihn's mausoleum where they apparently still keep his body, which is perfectly preserved. Every year, they send him to Russia for maintenance. We didn't get to see the body this trip, but we plan to go back.

We then went to see the Presidential Palace area. It's been preserved and is clearly in the French style. The bright yellow is a fantastic contrast to the green all around it. The big yellow palace was used by French governors and the Vietnamese presidents. Uncle Ho refused to live in the palace because it was too grand, so they built him this house on stilts where he lived while he was in power. There was one road in the palace area called Mango Road that is lined with mango trees.

Then we went to the Temple of Literature, which was the most prestigious university there was in Vietnam back in the day. We followed that with this huge lunch that was absolutely delicious. It came out in waves. There was a tiny bowl of pho, lemon fried chicken, beef with lemongrass, fresh spring rolls and fish with this peanut and dill sauce. Amazing! The afternoon was spent walking around the Old Quarter and went to the Museum of Ethnology. The museum documents all the ethnic minorities in Vietnam. We only had an hour there, and I ended up spending my hour in an exhibit on HIV/AIDS, which may or may not have had anything to do with ethnic minorities, but was interesting nonetheless. The good news is, I live here, so I can go back whenever I want.

After dinner at the school's canteen, I walked over to the same room we had our first orientation in to see the Full Moon Festival party. Every year, the students here put on a party for the kids of the faculty for the Mid-Autumn Festival. It was so adorable! There were so many kids with their parents running around, dancing, singing and eating delicious snacks (I know they were delicious because I ate them, too). Allison and I got called up to announce the fashion show and to hand out gifts to the winners. I was pretty much in heaven. There were babies everywhere and lots of snacks. Who could ask for anything more? I am so sad that I didn't have my camera with me to document more of it. Four students did a dance with dragon looking costumes (two guys to each creature) just like the dragon dance in Mulan. I was told that this creature, much shorter than a dragon, is a mythical lion from Chinese culture. It was so impressive! One was green and one was blue and both were very vibrant. There was a table at the middle of the room with loads of fruit and snacks stacked on it. At the end of the party, everyone rushed the table and snatched up as many snacks as he or she could. It was like a pinata got busted open. It was such a great evening!

the sweat monster

The picture below is of the moon cake I ate. I have no idea how they get the top to bake in such a perfect form.

Yesterday, we didn't do much of anything big because we had the day off. I went to check in at the embassy and see what it was like and where it is. The US embassy in Hanoi is in two different buildings. As Burcu commented yesterday, United We Stand. The embassy does have a library with books, movies and magazines that isopen to US citizens and the public. We can't check things out, but anyone living in Hanoi for more than six months can, so we could go get movies with our roommates! Also, we all went out as a group to get cell phones, which was a big ordeal, but worked out in the end. I am now the proud owner of a seriously old school flat phone. But hey, it works!

I found yesterday's lunch on the streets and ordered it before realizing that it was a Donner Kebab, which is a really popular street food in Europe (I believe it originated in Turkey, but don't quote me on that). It's a big, rotating hock of meat (lamb and beef) with cabbage, cucumbers, creamy sauces and chili sauce. I didn't see the sign for what it was until it was already in my hand at which point I realized that it wasn't even close to Vietnamese food, but it was exactly what I wanted and what I needed. What a satisfying sandwich!

This morning, I got up a little early to go for a jog with some of my classmates. I'm pretty sure we looked like crazy people because people don't really run in the streets in the city, but we were only on the streets for a little bit and then got to a small lake that we can run around. One has to run horseshoes around this lake because park of the rim is underwater, but it's a great little place, and it's so nice to be moving. I am a sweat monster all the time, but particularly this morning during my run. It's not that it was excessively hot, but just that the humidity of the air meant that all the sweat stayed on me. Anyway, it was a super short run but a good start to much more running. 

We had our first Vietnamese language class today. To say that understanding a tonal language is difficult would be a gross understatement. We spent an hour and a half repeating back tones to our Vietnamese professor. It was grueling. Thankfully, I have my roommate Ngan to practice with me.

I ate a Bahn My today. It's this crazy sandwich that is sold all over the streets. I would tell you what's in it, but I have no idea. There was definitely pate, cucumbers and chili sauce, but then there was also some mystery meat and this gelatinous, pink substance. I don't think I want to know what that was. It was a very tasty sandwich!

We had another orientation after lunch to talk about our classes and get some course overviews. I was geeking out the whole time. We are taking trips into the field and learning about things that fascinate me like NGOs and INGOs and HIV/AIDS and so many other things. I'll be able to say more when I am actually in those classes, which will begin next week. Just know that I am totally jazzed about my classes.

We looked in the English version of the newspaper after class and found a free performance in town for this evening. We went to see a contemporary dance performance that featured both Vietnamese and European dancers. The theme of the first piece was Fireflies. It began totally dark and one by one they turned on little flashlights and danced around. It was so amazing! I love that moment in dance where there are only two dancers on stage and everything seems to slow to a crawl until the dancers touch. As soon as they touch, it's like they come alive again. So amazing.

souped out

This morning for breakfast, I had duck with bamboo and rice noodle soup. I a little souped out considering that that was three meals of soup in a row. Soup has never been my favorite, but I like to eat it in the winter when it's cold outside. Experiencing the sweat flowing down my back, soup is pretty much the last thing I want to eat.

Almost everyone of the U.S. students went with our roommates to this large supermarket where I was able to get a towel, soap dish, shower caddie, and some snack crackers and cookies and peanut butter. I got some jack fruit chips. I don't know how to explain what jack fruit is like, so you can look it up. I also got some paper so that I can write some letters, but I don't know my own address yet, so I'll have to figure that out.

For lunch, I walked with some students (US and Vietnamese) to another street food/alleyway vendor. One of the Vietnamese students ordered all the food for us, so I don't know what most of it was. There were fried pork sticks, a shredded papaya salad with peanuts, something called "che" (like a smoothie but not necessarily with fruit and I think one of them had tapioca bubbles in it), and then I had a fried egg sandwich on white bread and french fries. I don't know why we got french fries, and I thought that the sandwich was going to have lots of stuff on it, but I wonder if they just brought me what they thought I could handle.

We had orientation at 2 this afternoon followed by a brief tour of the important parts of campus. The tour was  super short because campus is super small, but really pretty (I promise to put up pictures soon!). After the orientation and whatnot, I went to dinner with some people at the campus canteen. I got fish, boiled peanuts, some cucumber-esque vegetable, and, of course, rice. It was really good!

For the Autumn Festival, there are moon cakes everywhere. I'll have to figure out the story behind moon cakes later, but, for now, I know that they are tasty. I ate a baked one filled like lotus seed filler which also contained a solid egg yoke. I wasn't feeling the egg yoke, but the cake and the filler were great. A bunch of us sat on the steps of the main building on campus happily munching our moon cakes and chatting about summers and getting to know one another. I eventually joined in a volleyball game. We have a sand court on campus and people seem to play there every evening. The men playing seem older than students, but they are very welcoming and let us join in. The evenings here are cooler, but the humidity never slackens.

I've found myself smiling a lot. It's a good find.

feel the crunch

This morning, we took a car from Hoi An to Da Nang to get a flight to Hanoi. We got in just fine and took a taxi back to the Hanoi School of Public Health. I moved into my dorm and immediately recognized the desperate need for laundry detergent. Our roommates took us to get notebooks and pens, shampoo, conditioner, soap, and laundry detergent. Once we finished shopping, the downpour started. We ran from the last shop to an alleyway to get lunch. We ate something that sounded like it was called "nuc mum." It was a sweet broth with papaya bits in it with pork and pork meatballs and, of course, rice noodles. It was delicious.

After running back to school through the crazy downpour, I did some laundry and hung it outside to dry. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, though I wonder if anything will every dry in this oppressive humidity. By the time I squaredaway my dresser and had everything unpacked, I realized that I didn't have much. It's kind of nice to not have a lot of stuff with me.

My roommate, Ngan, is very sweet. She and I understand the majority of what the other says. Sometimes I ask her to repeat what she's said and sometimes I have to rephrase things for her, but overall we communicate pretty well. I got Pho for dinner with some of my American classmates and came back to the room where my roommate was watching Glee on her laptop. She told me that her mother had stopped by to drop off food for us. I want then offered pigs' ear salad. There are various greens and shredded pigs' ear. It tasted good, but I don't know if I can handle the cartiledge crunch.

Everyone is so accommodating and friendly. Every one of the Vietnamese students that I've met is excited and engaged. They offer to help with whatever I could need.

I have a really great feeling about this semester. I'm definitely ready to start my classes. I'll try to post pictures of the school and more details of my classes soon!

buy something!

I picked up my shoes today. They are delightful!

Hoi An has a really neat system for touring the city. You can buy a ticket that has five tabs on it and walk around to see five different things. This streamlines the whole business rather than having to pay individually at every place. The funds raised go to restoring the old houses and keeping the sites in good repair. I can't remember the names of all the places we went, but I know that we saw two old houses, a temple, an assembly hall, and a family chapel. It was wonderful to experience all the architecture and the beautiful colors used to decorate. One of the houses was over 200 years old and the family is still living there. Apparently, Hoi An floods every year, so they take the furniture upstairs and wait it out. Having lived through one too many floods, I assumed that the wood would just rot away or the furniture would be damaged, but there was no rot and no mold and everything was just fine. One of the houses marked the lines to where the flood has risen. Just saying, I would be out of there so fast.

Other than the flooding, the buildings are amazing. such ornate decorating and structures. They are all built with an open courtyard to increase airflow and house many shrines to past family members. Everything was so beautiful.

Lunch today was street food. Both the things I ate were little fried pockets made with a sweet dough. The more square one was filled with a savory, spiced chicken and rice filler. The half-moon one was filled with a sweet black bean paste. Both were delicious, and I want to eat them again. Then we stepped into a cafe where I cooled down with a drink that was pineapple, orange, and lemon juice with grenadine. 

For dinner, we went to a restaurant where we got some shrimps, some tofu, and a special Hoi An pancake, which is like an egg tortilla filled with bean sprouts, tofu and corn and probably some other stuff I didn't know was in there. You took some rice paper and put some lettuce and some of the pancake into the rice paper and rolled it up and then dipped it into a chili sauce. It was super delicious! After dinner, we switched venues, and I got a passion fruit lassie. I'm already lamenting the lack of passion fruit in the States upon my return.

On the way to mu passion fruit lassie, we saw an open shop where a group of little kids were singing with two men on guitar and keyboard. The sign outside the room said that they were learning folk songs. They were endlessly cute. Then we kept walking a little and happened upon an outdoor performance of traditional music and dances. The one dance we saw was a story involving a fisherman and two girls. They pretty much just danced around. There may not have been a whole lot of plot. It was a neat find! 

There are a lot of dogs and chickens everywhere here. They aren't tagged or collared or even kept behind fences. I haven't figured out if they are communal property or just wild animals, but they all seem to be really nice. Some of the chickens the other day had some patches of missing feathers, but everything else has looked healthy. I haven't seen any dog on the streets to eat, which is good.

how to sleep

We got on a bus last night at 7pm for a 12-hour, overnight trip from Nha Trang to Hoi An. This bus, same layout  as the first, was much nicer than the first sleeper bus we took to Nha Trang. I fell asleep almost immediately as we took off from Nha Trang and woke up when we stopped for a short walk around/bathroom break around 1130. When we got back on the bus, I took a benedryl and was then asleep until 6am. All in all, I slept a pretty decent amount that night (I woke up for a few seconds a couple times) considering that I was on a bus for an entire night.

We ate breakfast at our hotel when we arrived around 8am and then hit the streets. I really love walking around Hoi An. It's quiet, just like Da Lat, only there's even less traffic in Hoi An. There are so many tailor shops and shoe shops here. I wish I had an occasion for which I needed a dress because there are so many beautiful things here. Unfortunately, I'm gathering a pile of dress-for-my-next-big-occasion dresses, so I will have to pass. I did, however, stop in a shop and order a pair of cute sandals. All three of us did actually. The lady there was so nice and not pushy at all like some of the other store owners. It was pretty much Build-a-Bear with shoes. I got to pick out the style and the color, and she is going to have them ready to fit my feet tomorrow. How neat is that?! I'm pumped. I'll post a picture of them once I pick them up.

We happened upon a silk weaving/embroidery/tailor factory and got a tour of the facility and everything! It's the best when you stumble upon something great. We saw the silk worms in various stages of worm life and in their cocoons. We saw they thread being spun from the cocoons and the lady showing us around told us that we could eat the silk worms out of the cocoons, so we did (in the picture below: she grabbed the cocoons out of the hot water, broke them open and gave us the silk worms to eat). It pretty much had the same flavor and texture as a cooked soy bean (edamame). We saw ladies embroidering pictures onto pieces of cloth. These are masterful pieces of artwork. Sometimes, you have to get super close to be able to tell that it's all stitch-work. 

For dinner, we went to a restaurant near the city center where we had been walking and got some delicious food. To start, fried wontons with crabmeat. Then garlic sauteed morning glory, noodles with seafood, and crispy tofu with a sweet chili sauce. AMAZING. 

We then scoured the streets for the Vietnamese doughnuts we'd seen street venders selling earlier in the day. We didn't see them for a while, and then, when all hope was almost lost, we found a lady selling the doughnuts! She also had meat pies and bean pies and these buns filled with shredded coconut in it. I was craving the doughnut though, so I got the cinnamon sugar coated doughnut, which was delicious and really hit the spot.

time spent at the beach

The bus from Da Lat to Nha Trang only took about five hours, but I thought that the bus might fall apart at any moment during those five hours. I hadn't ever seen a sleeper bus, but they have these reclining chairs that line the bus and one set down the middle at two levels. The chairs lean all the way back so that you can go to sleep. This trip was during the day, but that didn't stop me from dozing off for a bit there. We traveled through the mountainous roads with lovely scenes of the countryside. The roads were a little broken down, but we were safe the whole time.

Nha Trang is a beautiful beach town. The sad thing is that it has become excessively touristy and there is a good amount of garbage in the water. We spent one morning at the beach where we met a guy from Holland who was traveling alone. It seems to be a trend that young Europeans take long vacations to travel on their own. We got lunch with him and then parted ways for the afternoon. The three of us walked along the beach and eventually turned off to go to the Yersin Museum. Yersis was a young scientist who worked with Pasteur and discovered the bacterium that causes the bubonic plague. After having walked through his museum, I can confidently assert that Yersin was the man. He studied anything and everything he wanted from physics to electricity to sailing. He spent a lot of time in Nha Trang, which is why his museum is there. He is a fascinating man, and I'm hoping to find a book on him so that I can learn more of his story.

While walking back from the museum, we came across this rather large mall. Walking into it was like taking a step out of Vietnam and back to Southpoint. Also, it was air conditioned, which was a huge plus. There were several floors of clothing, jewelry and other stuff all like we have (the same brands and everything), a floor with a convenience/grocery store, a floor of fast food and a giant arcade, and the top floor (according to a mall directory) was entirely karaoke. It was a surreal find.

We went to the photography gallery of Long Thanh. It was so neat because he was in there talking with us about the pictures, about his process, and his really old analog camera. He had some absolutely beautiful photographs. I was blown away by some of the moments he captured. If you want to see some of them, here's his website: www.longthanhart.com

My favorite thing I ate in Nha Trang was blackened Nha Trang sea bass over a bed of wasabi mashed potatoes. It was absolutely delicious, and that restaurant was so pretty. The one funny thing about that place is that there was an excessive number of things on the table. Water bottles were brought out in canvas sleeves, every canned beverage had a coaster and the glass in which to pour the beverage had a coaster as well to the point where there were too many coasters to keep track of.

Something I've noticed about advertising: Most picture advertisements and manquins for glasses, clothes, motorbikes, just about anything depict happy white people. The only visual advertising that is never white people are wedding dress tailor shops and wedding photo shops. It is really strange.