The number of times people told me the first year of teaching was difficult could have tripled and I still would have been floored by how much time it takes to plan and assess. We wake at 6 to the iPhone's new bedtime feature alarm, which is quite nice by alarm standards. Out the door within 15 minutes, cold oats, a banana and a scoop of PB in tow, and we are off on our 30 minute ride to school. We usually beat the morning traffic, but are frequently slowed by a torrential downpour. You know how water fills your goggles when you swim for long enough? Well that's exactly how my contacts feel when I drive in the monsoons, so Mol usually takes the helm. Before our final turn into school, we pull over to this woman's tent on the side of the road. She smiles at us as we hand her our tupperware. She fills one with rice noddles and the other with little meatballs and a fermented, sweet, garlicy, fish sauce broth topped with a handful of fresh mint, all of which we pack away for a nice light lunch for 2 bucks. Her other customers are workers from the nearby development who probably worked all night and sleepily watch us perform one of our morning routines. The woman knows us now and is very happy to serve us.
My students are awesome. As any demographic of a school will be, they are varied, unique individuals. On the whole, however, they are polite, they listen, they want to learn and a few even ask for homework every night because they don't want to get rusty. So I give it to them. And I stay awake at night thinking about how I can differentiate for all learners and make the material accessible to my 11th graders who speak and read English at elementary levels. I care about my profession deeply and I want to always practice being a better teacher. The beauty is, there is no ceiling as a teacher - there is always room for growth. The first month of school has been at full pace trying to patch together the years worth of curricula I seemed to have acquired over the last 14 months. I am so grateful for the generosity of teachers as they share years of hard work in a single click of button. This act of selfless kindness has prevented me from "getting too schooled" at St Paul. What has been the biggest lesson for me has happened outside the classroom, and was more solidified over our soon-to-end 3 day weekend.
On Friday, we split directly from school to Mai Chau in the Hoa Binh Provence to the west of Ha Noi. We scooted the 140km on our dodgy motorbike. Our first night in the Hostel was restless due to the cacophony of roosters, dogs, and cows all night and a mattress that made cardboard feel soft. This trip wasn't about roughin' it, so we upgraded for an extra buck for a private room with AC. Worth every penny. On Saturday we ran around the Lac village, which is has traditionally styled homes with open first floors for dinning and storefronts and a bamboo platform upstairs for sleeping. That evening we dined liked royalty in the village among the other Vietnamese tourists who were celebrating Vietnam's National Day - their commemoration of independence from France in 1945. Rice wine flowed through the small bamboo straws like the water through the terraced rice fields. Sunday morning I was searching for a ustual pho breakfast before we roped up for a rock climb. Molly was searching for some fruit, so I dined with a group of tourists from Hanoi. We spoke each other's languages poorly, but enjoyed laughs figuring out simple things about each other. After our pho was gone, they invited me over to the next table for tea. The generosity of people inviting foreigners into their space is noteworthy.
This morning on our way home we stopped at one of the many storefront/homes on the highest pass between Mai Chau and Ha Noi. We put our fingers to our lips as we motioned to the family we were looking for food. With massive grins they sat us down at their table, brought over steamed rice in a bamboo casing, and started to grill us pork. They offered corn, tea, and coffee during our 20 minutes there, and we returned the generosity by telling the young woman how pretty her daughter was. These folks live with very little income and access to resources. They live on the highway in a bamboo hut, cooking over a fire. They were happy, and more importantly, they were generous with their space and their resources. Another example: when we were pulling into Ha Noi, our bike finally died and the security guard's friend standing on the sidewalk spent 30 minutes diagnosing it with his personal spark plugs, tools, and time, before he communicated to me it was above his pay grade to fix. These are just half the examples of generosity that I experienced today throughout this country. For these folks, happiness and self worth is derived from giving. Moreover, giving to someone who looks different and butchers their language. Someone who has more opportunity and wealth, all of which could easily be a sources of resentment. This is the schooling I'm talking about.
Pictures from the trip to come soon.
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