But aside from that, my time in Tra Vinh has been great, if very busy. I completed one workshop set for teaching skills this week, a seminar on formative assessment techniques, and have discussed with the Engineering Faculty the plan for me next week. Indeed, work is certainly keeping me occupied -- moreso than last year when I had a bit more time 'off'. Still, I did have the chance to get out to play badminton on Thursday night (where I am again showing my complete lack of skill -- visions of football last year return to me). At least this time (as opposed to last year), I began to show some moderate skill by the end of the session. Anh-Tu and Justin (two volunteers from America), Tam (the friend from Tra Vinh who I sang the duet with last year), Hector (a student from Spain) and a couple of students (who assisted with badminton training) all took part. One fellow rallied with me for some time which greatly increased my skill (jumping into a game right away may have been a mistake as I do not really know the rules!). After badminton, we went to a seafood place to enjoy a variety of dishes -- no scallops this time (which I love!), but shared in beer, clams, snails, chicken, etc... This place is only open at night and your seats are in the open air on what would normally be a sidewalk (in reality, it does not seem like too many people use the sidewalks in Tra Vinh aside from parking their motorcycles anyway). I went to this restaurant several times last year and it is good to see it still there...a few others I have tried to visit have not lasted through the year :-(
Yesterday (Friday), I met up with the Engienering faculty re: plans -- Mr. Nghia, the dean of the Faculty, invited me to coffee and chat at a place not far from campus. You have to understand that coffee shops are almost the lifeblood of the community here. If you want to hang out with someone it is almost inevitably going to be at a coffee shop (or perhaps a billiards hall for the men). Students also show little hesitation in inviting teachers to coffee which is quite refreshing given the boundaries that exist at home (at least at the lower levels). Anh-Tu invited me to visit a local pagoda with here to take part in an english lesson and I eagerly took her up on that invitation. This is one of the reasons I like to come to Tra Vinh -- meeting the students, talking to them...they want to learn english but unfortunately have little opportunity to converse with a native english speaker for practice. We only stayed for a short time, however, as I then had to met up with Ms. Thuy at the Teaching Learnin Centre at TVU to debrief my workshop. I will doing a similar workshop for Engineering next week. All in all, I think the workshop went alright...surprising as most was conducted in Vietnamese and I could only act as a guide rather than an active participant. Thanh (a friend in Tra Vinh) invited me to coffee afterwards and while at the coffee shop received an invite to a party at a hotel near the downtown core. I was hesitant to go as I was a bit tired, but it did not take much convincing and we ended up arriving at the hotel around 6 or so...Surprisingly, it was a birthday party for one of his friend's son (6th birthday) and I, of course, did not have a gift of any kind (it does not really matter, I am told...still, I will try and remember to bring something on Monday for him). The food was fantastic -- the 'mot hai bah jo' did play on my head again...hard to avoid the drinking here but I limited it to just one bottle or two bottles this time. And the party was over by 9pm anyway so I was able to get to bed early as my goal for the next day was to wake up at a reasonable time to try to go for a run (I did bring all my stuff here after all!).
Saturday, I took off at around 6am for a 10km run out to Square Lake and back. You have to run on the road as there are no real sidewalks, and avoiding traffic can be a challenge at times (fortunately, my size makes me obvious enough to be easily avoided). It is so hot though...even at that time...and busy as well (many vietnamese here start there day before then! -- indeed, classes start at 7am typically). I did make it for the whole 10km excluding an extended rest time (2.5 mins instead of 1min) and I forgot that power was off today in my part of time -- in the end, it did not matter as I appreciated the cold water after running in 35+ deg temperatures.
I was in a bit of a hurry as I was invited to breakfast by a 'mystery text' the night before -- 8am near the post office. I actually had a thought of who it was (given the strong english writing) and was not really surprised to discover that Mr. Hoa -- my host and friend from last year -- and Huyen (his girlfriend) were waiting for me. We had a quick bbq breakfast then headed to a coffee shop to talk for a few hours...Now I am at the University (the part of town with power) to write this, charge up my laptop, and prepare for another coffee shop meeting with Mr. Khoi. A prelude to meeting with Ms. Thuy at 3pm to discuss further my workshop next week. Ms. Thuy will be away in China -- taking part in a leader's skill workshop -- next week, and Mr. Khoi will help me with the facilitation for the Engineering workshop. Mr. Hoa will also help out with translate -- I was fortunate to have an excellent translator in Mr. Dha this week, and Mr. Hoa has worked well with me in the past. Tonight will be a going away party for one of the volunteers -- dinner and...er...karoeke I think...*sigh*. Tomorrow, I will visit the home village of Mr. Tri (a friend and colleague here at TVU) where his mom will make Ban Xao. We may take a boat on the river, and head out to the orphanage (I have brought gifts from Canada for this purpose). It is possible we will check out the TVU team play football after...
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