yesterday morning i got to teach 4th grade english. the school is quite breathtaking. it has a huge open courtyard that the kids play in. instead of a bell they us a huge drum that echos through the entire school. i covered basic pleasantries and then we did some abc's and basic words. the classes were only 25 minutes long with 45 kids to a class!! the kids are so cute and friendly. their hand writing in almost like calligraphy and all use quill instead of ball-point pens. the teachers lounge is incredible. it has a big glass oval table with flowers in the middle, a big white statue of ho chi min and plasma tv. they even cooked a special lunch for me because they knew that i was a vegetarian. one of the other teachers told me that the whole staff was buzzing with questions about me. i must look very strange to them: super skinny, long hair, dressed in black. i go in tomorrow for a full day so hopefully i'll have more school stories. i'm gonna try to take some pics and videos as well, but i want to get permission first, which will be hard because the english teacher barely speaks english. i took me 3 hours to get them to understand that i needed to find a bathroom. she also asked all kinds of personal questions: how old am i, am i married, to i have any kinds, how much money do i make. personal questions are very normal here. she told me that she makes about 200 usd a month as a teacher, which might seem insignificant, but i bet it provides a comfortable living here.
last night i spent a good two hours talking politics, philosophy and government with my Vietnamese roommate and a high school girl from new york who just flew in yesterday. it was a fascinating conversation. my roommate has no problem with government censorship (which is surprisingly rare in here), is ok with religious freedom, and thinks that having more than one political party can only lead to instability. It was kinda of weird that the only philosophy they study in university is communist, (they all read marx, lenin, trotsky, ho chi min, and mao, stalin doesn't seem to be very popular though) but i guess that shouldn't have come as a surprise. i spent alot of time trying to explain why it good to allow political decent, but i don't think i was able to get my point across. i think i am going to find him a copy of mills on liberty and maybe that will do a better job. for the first time since i have been in peace house it didn't rain! it is so hot today. it was 90 at 8am this morning and is going to be at least 98 by midday. i helped teach an english class in peace house today and really enjoyed it. i think i'm off to the army museum and temple of literature after lunch. i'll post again tomorrow.
teachers lounge!!!
coolest lunch box ever
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