Expectations Checked

 

This past week living in Phu Tho, a small rural town in Northern Vietnam has been rich with experiences.  Sometimes we struggle with our expectations clashing with reality.  We expected to live in a small quaint village, green, rice paddies, filled with bamboo huts and thatched roofs, kids on their bicycles near a large river and temple. We thought we would be living with a family, joining them for meals, included.  Our naivete hit a solid dusty concrete wall.  What we have experienced is far different, but unexpectedly positive in other experiences.  We have discovered that with travelling one can feel very different about a situation hour by hour, day by day.  It is important to not be reactionary and let the experience of a new place settle.  My Western mentality wants to make a plan, solve the problem.  However, if I let the experience take shape, often what I identified as problems to be solved, solve themselves or fade in importance.

Phu Tho is a bustling loud city situated along a dusty concrete road in ill repair.  A thick layer of smog settles in this area, the skies rarely blue.  The air is filled with sounds of cars, buses, motorbikes, roosters, dogs and people shouting “Chi Oi”, or “Hey You”.  The air smells of smoke.  The traffic here is aggressive and more chaotic than Hanoi, buses and taxis hurdle by kids on bicycles, all in a hurry.  The roads are littered with potholes and piles of broken concrete, creating even more obstacles.  There are piles of trash along the road, remnants of ongoing construction, heaps of rubble, dogs roaming, all covered with a layer of dust.  There is no river in sight.  This was not the town we expected.

We live in a room that has been hastily added on to the back of the house.  Our bedroom wall hugs the pig stalls in the back, our beds are rock hard.  Rustic is a charming sounding word and one that may be used in this situation if you were trying to be tactful.   The air smells of pig and raw meat.  It was startling for the first couple of days, but we quickly adapted and did not notice after a few days.  There is a level of dirtiness that is unsettling, but we quickly negotiated our surroundings and wash our feet a lot.  Even though the pork is fresh, I am a vegetarian here.

We live in this large house with Mr.Giao, his wife, his two young children and his parents (who do all the housework and cooking).  Mama (his mother) works from early morning till dusk, cleaning and cooking. In the late evening she watches Indian soap operas dubbed in Vietnamese  The room next to us houses two extremely friendly Maori men from New Zealand, Wiri and Grant.  They have helped us learn the ropes of living here and teaching.  Inside the house lives the very laid back Gabo, a 20 yo Mexican who is more sophisticated and worldly than people twice his age.  All three have been travelling for quite some time and share travel advice and stories from their experiences.  These three men have made our time in Phu Tho really full, transformed a possibly lonely experience to one that is sociable and fun.  The kids love all three.  We share lunch and dinner daily, a spread that includes rice, greens, pork, tofu, egg and peanuts.  The food is tasty, filling and mild in flavor (which the kids love).  We are largely separate from the family, two groups of people orbiting in the same space, but not mixing a lot.  Culture and language are huge roadblocks.

One day we went on a field trip to Hung Temple with Wiri, Grant and Gabo.

We teach at various schools and the English center downtown.  Taxis ferry us back and forth.  We teach three-year olds up to fourteen year olds.  The lesson plans are simple, not enough material to fill 90 minutes and Cork and I have been developing and working out activities and lessons for these varying groups.  Lots of songs for the younger kids and games and role-playing for the older kids.  The learning curve has been straight up for me.  I quell my rising panic with a deep breath, certain that time will pass. We go to a public school and teach 30 kids, age 12 for 90 minutes.  They greet us like Justin Beiber is visiting.  It is a challenge to keep them all engaged and the habit in classrooms here is to talk, and then yell over the din of noise to be heard, the level of sound becoming deafening.  Often my throat hurts from yelling over the students.  We try to teach “Quiet Coyote” and explain the importance of listening and being quiet if one is to excel in English.  It is a foreign concept.  We leave there exhausted.  There is a lack of linear thinking in Vietnam, organization and time management our elastic here.  We have to adapt and relax our western perspective and get creative in a hurry.  It is hard to be anxious because we never know what to expect.

The facilitators at the English center are Sarah and Rose and office support from Lily.  They have welcomed us and are truly the most friendly people.  They are our English life lines in this experience.  Taking us to coffee, teaching us Vietnamese (I have accumulated a vocabulary of about twenty words now) and taking us out for beer.  They ply our children with candy and pizza.  They take endless selfies with us and are our Facebook friends.

Living this week has been an emotional roller coaster.  Minute by minute it is up and down.  But the experiences force us to dig deep into our resilience and challenge us to step up and embrace very uncomfortable situations.  Jack and Addie have adapted wonderfully and love it here.  They want to stay a long time.  Addie says being here makes her feel like she lives here, is a part of community.  Our walks through the town are fun.  People shout “Hello”, everyone stares and smiles.  We are a spectacle, but the attention lacks all malice and is sheer curiosity and enthusiasm.  We wave, shout Hello, say “Xin Chao” (Hello) and smile.  As far as I can tell we are the only Westerners here.  Our travel grit is accumulating and maybe by April we will be ready for Nepal.

In all, this week has been the most memorable so far of our travels.  Overall it has been very positive and I am so glad we came.  We honestly ask ourselves, “What are we looking for?” and we do not know.  However, there have been numerous times during this last week that we have found the sweet spot and nodded to ourselves, reaffirming our decision to travel.

We do leave on Sunday.  Take a train back to Hanoi and dive into another volunteer experience.  This time we are living with a family and helping her with her kindergarten every morning.  We stay there for two weeks and then fly to Thailand for some R+R on the island of Koh Chang.