Five months ago I came to Viet Nam to teach in an international school. This is so far from anything I have ever done that my friend Rick kept encouraging me to keep a diary about my adventures. Well after all this time Rick, (and others) here it is- my diary. Because I didn't start it when I arrived, I can't tell you things day by day, but I'll do my best to hit the high points.
Getting here was not as easy as it should have been. I left Calgary on a Wednesday, expecting to arrive on Friday. I got as far as Vancouver and was turned back because I didn't have one paper required for my dog, Dandy, permitting him to land in Taipei. Without the paper he would have been shot when we landed. Back to Calgary we went on the first flight the next morning, and applied for the paper, which came very quickly. Saturday evening we were off again and this time made it all the way through. The flight took a total of about 24 hours, with stops in Vancouver and Taipei before landing in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The stopovers weren't too long and it wasn't bad, but it was exhausting. When I picked Dandy up at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City he was so thirsty that he licked the condensation off my bottle of water.
I noticed the heat and humidity both in Taipei and HCMC. I left Canada near the end of October, when there was frost in the mornings, and it was summer here. I was met at the airport and taken off to the Corporate Office, then to my new school and lunch. Honestly, I was too tired to eat lunch and when I was taken to the villa where I was going to live, I went to bed for several hours.I shared the villa with three other teachers for a couple of months, until I moved into an apartment with one other teacher. It boasted an outdoor swimming pool and a small gym, and I quickly made frequent use of the pool.
I am one of six "International" teachers on staff. the rest of the teachers are Vietnamese. My class had three girls and five boys who were all around five years old. Two were from VN, one from India, two from mainland China and three from Taiwan. They are learning English by immersion, and this is a third language for most of them!
Just before Christmas I moved from the staff villa to our apartment. It is about half a kilometre from the school, a nice walk. I have learned to ride a motorbike, which is the most common method of transportation here. I have learned some "survival" words and phrases in Vietnamese. I can hire a taxi and usually get where I want to go, and I can go to a restaurant and get something good to eat. Often on the weekends I go into HCMC for either business or pleasure, and I can get around to the places I need to go. All in all, I am enjoying life here very much.
