First day at school

That folks, is a bicycle, and yes the person rides it that way...

Well I'm in Hue and I've finished my first day of work. On the way here from Ho Chi Minh City I rode in a plane with the propellers on the wings, that was kinda neat, never rode in one of those before. It wasn't as loud as I expected. They bussed us out to the tarmac where the plane was waiting and we climbed up the stairs kinda like the president does in all the photos :-) Of course it was a bus that wasn't all that pretty that took us to the not so stylish plane, but you know what, it got me to Hue without crashing, so I'm not complaining.

At Hue airport, Gabby picked me up. She's an interesting person, very brave really. What she's trying to do is pretty amazing, I hope that with our help she can somewhat pull it through, but to be honest, the deck is pretty stacked against her. She's pretty jaded and a little burnt out. She's the only blind foreigner here, and is very fiercely independent. The people I think are offensive to her, and they don't realize it. I don't think its intentional, they just don't know how to act. They call her things like Ms. Blind and stuff like that, she understands a bit of the language, and so they don't think she hears them, when in reality its very hurtful. She'll walk up to people to get information and they'll tell her to piss off, literally. They think she's begging, when she's not at all, she's a consumer like the rest of us. Because being solicited is fairly common, the people are just sort of rough about it, and ask questions later kind of attitude. She has opinions about people at the school, and I had to ask her today to hold her opinions as far as I was concerned, because I wanted the chance to form my own. She seemed to take it well. Here's Gabby and myself:

Bob is the other teacher I'm working with. He's a pretty neat guy, very accomplished in the world of business. He used to buy bankrupt companies and turn them around to be profitable. He's teaching sort of as a retirement from all that. He likes to talk a lot, and it causes me to sit and listen, or not, much of the time. I don't like interrupting people, and I don't want to step on his talking, so I'll just keep my own company. I like him a lot, but I find myself being more quiet when I'm around him, which as most of you know is not really like me :-)

I've taken on a leadership role here, Bob and Gabby are sort of deferring to me, still haven't figured out why that keeps happening to me, I need to learn to keep my mouth shut and not be so confident in my language I think.

We met at the school today and met the teachers and staff that we'd be educating over the next 6 weeks. We also met the school director. The facility is actually a pretty nice campus. The students sleep two to a bed on pallets with a really pretty sheet over it. The architecture is attractive, as are many of the older buildings in Hue. I met the interpreter that basically is assigned to me over the next weeks, her name in pronounced "knee" though I have no idea how to spell it. She's got a very fashionable haircut and is really "together". She's very aware of world politics, and seems quite intelligent. Definitely on a different strata from the every day working folks of Vietnam, who are also great people, and intelligent in their areas, but they live day to day without much awareness of the world beyond their borders. Knee is definitely different and she knows it, very self confident. I think we'll work well together, she did a great job today interpreting for me, and made my jokes funny, which is pretty good since I'm sure they don't always translate perfectly, and they probably aren't that funny ;-)

So we met for breakfast, and then went to the school. We really didn't know what to do, and Gabby didn't either. This is where I took the lead, since we were all sort of staring at each other. We met the staff and told them a bit about ourselves and what we do in the states, as well as what we'd like to do for them. Special emphasis on independence and success for blind people in their country. The culture here really respects teachers a lot. Its one of the most noble things a person can do is to be an educator. Part of that respect involves not asking questions of your teacher, its disrespectful. So when I ask for questions everyone just stares at you. In a college class in the states, if I ask for questions I need to be prepared to spend 10 minutes on them. Because of this, my teaching style really is geared with this guided discovery, Socratic method. I feel that if I can guide a student through this questioning process, they can discover the knowledge for themselves and it'll stick better. So, a little behavior modification is in order here :-)

I decided to try that, and told Knee to tell them that whoever asked the first question was my favorite student for the day, and that it didn't have to be about blindness at all, could be about anything. I just wanted to start the culture of questions. So, who asks the first question? The director of the school. What does he ask? Who I think is the most beautiful girl in the room. Wow. Now how does one diplomatically answer a question like that, when they're all definitely interested in the answer? Was pretty crazy. I said something like, its too hard a decision, it would be like picking the most beautiful star from the sky, or some crap like that. It seemed to be satisfactory and we moved along. Whoa...

That was pretty much the end of that adventure. On your left are the people I'll be working with, a combination of both students and teachers, many of them with visual impairments.

Gabby, Bob, and I have met this afternoon to brainstorm, and we're coming back together at 8 for dinner and to regroup for tomorrow. We've been told that its expected of us to host a twice daily tea. That its just expected when you have a training like this, so we have to make time in our already very cramped agenda for tea, which takes about 15 minutes each time, once in the afternoon and once in the morning.

Here's inside one of the dorms. Those are basically just boards under those pretty green blankets. The students sleep two to a bed.

In other news, I had a very tasty lunch. Can't tell you what it was, but I took a pic for you, it was fried rice, shrimp and pork, and was just incredibly good. I loved it, and might get it again tomorrow :-) Just look at that presentation! And it cost a dollar, the whole dinner.

Random pic for you:

This pic was taken by one of the students who is blind, she's not too bad a photographer, and this was probably the first camera she's ever used.

I guess that's enough for today, I'll update again soon. Keep the comments coming, I want to hear from you all!

~Me