Wrapping up with final thoughts

Well I'm back home now. The flight was grueling. It turned out to be 48 hours total of traveling across the world. I flew from Hue to Hanoi, then sat there for about 11 hours, then flew from Hanoi to South Korea and sat there for another 8 or so hours. Then across the pacific to San Francisco, on to Houston, and finally touching down in Jacksonville, arriving around midnight. Melissa was there to meet me at the airport, and it was really nice to see her, obviously :-) We stayed in a hotel that night, and came home around 3 on Saturday. It was a long journey home, but pretty uneventful, which isn't a bad thing.

Being home has been strange, its largely like I never left. Life kind of dropped right back into normal pretty immediately, except that neither of us are working right now, which is making me a little stir crazy. We're both off for school, and start back in middle of August. Long update ahead, but its the last one, so hopefully we can all make it through :-P

So, Vietnam, without the risk of being censored. Most of you may not know, and I couldn't say it while there, but Vietnam has a tendency to be very interested in what people put on the Internet about them. They read emails, and shut down email accounts if they find what you're saying to be disagreeable. They randomly block things, like my phone, for no reason, at least no reason I could discern. Websites that they find objectionable they just filter out, and you get an error as if the site were down. All this is done without any appeals process or number to call. When my phone was killed, they just blocked it, I couldn't call anyone and tell them that I'm not an activist, I'm just trying to call home. They didn't send me a note saying that they've blocked it, I guess they figured I'd figure it out.

So anyway, my blog has always been true, but there have been pieces I didn't mention simply because I didn't want to risk the whole blog being shut down.

Vietnam is a great place, and now, hopefully due to my project, a place I'll return to, because I'll have to. Steve, the Australian I mentioned a few posts back says that Vietnam is a place that just gets in your blood, you can't help it, and some people just get bitten by the bug. I think I was bitten. The people there are incredibly hard working, kind, intelligent, and just great. The food is amazing, the country is beautiful, and the potential for growth is huge. That being said, it has a lot of problems, many of them are cultural in nature. This is one reason why I'm starting this early intervention project, so that hopefully I can do a small part to change the culture of at least a few of the people as it relates to people with disabilities.

The government is technically Communist, but that is in my opinion, communist in name only. Communism as its sold to the people involves everyone working together and as a community rising up, the weakest members being cared for by the strongest so that all prosper. In reality, communism by Vietnam standards is really a government that is riddled with bureaucracy, and corruption. A few benefiting from Communism, while the rest just struggle to get along. This isn't because the people are bad, they're not, its just that the opportunity is there so they take it. When the average household income is something like 25 dollars a month, its too much of a temptation when you can get $100 in a less than honest means. Its no different than the corruption that exists here from time to time, its just here with the dollar being more of a world standard, the bribe or enticement must be quite high to make it worth the risk. There, for someone in government, 100 bucks might be two months wages for a simple turning and looking the other way. Honestly, in your hearts, how many of you can truly say that if someone asked you to just briefly turn a blind eye for 2 months salary, that you would not be tempted. The thing with corruption is that it doesn't appear to hurt anyone at first, its just such a little thing, and its a minor breaking of a rule. But, when everyone is doing it, you get catastrophes, because it all adds up. That's the problem with Vietnam, people will cheat if given enough motivation, and from the outside coming in, when their currency is worth so little compared to world standards like the dollar or Euro, its easy to make enough motivation to entice someone to cheat, just a little... See that's the thing with Vietnam, its not bad, the people are great people, but they're surviving, and they have families to feed. The same could likely be said for any country suffering from government corruption, good people with a lot to gain for their families by doing something just a little unethical. You may notice that most of those countries riddled with these problems exist in places where they are fairly low on the world totem pole, the drive to succeed is very strong, and just like with high stakes testing in the US, when the stakes are high, the consequences great, or terrible, the drive to cheat becomes very tempting. When the stakes are high, humans historically do whatever it takes and think about ethics later. That is humanity as a whole, there are always exceptions, so please I'm not meaning you specifically, but if you doubt my statements about humanity, read a history book, United States History would be a good starting place :-)

Another frustrating aspect of Vietnam is that they eat everything. If it has muscular tissue, its fair game for the dinner table. It does at first seem a more realistic way to look at foods, we tend to split hairs here about eating a cow and eating a horse, when functionally they fill the same niche in an Ecosystem, but for some reason a horse is yucky, a cow is yummy, in Vietnam they both qualify as being steak. This attitude though, has caused their country to be destroyed from an ecosystem stand point. Since virtually nothing moving is off limits, you don't even see squirrels in the trees. They catch song birds and either eat them or sell them. Sadly, the only time I heard a bird singing in Vietnam, it came from a cage. This could be a metaphor for the country, even when presented with such adversity the bird still chooses to sing...

They throw their trash out everywhere, so the rivers are polluted with garbage, the streets are normally clean because they have people that come through every night with a broom and sweep them, but the habit of tossing trash to the ground pervades. So where there aren't sweepers, there's garbage. Vietnam actually has native tigers and monkeys, I never saw them, but they're there somewhere, in very small numbers. If I were to guess I would say that with some cultural shifts, and strong protections placed on their environment, the Vietnamese could have a lush country brimming with ecological diversity much like Costa Rica. At this point it would take a long time to get there, but its worth the effort I believe. One of Costa Rica's largest industries is tourism, the reason for it is that you are in an Eden when you go to the country, but the people believe in it, and so it happens. You have to start with the individual, their belief is what changes the reality, it must be a bottom up approach. If you can't convince the farmer not to eat the monkey, government intervention will not be very effective.

So there are a few issues with Vietnam, but in all, the country has many redeeming qualities which I've highlighted throughout this blog. More importantly it has great potential to continue its upward movement. Apparently it was far worse off in the 60's than it is now, so in 40 years they've come a long way. Hopefully in 40 more they'll surprise us all.

In terms of my project, all is set in Vietnam for it, now I need to get it working here in the US. So my first step is organizing a non-profit, and then getting set up to take tax deductible donations. At that point, I need to start generating money. I'll let you know when that's all set up, so those of you who have already offered money can do so with a tax deduction. Thank you in advance, truly, I never really expected money for the project to come from the blog, but I'm very glad for it anyway. It tells me that my idea may actually be viable. While in Vietnam before I left, I actually met with the ex mayor of Hue, who is an incredibly kind person, and is very interested in my project. So much so, that he's putting some of his weight behind it in dealing with other pieces of the pie over there, helping to grease the wheels so to speak. That's exactly what I needed. With his help, and Nhi, who I couldn't have made any of this possible without, I've got the project set up in a week. That's INCREDIBLE in a country where government is known for being slow to move, its nearly a slogan.

So being a teacher, I often ask myself, what did I learn?

Vietnam taught me that being cranky about things that are out of my control does not do anything except make me cranky. When the electricity was out for 6 hours of the day I could make a choice. I couldn't do anything about the electricity, but I could choose how I dealt with it, either by being mad and whining about it for the 6 hours, or moving forward and doing something else. A shoulder shrug and moving on did amazing things for my personal stress level. I'm a pretty easy going guy, but this helped me to be even more healthy with this aspect of life. So much we encounter is absolutely not in our control, yet its what brings us the most stress in our lives, and for what? My being ticked off never brought the electricity back faster, and once I realized that, and made the decision to just not get mad about it, life got so much more pleasant.

Vietnam taught me that antibacterial soap is not necessary for survival, I never saw any, and I didn't see the black plague taking out the populace. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to wash my hands after going to the restroom, but is it truly necessary to use industrial strength space age super cleanser on the floor when Vinegar does just as well? Vietnam taught me to save my money and use the vinegar.

Vietnam taught me that possessions do not bring happiness. I've seen people in Vietnam that have less than the poorest people in the US, and they were happier than some of our most wealthy. One of the happiest people I met slept on 8 chairs pushed together in a 95 degree heat with near 100% humidity with just a fan every night, and never complained about it. Not only did he not complain, but when I offered to get him a bed, he didn't want it, he liked sleeping where he was. This wasn't modesty either, Nhi discreetly inquired, and he truly didn't want the bed. Weird...to me. I never saw anyone taking anti depressants, or ADD medication, I don't entirely know why, except that they just seemed like a happier lot of people. I have my opinions, but without having depression I can't really understand what the friends I know with depression are going through, so my credibility in commenting is not very high, all I can say is that in Vietnam, I didn't see it, I'll leave you to individually draw your own conclusions.

Vietnam for me held a mirror against the US, its not just a political difference, but almost in every way their culture is opposite ours. Even their language being based on tones and not phonetic, at the very root, Vietnam is different from the United States. In seeing those differences I feel like it has made me a better person. I think both of our cultures could take much from each other, not destroying our own culture in the process, but improving it. From the Vietnamese, we could borrow individual happiness and satisfaction as well as a work ethic that is unbelievable. From us, they could borrow environmental awareness, and personal freedom, and a little bit of time for their selves, hobbies are a luxury there. Vietnam shifted my outlook, and I think for the better, and I hope permanently. I truly wish that the next time something happens that is out of my control, I will choose to shrug my shoulders and move onto a choice that is in my control rather than ruining my day over something that is out of my hands.

Thank you for going through this process with me. Writing a blog has been something that has been incredibly helpful for me to organize my thoughts. I've gained more insights and delved deeper into my feelings by taking the time write them down than I would have just visiting the country. I would never have done that without having readers to read them. So thanks for sticking with me. I know I get long winded sometimes, I've gotten the complaints from some of you, but its been incredibly helpful for me, and so thank you for suffering through on my behalf :-) I intend to keep the blog up, and I'll probably shift its focus to updates on my project. Updates will be few I'm sure, definitely less than weekly. I hope you'll continue to read, and I hope my insights through this experience brought at least one insight to you. I'd love it, in fact, if you had any particular insights or creative musings to have them emailed to me, or left in the comments. What were your thoughts on this whole experience? Please take the time to "blog" about it to me if you like, I'd love to read it. Its the least I can do after putting you through all this over a month or more, and maybe you'll gain insight that I had not considered yet. I love you all, and thanks to everyone for reading, and I hope to bring more interesting information your way as time moves forward.

~Mickey

Wow! major change in plans...

Ok, so life has significantly altered course. So much so that the last post ended with me saying, "nearly half way there" or something like that. Well guess what, I'm actually going to be home Friday night at 10:50 or something. Its crazy and I'm still reeling. I'll explain all that in a bit, first, as promised, I'll update you on all the happenings with the project I alluded to in the last post.

I've mentioned before about an Early Intervention program for the country and how they really need one. Early intervention is when a specialist gets involved in a family of a child with a disability at a very early age, the earlier the better; in order to support the child, and family, and facilitate the typical development of the child as best as possible. Children with disabilities, without early intervention, often enter school significantly behind their typical peers. Those with early intervention, are often much closer to being on track, if not completely at grade level. Vietnam, much like our own country 50 years ago, and often less than that depending on where you look, view people with disabilities as essentially useless and incapable. This, we know is not true. Those in the "know", know that people with disabilities can often perform the same tasks that those without can, and often times with the same efficiency, but they often need accommodations.

In any case, Vietnam has a pretty dim view of those with disabilities, including those, and sometiems especially those, with visual impairments. The rub of it all, is that its kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. Because they do not expect the people with disabilities to succeed, the "village" does not invest in that person, just like with any person, an investment by those around them is necessary in order to reach their true potential. An investment of education, support, and love, are all critical to the full development of any individual. Because the society does not believe they can do anything, they don't educate the people with disabilities, and thus do not provide opportunities for success. So, guess what? The people with disabilities in Vietnam are often useless to society. No surprise when you look at it in that light. This isn't because they have to be, but because of insurmountable barriers erected by their cultural belief system. This is where my project comes into play.

I'm going to start a program for early intervention for children with visual impairments. What this will do, is facilitate a specialist getting into the home at an early age and hopefully educate the family about their child. With the family being one of the basic building blocks of a society, the hope is that by educating them we can slowly work to change the attitudes of the culture bit by bit. My hope is that we can start with blindness, but develop a model that works for Vietnam that can be expanded out to all children with disabilities. With the specialists entering in the home early, we can perhaps keep the child with the family even through school, getting away from the current institution model that's the norm. The child can be supported while growing up, keeping up with his/her sighted peers, and ultimately fulfilling a successful role as a contributing member of society, helping to alter the opinions of those around him or her regarding disability.

So the logistics of the plan now need to be ironed out. Usually, for a project like I'm thinking about starting, I'd need to move to Vietnam. I really don't want to do that. I like Vietnam, but we have quite the life established in Tallahassee, and I don't want to leave that behind. Luckily, I've got Nhi, my interpreter. It turns out that the students in the class aren't the only ones that I've swayed to "the way of the force" during my time here. She's interested in being the feet on the ground for me in Vietnam and to keep in contact with me in the states. This is a very fortunate happening, and the only way really that this would be possible. She's perfect for the position. She's very plugged into the community here, she speaks both languages, she already has connections with the school after this summer working with them, and she's been educated by me for the last 4 weeks or whatever it is. We already work well together, and she's a very assertive individual, read, she gets what she wants without ticking people off. I couldn't sculpt a better fit for the job. Next, I've picked two of my students to be the first "early interventionists" in Vietnam. They've got a good bit less education than we need to have in the states, but they have a will to learn, and a desire to make a difference. I think we can work with that, and fill in the gaps in knowledge as we go along. At this point, I'm working from the idea that any family education is better than no education. No education, literally in some cases, causes the child to never be taken out of the house, or given any opportunities. Sometimes friends of the family don't even know the child is alive. Some of them come to the school at 12 and can't even speak! So getting to the families, I think, is a priority for effecting real change for the people with visual impairments in Vietnam, and hopefully disabilities as a hole ultimately.

Nhi and I have worked out a rough budget for a 6 month pilot project. I will provide the direction for the project, the over seeing of the reports and education of the staff, as well as fundraising. Nhi will be the supervisor, and the liaison to the community, and says she might be able to drum up some local money as well. All in all a rough budget for 6 months for the project looks like about $1000. Is that crazy or what? I'd like to raise some additional funds so that I can make a trip back out here about once a year, to deliver more education, but that will be next spring at the earliest, so I don't really factor that into the budget yet. Nhi doesn't want any money for her work, yet. She wants to see how the funds go first and if there's money left over she may accept a stipend, but she won't promise. I think she's crazy, I didn't realize I was the only one willing to work for free around here, her job will be much harder than mine. I've told her this, but she really wants to do it. So I'll let her :-)

I'm very excited about this opportunity and hope that I can get it off the ground and cruising. Nhi thinks it has a good chance at success, and she's familiar with these kinds of things, she already works with two other projects dealing with much bigger budgets than we'll start with. Though, who knows where it'll end up if we roll it out for all disabilities, and then nation wide... But we have to start small and manageable. So for now, and the next couple years it'll be pretty small, maybe...

Moving along, I went to Hoi An this weekend, it was ok... I really didn't care for it too much, it was extremely hot, and the people were desperate for money and would come out to the street to pull you into their shops. It was very hassling. I did take a cooking class while there, and I'm excited about that and the opportunity to cook some neat things when I get home. I learned how to cook fish, or any meat really, in a banana leaf, I learned how to cook a meal in this little ceramic pot that I now need to buy before I leave here :-) And I learned how to cook what is pretty much their national meal, pho, which is a soup that's delicious. So dinner parties at my house when I get home! :-) My poor banana plants are going to regret my trip to Vietnam.

So back to my imminent departure. Bob's visa through some mistake in processing runs out this next week. We've really taught a lot in the 15 hours a week we're teaching right now, so Gabby elected to not have Bob change his visa and instead just make this our last week of teaching, and since Bob is leaving, she thinks I may as well go too... Now some side info, is that she's really unhappy with my wanting to start this early intervention program, she doesn't think it'll work and she's kind of mad about it, though wants no part of it, even though I asked her out of courtesy if she wanted to be a part of it. I was very happy when she said no. So I think that's part of her getting me out of here. The thing is, she's planning to leave herself, so I don't really see why she's annoyed by it, but whatever, its not about her. So anyway, she set me up to leave Tuesday morning and spend two days in Hanoi before heading out. I don't like Hanoi much, and there's no extended trips I can really take that would be functional and not hectic in two days. So, I've changed my trip and am flying to Hanoi Thursday morning now. I had to buy my own ticket to Hanoi, which is 50 bucks but its worth it to me. I'll leave Thursday night and get back to Jacksonville Friday night at 11ish. Its pretty amazing. I'm having a party for the people at the hotel on Tuesday that I set up last week, we're bussing them all out to the beach for 3 hours. That's another reason why leaving Tuesday morning was a no go. I'm going to miss something I was very honored to be invited to. Nhi's family is getting together for the "death anniversary" of her father on Friday, and I was invited to attend. I was very honored, and looking forward to going, I guess I won't be now. Gabby is just determined to do whatever she can to screw things up for me it feels like, its been an ongoing theme of this trip. When I get my feet on the ground in Florida I plan to write her an email outlining her lack of professionalism and how I think she could do a better job next time. Communication skills will be top of the list! But, since she's in control now of my stay here and my leaving, I need to play nice for a few more days.

So that's everything so far, I've added a couple pics, haven't gotten them all up yet, but there's nothing too earth shattering.

This guy was sleeping along the edge of the river, he doesn't live there, I guess it was just a mid day nap...









This lady worked in the market, I snapped this when she wasn't looking. Women are I think, the hardest working people in Vietnam. They are tireless and must work until they die because I see exceptionally old looking women working their tails off right along side 20 somethings. I have huge amounts of respect for them.

Oh and I forgot to mention, my phone thing I had worked out so I could call people like mom and dad, at their houses, yeah, that got killed. After I came home from Hanoi the phone just quit connecting to the server, I called tech support and they said the signal is not coming through, which means its been blocked. Very annoying, and seemingly deliberate, though I can't figure out what the motivation would be. So anyway, that's why I haven't called anyone, I still check email though!

A few more days, and much to do, hopefully I'll get good things accomplished between now and then. Until next time...

~Mickey

I get out of the city, and its exactly what I needed

So last week, I was sort of getting into a funk. People were annoying me, I was being uncreative, unmotivated, and just feeling generally not well. So, I was planning to visit Hanoi, which is the capital of Vietnam, old seat of the dreaded Viet Cong during the war days. My purpose for the visit was to try and get a visa to India, to see my great friends Anubhav and Nandini. I've not written about it here because I didn't want Nan's knowing about it. Anubhav and I were trying to make it a surprise, but sadly its not going to work out :-( So the cat is out of the bag, and I'm a little bummed about not making it to India, but I think Melissa and I will try to get it next year or something. Sorry Nans, I tried.

Hanoi is a hell for someone that doesn't like to be hassled. It was a little different from Hue. In Hue when you walk down the street the motorbike drivers try to get you to rent their motorbike and their guide services, or the cyclo drivers try to bike you around. That gets annoying, but in Hanoi, they'll follow you down the street. A pack of them, when there's no way you'll be able to use all their services, they just follow you until another victim happens along. I also had a horrible experience with the cab drivers, and hotel owners trying to cheat me out of money. I'd get a price for the trip before getting into the cab, then we'd get there and the guy would start whining about it being so far, and he wanted more money and so forth. One guy tried to give me half the change I was owed hoping I wouldn't get the exchange rate down in my head. That guy nearly didn't get paid at all, and I think he sensed that so came off my change. Then the first hotel room that cost me 20 bucks, a fortune for what I actually got, tried to charge me 5 bucks for a small bottle of water. So yeah, my experience with Hanoi, its busy, its dirty, and the people are greedy. It does have some pretty spots though, and I've been told I didn't get a fair look at it having only really spent 24 hours there. The rest of the time was on Ha Long Bay...

It is an amazing place, and my photos don't do it justice at all unfortunately. I paid $60 for 2 days and 1 night on a "junk" that toured the bay. Its extremely touristy, far more than is my typical pursuit but since I don't have my own boat and there's like 2000 islands in the bay its pretty much only accessible by taking a tour. The Lonely Planet Guide Book says that its really hit and miss on the tour you'll get, and the price is extremely variable. One person on my boat paid 85 for the same tour I paid 60 for to give you an idea. Our boat was probably mid range, we had decent rooms, but it wasn't very "new". I guess it is called a Junk. One room leaked, the girl that paid 85 got that one. She slept in a puddle that night. I didn't even know it rained, so boy did I feel like a jerk the next morning, being oblivious the rain. The food was excellent, but we had to run the German roaches off the table as we ate. They kept trying to walk onto the table with us, it was pretty gross, but we needed to eat, so we dealt.







Here's the dining room, looks really snazzy, even the roaches think so....






I met some great people, and I'm actually going to catch back up with them this next weekend when I visit Hoi An, so that should be fun. Aside from the roaches, and the leaky room, we had a great time. The chemistry of the 8 of us was great, and we just sat on the deck at night chatting about anything and everything. Much of it was American politics, Americans are not favorites in the world community right now, and these were international people. They think we're inept bullies and are terrified of what trouble we'll get into/cause next. I just sort of ducked my head, and didn't really know what to say about it, I didn't get us into the mess. They seemed to understand that, and felt sorry for me I think. The collection of nationalities represented were, 2 Australians, a family of folks from Denmark, a lady from London who is originally from the Ukraine, and a girl from Southern California.

There was a fantastic cave in the bay, I'll put a pic up, but go to the gallery to see more, you'll find the link at the end of this post. It was very awesome. We also went on a kayak trip, that would have been my time to get some great pictures, but it was a wet adventure so the camera stayed on the Junk. On day 2 we headed back to Hanoi, and I jumped in a cab for the airport, to argue more about money with a greedy taxi driver.

Despite the weird things here and there, this weekend away was great medicine for me. I've felt much better these past two days, and I look forward to this next weekend when I catch back up with my new friends. I would tell you their names, but honestly, I don't remember :-) This is typical of me, names just slide right off my brain, I'll never forget their faces, but their names just don't stick. I'll know their faces when I see them again though. Friends are made very fast when traveling, you don't know much about them, but you really enjoy the company for what it is, and then you move on. Kind of strange really. I'll spend an entire day with someone, and then at the end of it, I know I'll never see them again, where else would that happen except in a foreign country where one is starved for speaking one's native language?

Today I was invited to ride out to Nhi's village with her. She's my interpreter and she wanted to drop her neice home with her family and pick up some veggies while there. Talk about going off the tourist track, people stared at me, people waved and yelled "Hello!". It was really funny, they don't see white boys too much out there. I've put up some pics from the experience, I didn't take any at Nhi's actual house, but a few coming in and leaving. I try to be discreet with my photography, I don't want people thinking I'm making a specatcle of their lifestyle, so I left the camera in the bag. She took me upstairs to what was basically a shrine to her two late brothers and father. They had a whole room dedicated to them. She lit some incense for them, and told me a little about each of them.

In Vietnam the major religion is Buddhism, but really its more like ancestor worship, with a side of Buddhism. Every house, every store, has a little shrine where they have incense burning, and some offering bowls where fruit or vegetables are placed. Its usually the man of the house's duty to tend the shrine each day, though anyone in the family can do it. They have big dinners on the anniversary of people's passing all the way out to great grandfathers and who knows if beyond. Its very serious stuff here. I think they look to their passed ancestors for guidance and wisdom, and for them to look out for their family still alive. I've not verfied this officially but that's the sense I get.

In any case back on track. It was a great honor to me to be invited to Nhi's house, I really enjoyed it, and hope to go back. I didn't really say much, there's a large language barrier, so I just followed Nhi around while she picked vegetables for her dinner, and asked questions.



Here's what it looked like on the way to her house.












Some women washing their clothes in the river.





I think that's enough for now, I feel like I've been writing this forever and there's not much substance to it. Sorry Dr. Lewis :-) My next update will probably deal with the idea of my starting some sort of program here, that's going to be its own post though, so I'll leave you all with this piece to digest for a couple days, and when I get my thoughts together on the next mire I'm about to get into, I'll give you a synopsis. I miss everyone, nearly half way through though!

~Mickey

ps. Here are the latest pics, hope you enjoy, I don't have them captioned yet, but I'll try to get that done soon...
http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher/Hanoi
http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher/HanoiHaLongBay
http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher/MotorbikeTourOfHueNhiSVillage

Week 2...

Hmmm, my subjects are getting less than creative, I'll have to work on that for next time. The photo on the left is the Perfume River at sunset, with the mountains in the distance.

Alright, when we last left off our handsome protagonist was finishing up his first week in Vietnam, now we're nearly finished with the second week. So where are we? Well with a better sense of the workings of this whole place. My day has been adjusted a good bit from the original expectation. I start work at 7:30ish, I say ish because sometimes its nearly 8 by the time the cab arrives and everyone gets situated. This kind of scheduling really seems to only bother Americans and Europeans, as far as I can tell. The rest of the planet seems to have a comfortable and very relaxed relationship with time. Its taken some getting used to I must admit, but its really not a horrible way to live I suppose. So anyway, 7:30ish-10ish. The original plan was 7:30-10:30 and then 2:30-4:30. So my day has become quite truncated. I almost don't feel as if I'm working sometimes, though I know I'm dumping a lot of info on the people, it definitely doesn't feel like an entire work day. The reasoning for the day changing so much is that frankly, I'm running out of things to teach. Sounds outrageous I know, but in assessing their needs, there is so much development that needs to happen, nationally, culturally, individually, before much of what I learned in college would even have relevance to their lives here.

For example, the IEP, which for the non-teachers in the audience is an Individual Education Plan, a document federally required that requires for the education team of every child with a disability in the USA to have their education team meet no less than once a year to specifically discuss and set goals for that individual child to accomplish, hopefully, within the next year. Well anyway, the IEP is a cornerstone to the belief system we carry in the US, and really my guiding rules for my teaching, doesn't exist here. The foundation of the belief that created the document, the idea that people with disabilities are people too, doesn't exist here. So there goes teaching about that :-) Daily living skills is an area they were all interested in learning about. So last week we jumped into that, and come to find out, daily living skills is probably their strongest area. Daily living skills being those skills required for daily life, brushing teeth, cooking, personal hygiene, etc. In the states its a huge need for people with visual impairments, they often need assistance to accomplish these tasks. Here though, its a sink or swim kind of environment. So the kids learn these things really as a matter of necessity because there isn't someone to do them for them. So, there goes that idea :-)

So I begin by teaching about issues related to blindness, then I take my students and we work on traveling skills, and Bob takes his and works on Braille. I've been teaching O&M in a Buddhist garden, that's been pretty neat, here's a couple pics of that on the left. Then we're done for the day and back to the hotel. I'm finding great people that live in this town. Many of them are "Ex-pats" which is short for ex-patriots or people from other countries living somewhere else and working there. There are about 50 that live in Hue, and they're sort of their own little club. They hang out in certain places and so forth. One guy, is a principal at an "International School" here and his name is Steve. He's an Aussie, and is just one of those people you just love to be around. Very neat person, then there's another guy Arry I think his name is. He's dutch, and is pretty neat as well. Steve is in the red shirt playing the guitar in the pic on the right.

My interpreter who is native to Hue, her husband is an ex-pat and does land mine surveying, because there are still many undetonated explosives lying around from the war. He says nearly every day, or at least multiple times a week someone will stumble across one and maim themselves or get killed. Very sad. So that's how the evenings are usually passed, or playing with the children of the hotel owner. Incidentally, I think they've quit charging me for my food :-) I don't know for sure because its a running tab that will be picked up by Gabby at the end of my stay, but I used to have to sign for my food, and I have not done that in a few days now. She may be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of free food, I was also picked up by this guy when I was out walking who was very excited that I was American. He took me to lunch. Its kinda strange though, strange like fishy strange. He asked me a lot of questions about me, my family, what I was doing in Vietnam. He then, after lunch, asked me what I thought about the Govt. here. Well I'm not going to say anything bad to someone I don't know, and truthfully, though its quite different from what I'm used to, I wouldn't call it bad, not from my personal experience anyway. So that's essentially what I told him. He then dropped me off at my hotel after convincing me to buy him a bottle of wine for his family, they were having a party that night and he couldn't wait to tell them about this cool American, so we kinda broke even with him buying my meal, and me buying him his wine. He also took down my email address, he said it was so his family in the states could send me a bonsai, they're apparently into Bonsai. But, as the govt is known for monitoring email here, I'm thinking that this could have just been a way for him to monitor my emails perhaps. I don't know, its all very conspiracy theory but its definitely not too "out there". I hadn't put the email thing together until just now, so I'm kinda a little creeped out now. He was likely really just a farmer, whose dad really did work with the Americans during the war. But, farmers with email addresses around here are probably not too common. So anyway, cue the twilight zone music...

Anyway, I spent the afternoon in a karaoke bar, that was Bob's idea to invite the students to this place, Vietnamese love karaoke. Its a phenomenon here, and one I find horrid to be honest. I don't like it at home either, but I went. I told them I didn't want to sing, that it wasn't my thing at all, they bugged me enough about it. So I put in the alphabet song, yes that was an option, as was "Mary had a little lamb" and every Christmas song you could think of. They loved the alphabet song, so the joke was sorta wasted... I'm now here in a neat little coffee shop eating and ice cream sunday and updating my blog. Its a neat little place, owned by twin brothers who are Vietnamese and are internationally known artists apparently. They're quite interesting, facial piercings and tattoos, which is unbelievably progressive for this area, let alone Vietnam in general. They are really neat people though, and I'm working on setting up a thing where they'll teach the students at the school about art. Trying to branch them out from making brooms and doing massage.

Alright, so that's pretty much up to date. I'm flying to Hanoi tomorrow to spend the weekend, and will go to Ha Long Bay which is a national treasure and is considered one of the new "Natural Wonders of the World" I'm going to spend two days on a boat, and will hopefully have loads of pictures for you. So you probably won't get an update until Monday at the earliest, but it should be a picture laden one :-) Oh I forgot, I can call home now, Melissa and I figured out that I can use my home phone service on my laptop, so if I call you, it'll come up as my house phone. So I might be calling a phone near you... Much love from Vietnam.

http://picasaweb.google.com/visionteacher if you want to see pics that didn't make it to the blog.

~Mickey

ps. Many of you have asked about how to leave comments. At the bottom of this post you'll see a little number in gold I think, with the word "comments" written next to it. If you click that number it'll bring you to the comments page, I think you can leave a comment without having to jump through hoops. Hopefully...