Another near sleepless night... I went to bed at around 12:30 AM and stirred around in bed until about 3:30 and finally fell asleep for about an hour. I encountered a dream, but found that I had only slept for one hour. More stirring. Two hours later I fell back to sleep and woke up at around 6:30 PM, much later than many of the children at the center. Finally at 6:44 pm, I got up out of bed, brushed my teeth and walked on into the dining room for breakfast.
"Why up so late?" a couple of my brothers told me. "Hmm... another difficult night" I replied. For breakfast, my host mother, Ms. Be, served me three sesame buns (like those used for hamburgers but better) and some Vietnamese hotdogs. Speaking of dogs, Min, the director's dog ran down from the director's house on its own accord to come greet me. It jumped around on my feet, licked my toes, and, noticing that I had food, starred at me as I ate. Eventually it jumped up and barked at me as if to tell me to feed it. And so I did. My brothers also ate breakfast, composing of rice and soy sauce, which to me is not a surprising combination as I myself enjoy eating rice with soy sauce at times. The thing about them giving me such special meals is that they are afraid I won't be able to eat like them. I tell them no, but they keep giving. Finishing up my meal with a cool glass of water, I pulled out my laptop and books to plan my lesson plan for the students in primary school I was to teach today in the morning.
As I was Skyping with a friend of mine back from college, all of my brother's rushed into the dining room, preparing what I found out to be would be our lunch - wheat noodles. They hand rolled the dough and cut them into pieces, entertaining me and my friend. They we surprised that I could get good enough internet speed to make a video call and excitingly conversed with my friend. "Ben, class!" yelled the primary school students, accompanied by their older brothers and sisters in secondary school. The older children decided they wanted to take part in my lesson for the primary school students as they thought it would be easier to learn. As I brought my laptop up to the library door to open it, they all noticed I was still chatting over the internet and all crowded around my laptop, greeting my friend and happily talking amongst themselves. They were fascinated that it was even possible to chat with someone far away through video chat. Me and the children waved my friend off and we began class.
I finished my lesson an hour into my class, which was scheduled to be for two hours. At first I told them that I was gong to show them a film, but instead I let them play on the two computers in the library, while I chatted with friends and worked on stuff on my laptop. "Can we play until 11:00?" asked one of the girls crowded around the computers with her sisters. "Yeah, we can" I replied, unknowing of the rule that they were not allowed to use the computers outside of time periods designated for computer use. While I looked over my laptop, the children played video games on the computer, laughed, and also played around in the room we were in, creating buildings with the small mattresses we had in the room. Laughter and giggling filled the whole room. At one point I thought to myself, "I'm probably going to get in trouble and should go put my stuff back in my room to come back and watch after them." So I got up, marched outside the room and met Ms. Minh, one of the directors assistants, who immediately after seeing me asked, "Are you done teaching? And if you are you must tell the children to go home because they only are allowed to use the library room at specific times." Phew. I walked back, sent them all off, and they helped me rearrange and tidy up the room for the next class in the afternoon. By that time I was tremendously tired, fatigued from my lack of sleep.
I took a short twenty minute nap in my room, but was woken up by one of my brothers kneeling over my bed telling me it was time for lunch. Lunch was delicious, but I was given a bowl about five times the size I regularly had and was expected by my brother's to finish it. The eating habits in this house were that we were the finish everything we cooked, and that we were to have more than one bowl of rice or noodles or anything. "Ben you have to eat two of those!" said one of my brothers. I smiled and continued eating. It was great getting to notice how much work the children put into raising each other, from cooking to studying with each other. The program the director, Mrs. Hong, is currently overseeing truly teaches these underprivileged orphans skills that many regular people, and I mean this in the sense of Vietnamese children, would not have, ranging from cooking to sustainability. The director and her daughter decided to come a little late after we all ate to try some of the food that we made for lunch, which was the noodles that we made earlier with pork and a delicious broth. Mrs. Hong's daughter, Ua, had just recently finished her examinations for a university of music in Hue and looked extremely tired, having studied greatly for the past few days in anticipation for her exams. She thought she did well and that put a smile on my face.
Other than Ua, about five other children at the center took university tests, including two of my brothers. One of them, named Vang, said that he thinks he passed, while the other, Thuy, says he is not sure. "The tests in Viet Nam are basically you against all of your peers" Thuy said, "they set a quota for university and take the top scores from the top to the bottom and those who don't make the cut cannot go to college." Wow. That is tough. Coming from the privileged American system of higher education, I felt inspired by the determination of these students amidst such a strict system, giving no weight to high school GPA in the college admission process, nor any other activities the students may have done. Everything relied on the test scores. I hope for the best of these children as deserve to contribute to the world through their academic talents and their drive to succeed, seeing as even they study far more than I ever did for tests. They find out in two weeks whether they get in or not and so I am praying for their success everyday.
After taking a long nap after lunch, I prepared for next class, which was with the students with below average grades, and went off to teach. I had a great class, seeing as the students were starting to understand my lessons and complementing me on how easy they were to understand. After, I ran off down the garden to help my brothers shovel more dirt to move to the back of the center to plant a tree known as a "Dudu" tree. We joked and laughed as the day before and also mixed in our chores with some soccer. I waved the students off to go work on my blog (once again playing catch up) and went off to exercise in peace. Dinner was great once again, but this time, a surprise lie in store. I learned that many of the children here were returning to their hometowns till the end of this month and that, while making me a little sad that I would not see them for the next two weeks, made me also happy that they still are able to return home to their hometowns. About five of my brothers are leaving tomorrow. I too will be leaving for a trip with Mrs. Hong's family and my uncle to go and tour some beautiful locale nearby Hue. I'm excited for tomorrow and need to get well rested for my trip. Thanks again for following!
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