"This is my third day here isn't it?" I asked one of my brothers in my house in the orphanage, which also is called a Trung Tham or center. "No, you just came yesterday..." he replied. Oh...
Its been an extremely long two days and exhaustion has finally caught up to me. I think over the last three days, I have slept a total of ten hours. Due to the heat and also my jarred sleep schedule, I am finding it difficult to even nap, despite nearly falling asleep today while I got a haircut. Oh well, I think I'll get the hang of it by the end of this week.
Last night, I went to bed at midnight, which is for home is the equivalent of sleeping at around 2 AM. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of drinking coffee at around 9:00 PM, not realizing that it would make it impossible for me to sleep during the night. Regardless, I made it through today. Though I must say that with the coffee in my system, I noticed every single bump and movement in my room in the house, making sleeping rather uneasy to say the least.
5 o'clock. Everyone in the house was up, including myself, being unable to sleep and also having to take the students to go running. The running actually never ended up happening as I had thought that I was supposed to take the younger kids to go running, but instead I was actually supposed to take the older kids. Opps... "No harm done" said Mrs. Hong, "you can do it tomorrow." "Sure..." I replied, yawningly. In the morning the orphans went about and tended to different activities, such as cleaning and moving things here and there. "This is our exercise for the morning" said one of the older brothers in my house. I spent about an hour and a half exercising on my own. It was ridiculously hot. Sweat streaming from my face, I decided to go and take a shower, getting ready to go into the city today with my uncle Duyet to go and buy essentials and books - lots of books.
The time was about seven in the morning. All the children had finished their morning duties and either relaxed or set off to do their work. Today was the second day of testing for different universities. Tens of thousands of students in the area set off at 7:00 AM to go and take a three hour test. In total, the students told me, there were about three tests on three different days for this particular testing unit, which composed of mathematics, chemistry, and physics. This unit is regarded as the most difficult and, after looking over some of the material that the students have to cover, is extremely demanding of the student. "I don't like how the testing is done here Ben" one of the current university students told me. "You can learn all the material in world, but if you don't put it to practice, it doesn't mean anything" he said. I wished the students the best of luck and saw about five of the orphans here set off to take the exam.
At last my uncle came and we set off to the markets. I bought about six books ranging from English to Vietnamese learning books and the other way around. My job today, what I thought at least, was to figure out my lesson plan for the students over these next two months. I had A LOT of work ahead of me. Regardless, I bought all my books from one place to the next, totaling about twenty dollars or 400,000 Vietnamese dong. The markets were plenty in Hue. Some of them nice, with air conditioning and everything, and others quite dirty. I bought some more items and then set off to get a haircut, almost falling asleep on my uncle's motorbike.
Yesterday we ate lunch at around 10:00 AM. I came back to the center at about 12:05 PM, not expecting to have lunch with anyone, as the children usually nap during these hours. I was wrong. They all waited for me along with my host mother of this particular house, Ms. Be. I brought home rambutans (red, hairy, spiky on the outside with sweet flesh on the inside surrounding the seed) and mangosteens (a black fruit resembling maybe a plum with white, sweet fruit on the inside). These were to be saved until dinner. We ate and talked about what I had bought and such. The children are always excited to here about what I am up to and also always asking me how to say certain things in English. Being able to speak Vietnamese and also English to the orphans is something that I was told was appealing to the director of the center, as English teachers in past (mainly from England) only taught the students in English. Nevertheless, we finished eating and I unpacked all the new things I had bought and set off to nap. It was about 1:00 PM. After failing to fall asleep, I got up at 2:00 PM to start working out a lesson plan for the week, knowing that the center would want me to teach rather soon. Soon was a big understatement.
Knock, knock, knock. "Ben, there are the children from primary school awaiting you in the library," the assistant director said, "and you also were supposed to teach a class in the morning from eight to ten." My jaw was on the floor. My palm met my face. Opps... The time was about 2:40 PM. I quickly got out of my seat and ran over to the library with all my books in hand, the students following after me as I opened up the room. The library had recently been put in and there were very few books and no board in the front of the library for me to teach. "So where do I begin" I said to myself, wondering if I would be able to even pull a lesson together off the top of my head.
I made it through rather well, at least I thought so. We went over some grammar and pronunciation, which I knew was an area where the children needed the most help in. After finishing the class, I ran down to the director's office to iron out all the details of my schedule, and also to apologize for misunderstanding their directions from the day before about the hours when I was to teach. I didn't realize that I would begin the second day at the orphanage. Regardless, we figured it all out and I at last sighed a breath of relief.
Though I would love to tell more of the story of today, I am really tired and need some rest, as I have class in the morning to look forward to. Long story short, today was a big wake up call. There is a lot depending on me and I do not want to let anyone down. That said, tonight I WILL finally sleep... I hope...
See you next time!
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