Vinh's class

Every fortnight Vinh picks me up at 7am and takes me out to his village near An Lau where he is teaching the local kids English during the Summer holidays. They are 8-9 year olds and simply gorgeous...

This is their classroom. We sing songs and practice new words and 90 minutes flies by.

This week they had prepared a version of the song I taught them last week to the tune of Frere Jacque. I wish I could upload the video clip of them singing "This is Annie, this is Annie. She's my friend, she's my friend. Come and sing a song now. Come and sing a song now. La la la. La la la."

These girls are all 13 and were keen to have a conversation after the littlies' class finished.

They love to get close.

We went across the road to retrieve the motorbike and were invited to sit down and have a cup of tea... which we did for about three minutes, then it was time to get going.

Vinh had lined up for us to visit the local primary school where he is a teacher. There are classes all through the holidays - most Vietnamese children don't get to just hang out in the holidays... they still go to school, but without uniforms.  So we rode down the lane...

The outside of the school doesn't look like much because it isn't painted, but the classrooms are gorgeous!

... and the children are so bright and happy.

They were very excited to have a foreigner visit them... see ?

I normally wouldn't post a blurry picture, but this one I couldn't resist... I felt like the Pied Piper!

It was lunch-time so they were all heading home and we tootled off to Vinh's place, riding along narrow paths in between rice paddies... love it!!

It's amazing how evenly spaced they plant each rice seedling. . a machine couldn't do a better job.

Vinh's wife, Bich is due to give birth any day now, but she still kindly invited me to join them for lunch.

Vinh, Nam, Bich and Gai

This very tasty fish dish is made from the little mudskipppers that live in the rice paddies... with onion, ginger, chillies, salt and I don't know what else.  It's very flavoursome and a little goes a long way... perfect with rice. And of course there was the usual pork knuckle and greens soup.  Very satisfying!

So after lunch, Vinh gave me a ride home for an afternoon napping, blogging and talking to Katie on Skype before going in to work.