Bee Star 2012

Every couple of years the English Clubs in Hai Phong compete in an English speaking competition that includes recognising idioms, spelling (obscure words!!), presenting a topic and debating. Teams of two work their way through the preliminary rounds all vying for the prize money (4.000.000 dong each for the winning team!).  Through Xuân I was invited to be one of the judges for the final tonight. What a privilege!

Toni came with me and we were picked up by taxi and taken to the venue - the grand hall at the Hai Phong Medical University. The theatre was filled and the stage was set. A team of enthusiastic young people had been working on setting it up all week and it was all set. Unfortunately Tony was working, so he couldn't be there - which was particularly sad because the two finalists who finally won have been coming here every week, debating and arguing with him for months now and he would have been justifiably proud to see them go so well.

I was one of three judges - all English language teachers - Shay (from the US), John (another Aussie) and me. The three teams represented different English Clubs. They all spoke really well and it wasn't easy to score them. To be able to debate freely in a foreign language is quite a feat and I was very impressed.

That's Loyal, my TA from VAIE on the far left!

The program included several musical items - both song and dance. The couple who sang a duet while we were tallying up our scores was particularly good, and I found it hard to concentrate on the job!

Both dance items were thoroughly entertaining. But for me, the real highlight of the night was a dance performed by a group of students (many of them from our Nam Phat church class) that enthusiastically portrayed the unity and marvellous sense of family and belonging that these students share. They encourage and support one another with so much love and good humour it is delightful to see. They were not a group of trained dancers, so they'd had to work hard to learn the choreography... practicing every afternoon through the heat of the last month or so! I was sitting in the front row, so I got to video it - wonderful!

When the winners were finally announced it was Ha and Haianh that triumphed. So the celebrations began, with friends and well-wishers flooding the stage for photos...  

  

Shame this one's blurry... but you get the picture!

Many of the students here on the night were friends from our Nam Phat Church Class... so there were lots of pictures with the teacher!

 

And this is the awesome dance team...

 

A hugely successful night ... thanks to the enormous efforts of many volunteers... Well done one and all, and Congratulations to Hà and Haianh.

Thai's birthday lunch

Mai invited John and Melissa, Toni and I to lunch for a party to celebrate Thai's birthday...

Not only was it his birthday, he was also the chef!  We sat down to a delicious feast that he had been preparing for two days!

These snails are from ponds and riverbeds and rice paddies... wherever there is clean fresh water.

The meat is removed chopped up and mixed with other ingredients then re-inserted into the shells with the leaf to make it easy to pull the filling back out... clever, eh... and quite delicious.. . another first for the other Aussies!

 

  

The fish cutlets are crumbed and deep fried and taste just as good as they look.  They called the sushi by another name, but whatever it's called, it's always good. Also on the menu were sticky-rice fritters, spring rolls, hot chips, coleslaw and a variety of dipping sauces. So much delicious food!

This is Hà. She is a contestant in the spelling bee debating competition that I am judging tonight. Five of the 6 finalists are students I know so it will be exciting to see who comes out on top!

As we left I had to get a photo of me with Mai. How petite she is (even 8 months pregnant) !!

John and Melissa, Toni, Mai, me and Hà

Coffee with Sáng, Trung and Trung

This morning Sáng picked me up and took me out for coffee. Trung came too, and we picked up another Trung along the way. We enjoyed a very pleasant time chatting in this comfortable cafe...

 

Me with Sáng                        two Trungs

A lovely way to spend the morning.

Crescent Moon and a Star

For the past few weeks I have been getting up at 5.15am to go for a walk to try to get fit and and beat the heat. The first bit is slowly working, but it's still too hot!

Anyway, this morning I woke up before 5 and was amazed to see this crescent moon with a bright star

I tried googling it, but got conflicting opinions as to whether the 'star' is actually Venus or Jupiter... but either way I was pretty excited!



New Toni

We have a new housemate - Toni, from Wollongong, Australia.  She flew in from HCM City yesterday morning, ready for a six month stint at VAIE. She chose the top room... we're hoping the worst of summer is over because it gets incredibly hot up there... But it's big and airy and quite lovely with the doors and windows open - and there's a bathroom as well.  She spent the best part of the day cleaning out the broken old furniture and re-arranging  and cleaning it and it should be quite pleasant. The hard bed was a bit of an eye-opener, though!

She came to work with me at 5 and sat in on my beginners' class, which is always a lot of fun... so it was a good introduction to language teaching. She is a qualified teacher, but this languge teaching is quite different from normal classroom teaching but I'm sure she'll have no trouble adapting. 

We stopped off for Bún Chả on the way home. And of course, she agreed that it is simply fabulous food!

This morning I took her with me to the church class. It was packed... we had at least 40 students, including one guy from China!  There was plenty of lively fun and discussion as usual and I was delighted to have Toni share the teaching.

After the class a bunch of us went again to Sunflower Cafe to chat. Time flies by as conversation doesn't stop. It's a beaut way to get to know newcomers.

Going around the table clockwise is Xuân, Trung, Diep, ? ,  Linh, Thai, Trung, Sáng, Trung,

Toni, Linh, Kien, Đạt, Thảo, and Nguyet

Thảo offered to help Toni buy a bicycle if she wants one and to go shopping with her... That's by far the best way to get around... go with a local!

The boys dropped us off at Big C where Toni bought pillows, doona, towels, ... even an ironing board!! and of course, bánh mì for lunch.

Yep, she's in the swing of things already... and it's only day 2!

Fruit Tea

Woo-oo! Saturday night free!  After I had dinner with Will and Emma I walked home and had a shower... the rain has stopped, so it's very hot and humid again. But my early lesson tomorrow was cancelled, so I planned to sleep in!  My friend Ba has a bit of free time from studying, having just finished more exams, so he came over and picked me up at 8.  We went to the hotel/hostel where her is now living and studying and I met some of his friends. They are all studying English, so it was easy to talk with them. Ba shares a large room with three others and their classrooms are on the next floor. They work very hard for the jobs they will be offered as navigators depend on their level of English, for only English is spoken on the bridge on board ships.  I was too busy chatting to remember to pull out my camera.

After a while the others went to watch the gold medal soccer match between Brazil and whoever. I can't believe I'm missing an Olympic Games. It's televised here on a couple of channels, but of course there is no mention of any Australians... and I didn't see any of either the swimming or the diving, a little bit of gymnastics... every time I turned to that channel they were televising weightlifting, table-tennis or 'experts' sprooking on about highlights they didn't show!!  AARRGHH

Not to worry! Ba and I went downtown to a cafe and had Chè Hoa Quả - literally 'fruits tea'... How good does this look??

I have no idea what half the ingredients are, but they're all yummy!  It's called tea because underneath the heap it's swimming in icy orange tea.   Ba took a photo of me writing dowm the name of it, because I'd forget otherwise.

 So of course, I took one of him!

At about 9.30 I got a text from Will pleading with me to take his morning classes so he could have tomorrow off. I know he and Emma were having farewell drinks at Julie's Bar tonight and planning to hit Hanoi one last time tomorrow arvo... and I hadn't planned anything fabulous. So I agreed... but Will now owes me BIG TIME!



Goodbye Emma

All too soon it's Emma's last day.  I ducked into her final class and took a photo for her. The TA is Snowy, an absolute darling...

Since I had my camera out, I couldn't resist taking pics of my Kitty class... aren't they gorgeous?

These are the 3-5 year olds that often start in tears in the first lesson, but soon realise it's fun!

Then it was time... all the formalities were completed and everyone that was there gathered for a staff photo

Frank, Will, Jo, Emma, Loyal and Sun in the back row; Linh, Angelia, Snowy and Lotus in front. 

Linh, Emma and Sun... all putting on a brave face...

After final hugs, Will, Emma and I went across to Megan's for one last dinner and a cold beer. It always seems so unreal when you get to this piont. Emma's busting to see her family but of course that excitement is tempered by having to let go af all the friends and lifestyle here in Hải Phòng.  A last photo with Megan, and we said our goodbyes.

She is such a vibrant, bubbly person I know Emma will always leave a trail of friends wherever she goes... for now it's back to university in England to finish her Teaching Degree, but I don't imagine she'll stay put. I expect she will do a lot more travelling yet... at 22 she has her whole life ahead of her, and knowing Emma, she won't waste a minute of it!