Teachers!

Trip Start Nov 28, 2005

Trip End Aug 12, 2006

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Flag of Vietnam Hue, Vietnam
Friday, February 10, 2006

We're now one week into our voluntary teaching at orphanages in Hue. We teach English to kids at two orphanages and adult staff at a rehabilitation centre. We're living in a house in the old part of the town, which is an area surrounded by city walls and a moat! The family who own the house live in the adjacent property and the mother, Chi Bi, also doubles as our cook! The house is very large and is a nice change from the hotel rooms of the last 2 months. The organisation we have arranged the voluntary work through is Global Volunteer Network (GVN).

We have a fairly well-worked routine in the week. Our breakfast is ready for us at 7am, so we get up about 6.59am. Sometimes it is bread or yoghurt but frequently it will be some kind of hot noodle soup, which we actually quite enjoy as a start to the day now. No cereal in sight :-( Then get ready and have 30 mins or so to get things ready for the first lesson which is usually 9.30am

All smiles

. We then have a cycle for 15-20 mins to get to one of the three locations in the city. The traffic is about 90% slow-moving motorbikes and bicycles, so even though the roads are busy, they are relatively safe. Sometimes on the way to the lesson we stop off at a small pharmacy that also doubles as a photocopying shop! We get a good price as they know we are teachers, and teachers are very well respected in Vietnam.

After the lesson, its back to the house for lunch at about 11am - usually involves rice and 1-2 main dishes with fish/meat/vegetables. Very tasty and all freshly bought ingredients - so we're not getting our normal level of E-numbers and preservatives at the moment! Then a quick rest after lunch, maybe some reading, diary updating or dog stroking (they have 2 dogs - a brown alsatiany one that seems to act as a security guard, barks a lot, but is very friendly to us now he knows us and likes his fuss and biscuits - the other dog has an unusual rastafarian haircut, is usually quiet, but growls if you go to stroke it - we've been advised to leave him....we've imaginatively named them Brownie and Blackie!). Then some preparation for the next lesson, which will starts at 2.30-3.00. Back for tea at 5pm-ish, which will be a different rice/noodle based meal. Then a quick break before the evening lesson at 7. Will get back by 8.45 and then either prepare for next day or watch TV/read a book/go for a beer

Andy's new friend at home in Hue

. Bed by 10pm most nights.

So on a full day with 3 lessons (as we had a lot this week), its a very hard day of working - maybe only 4.5 hours of lessons, but as it seems to take 1-2 hours of prep for each of hour of teaching, it quickly becomes a busy day. However, we're now trying to rotate it between the 3 of us so that we go in pairs and we only teach twice a day, which means you can prepare better for the other lessons and have some free time.

We've got just over 2 weeks left - hopefully it will be as challenging and rewarding as this week. But I think we will be ready for a break by the end of it (we're not sure how teachers keep this up for years on end)!

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