I should be sleeping

Ok it is going on 12am and I really should be sleeping but Scott let me borrow his laptop and we were able to connect to the internet here. Where is here??? Well we are staying in the capital of Thanh Hoa Province which is Thanh Hoa City. We are somewhere in the middle of town I think because there is a really busy street at the corner and that is the street we took to get into town.

Sunday afternoon we took a bus, that held the 12 of us, down to Thanh Hoa from Ha Noi. It was a loooooong hot drive but very scenic. There were lots of ponds, lakes, and rivers along the way. I saw REAL banana trees with bananas! What do you know!!! That was exciting, for me anyway. I saw jackfruit trees as well. Who knew those giant things grew on trees, as heavy as they look. Plenty of rice paddies lined the bodies of water we passed. I was able to snap a few pictures of people working in the early evening- bent over plucking out stem-looking plants ever so gently and tying them up into bunches. What a task! So it makes you wonder- Why is rice so cheap??? Scott and I agree that it's because of where it comes from and who the laborers are- I bet if a place like France were growing and harvesting rice we would be paying top dollar for each little grain!

I know I may seem a bit pointed in my writings but really- what's going on here? Let's not dance around and pretend! I'm just making observations and from what I see, there seems to be a lot going on that isn't fair....but I'm just sayin...

Anyway so when we arrived on Sunday evening we drove right through the town and kept on driving. We ended up at the edge of the land, hee hee. Sam Son! We were at a beach town that was just crawling with life! Beautiful bright colored kites stretched out allll along the beach as far as the eye could see. There were people swimming in the lukewarm water, street vendors with lots of shells and toys for sale, bicycles everywhere, restaurant huts set up all along the sand, carnival rides, carnival games, music, what sounded like karaoke, vendors at the waters edge selling peanuts and these large rice paper looking snacks, sand sculpture artists and their works on display, and not one foreigner to be seen- until we arrived! People were very curious about us. Here we were a group of characters never before seen, it seemed like- deaf hands signing in the air, white skinned men, a fat almost-asian-looking woman... Nevermind how amazed we were with the town- WE were a sight to see! Kids followed us and watched from every angle. Vendors tried to make a sale but no one heard them except for me and I wasn't sure what they were saying. It was fun times! We were all so excited to not be sitting down anymore in that hot van and to have the seabreeze cool us off- ah big sigh!

We spent a few hours there taking in the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of the area. People from Ha Noi who were friends with some of the educators of Thanh Hoa drove down to have dinner with us- it was a feast! Lots of people, lots of food, lots of fun figuring out communication between English, Vietnamese, Vietnamese Sign Language, and American Sign Language- GOOD TIMES!

On Sunday more people came to meet us from Thanh Hoa and we spent most of the day having meetings, finalizing our work schedule, and getting ready to be left alone to work- No more Anh and no more Huong (I was spelling her name wrong, sorry). They returned to Ha Noi on Sunday afternoon and then it was me, the hearing one, and 5 deaf people left to find our way with the hotel services and work- I have to say our first day alone was great! No major problems except for Lam, one of the deaf aides can be a bit overprotective of us at times and come off as rude to others. We are working on that. I had to tell him we survived just fine without him for a whole week prior to him joining us- the gals just laughed and agreed. He is just so eager to help. Not to worry there are plenty of students he can help ;o)

So our work schedule is Monday through Saturday. We leave the hotel at 730am and come back for a 3hr rest/lunch in the middle of the day, go back to work and end at 430pm- although today no one came to pick us up until 5ish. We were told there are 2 locations where we will have classes but we only toured 1 place on Sunday. We are also alternating locations between the days except for tomorrow- we go back to the same place we went to today.

This place we are using for class is Thuy's place. She runs an organization that helps disabled and orphaned children survive. The children make all sorts of artwork to sell and keep the organization running. The works I've seen around the place are just amazing! They are extremely talented children :o) Thuy says she majored in agriculture but after seeing so many children in the streets she dropped that and started helping them by teaching them skills and helping them survive. We met her parents today- they are very supportive. We have made them part of our class and so they are our ong ba ngoai- our grandparents. Thanh, the lil guy in the picture that I posted earlier, is Thuy's son as I learned this afternoon. He is such a bright kid and very loving. You can feel the love and care from Thuy's family- they love the work they do and they do it whole heartedly. Thanh- I'm going to steal him in my backpack and bring him to America. His family said I could if I am willing to feed him and get him through school- I just need to figure out how to get past security. Thomas has a point- those machines are going to detect Thanh's skeletal frame once I throw my backpack on that conveyor belt. I need to work on a better plan....

Ok the gals are falling asleep and I must get to bed too. It's lights out and then definitely a race to the shower in the morning. We were all running a little late this morning- our driver showed up and we were still having breakfast. Ok goodnight. Hope all is well in America! Enjoy the dry heat- it's the best kind of heat you can have for summer even if it's over 100degrees- trust me!