Farewell from TX Campus

Last night was a time for farewells and a chance to say goodbye. Sue our head of campus gave a small speech which summed up my achievements at the school.
Perhaps her nicest words were not of my achievements in the classroom, although mentioned, but instead my ability to be a "team player",  and an enthusiastic contributor to the corporate nature of the school. As an add on she did mention the fact that I was a very patriotic citizen of my country. I was chuffed with the acknowledgements. We have animals attached to the aide memoir of the school. Today the Year 6 students presented me with the Percy the dolphin for perseverance in relation to extra curricular activities.
All lovely recognition's.

Homeward bound

Two passports later this 5 year  adventure, which has taken me to 34 countries, is coming to an end. Today I booked  the last sector of my flight from Auckland to Blenheim on 1 August. I also took the liberty to book an extra 23kgs of luggage, making my maximum luggage allowance 69kgs. I left 5 years ago with 33kgs. Hmm how things have grown and expanded.














Words just don't seem to do justice to this adventure I have participated in. An experience of a lifetime.


In between now and then I'm flying to UK and then starting a small cycling adventure which will see my friend Jenny and I cycle the bike pathways of Denmark, Germany, Belguim  to Amsterdam.


I'm looking forward to some New Zealand time and family time while I regroup and think about where to next, in terms of travel and employment. In the meantime it's on your bike!

Saturday night fever.

Uyen, Tue and Loan. Teaching assistants

Thanh and Kris, my friend and colleague.

On Saturday evening the whole school gathers for a party, celebration and farewell opportunity. There are 4 campus's of British International School here in Ho Chi Minh City and everyone is invited so the numbers rise to about 600. As teachers and teaching assistants we are supported by a plethora of  people who are paid a pittance and work very long hours. Security guards,  maintenance staff, cleaners,  drivers, photocopy ladies,  resource people, the IT staff etc etc. Uncle Tom Cobley and all. The theme of the get together was Vespa / yellow and black. Everyone really got involved in the atmosphere of the evening. For me it was a chance to say goodbye to some lovely people I have met and worked alongside. The Vietnamese people are humble, quiet and hard working, even for the low wages they earn. As I reflect on occasions such as these I know I shall miss my time amongst these people. This has been a fabulous experience, one I am reluctant to give up and sad to say goodbye too.
Memories of the night:
The costumes
How elegant some of the Vietnamese ladies were in their dresses and gowns
How different people look out of their uniforms
The guards using a vase filled with beer as a yard glass
People coming to say hello and good bye
The videos made for the leavers.

I will not be sad to leave behind the British binge drinking culture, especially obvious at occasions such as these. While most people are British and everyone likes a drink,  small groups of Brits just seem to over do it, drinking themselves into a paralytic state. This is then followed by the graphic details and boosting all next day. Its almost like a sport. 

The finale at Mahjong

Barbara and Sally. 

Barbara, Sonya and Sally.

I started learning and playing Mahjong the very first week I arrived in Vietnam. From day one I was addicted to the game, so much so that I have a Mahjong set  waiting at home for my arrival. Amazing what one can do at a distance on Trade Me. I love the thinking, decision making and strategy involved in the game.

Sally, my Mahjong teacher, became a great friend and travel companion over the ensuing 3 years. I taught Sonya and Barbara to play and we too have moved on to be great friends and travel buddies.

Sadly last night was the finale for our group, as is life in this fluid expat world. Barbara, Sonya and I are moving away, while Sally stays, as her family have relocated to Vietnam to live and work.
Sally organised a lovely supper of pizza and bubbles, and presented us with small gifts. She gave me a Mahjong bracelet with replicas of the tiles. Obviously it was a Feng Shui bracelet. Fitting for me that I should win on my last ever game in Vietnam.

Quiz evening Year 6 transition

Our school ran a quiz night for Year 6 and 7 students last night as a transition for the Year 6s into secondary school. Teams had to include 5 students and be accompanied by a teacher. These 3 poor misfits put together a team of 3 at the last moment and wanted a teacher to accompany them, so I happily agreed. We are after all in the business of supporting children, and I suspect they may have been getting rather desperate when they asked me.  We came second to last and won a booby prize of a bottle of coke for our efforts. I was totally useless. I did manage to answer 3 questions for them but was totally out classed with the music and the movie rounds. The movie titles had to be precise and I had no idea if the movie was Muppets or Muppets 2, making me feel like a total muppet.  With that came the dawning recognition that e brain cells really are diminishing. It was a lovely 2.5 hrs and I'm glad to have supported these kids

Year 6 graduation party.

Today I was presented with an invitation by one of the Year 6 girls, to the Year 6 graduation party next Saturday. The party is being organised by the parents of the students and is held in one of the very nice hotels in the city. Its a buffet lunch. I am delighted to be included especially as I only have the students for 1 x period a week. Year 6 this year are a particularly nice group of students. I'm sure I said that about last years group, and next year's group will be great role models too. Its a timely farewell to the students, the school and the country. 

A day out with Tue and Uyen

Tue (Tway) and Uyen (Win) are my two teaching assistants. Part of my role is mentoring and coaching them. The idea is that they can then go on to train as teachers and go off to one of the school's new flagship schools that have a dual curriculum, half in Vietnamese and half in English. However these flagship schools are in Hanoi, and neither Uyen or Tue want to go and live in Hanoi. There appears to be quite a dividing line. Those that are from the south tend to stay in the south.
I see it that we are a team, each of us with a definite skill set and strengths. I believe we compliment and support each other, I just happen to be the leader of the team. I know I couldn't do my job to the level that I do, as these 2 take responsibility for some of the small things that take heaps of time. Both are good with the technology and keep it charged, Uyen is very creative and makes fantastic wall displays. Both are superb with the new or slower children.  The three of us have fab ideas and know how to use a heap of different tools and applications. Sad but true I'm the best at planning,  writing it down and record keeping. How sad is that! I may not be the best, the other 2 have enough sense to avoid that side of the day!
 

Periodically we go out for a day which always involves food. We're all good at eating! This adventure was to District 7 for coffee and viewing the yellow duck, followed by lunch at a local Vietnamese restaurant. Tue and Uyen rode their bikes and I went as pillion on the back of Tue's bike. We rode down the main highway to Mekong Delta which I have done a few times before.  It can be a white knuckle ride with all the traffic hurtling along the one road, and no side lanes for bikes. Tue is a very slow and careful driver and I felt really safe..

Lunch was at a Hue restaurant. Hue is the capital of the middle of the country, around where the 17th parallel and the DMZ was. Each area specialises in different types of food. We ate amongst other foods, bun bo Hue. This was a pancake type, of jelly with shrimps on top, Hue noodles and meats cooked as they do in Hue. A fab time out with great people.

The smaller apartment construction

Life is full on and a hive of activity around 215 Nguyen Van Thu Street. After at least a week of silence the men are back on the big building adding the beams and the scaffolding for yet another floor. That will make 8 floors.
Below my apartment on the newer smaller construction there is a flurry of activity with the workmen rushing too and fro, and deliveries arriving on small delivery trucks that are allowed inside the city during daylight. There is a lot of brick work going on in the cavity dug below the ground where the concrete piles have been sawn off at ground level.  A maze of brick walls have been constructed. Above ground steel reinforcing is being dragged in and cut to length,  the timber flooring onto which the concrete is poured has been stacked against the fence. I find this construction interesting in comparison to the large one. The basement was not been completely dug out. The front remains at ground level while the middle and back are the recipients of the attention. Ground level is a set off beams with and pathways across the cavity.

Social media

Social media, hand held devices and the availability of wifi seem to be the death of conversation and socialistion face to face  here in Vietnam. I'm not sure if this is a happening thing around the world, however I'm sure the Vietnamese are world leaders. Frequently when you are out having a meal or coffee in one of the zillions of coffee shops through out the city you will see a gathering of adults, all ages and genders, sitting around using their technology. No one speaks, they just use the devices. Why bother meeting up? No one is sharing apps or expertise, everyone is silent and screen focused.
Last Sunday our Kindle / e-reader group met for a brunch in a really nice hotel. The  food is renown with a huge variation of dishes, and the service excellent. This Asian couple, they could well be Korean, spent their time on their devices.  He on the iPad and she on an iPhone and they hardly passed a word. One would be forgiven for asking why they didn't sit at home to eat and order in?
The Saturday before a group of us went out for coffee. Behind us a toddler sat in his high chair at the table with Mum and Dad. Mum propped the iPad up infront of the toddler and he spent the whole time watching the screen while Mum and Dad spent their time on their devices.  No conversation at all.

I've just finished having a conversation with a colleague about the number of words a child needs to hear to have good language and a high IQ when they enter school. The paragraph below was taken from a blog. This blog, basically summerises what my friend was saying. Devices are stiffing socialisation, language and academic ability.

Children whose families were on welfare heard about 600 words per hour. Working-class children heard 1,200 words per hour, and children from professional families heard 2,100 words. By age 3, a poor child would have heard 30 million fewer words in his home environment than a child from a professional family. And the disparity mattered: the greater the number of words children heard from their parents or caregivers before they were 3, the higher their IQ and the better they did in school. TV talk not only didn’t help, it was detrimental.

Kindle club / e-reader brunch

English books are hard to find and buy in Vietnam. There are 3 book shops that I know of in the city, that have a small to meagre range of books. Teachers leave and swap books at school, and a few Western patronised coffee shops in the An Phu district have a book swap. Of course the desirability of something that you can't have or have limited access to becomes huge, so I eagerly joined a kindle club. We all got to  take turns choosing a book per month followed sometimes by some lively debate the following month. I  was eager to join but felt somewhat cautious about joining wondering if I would enjoy other people's genre.While I understand the concept of bookgroups and being exposed to new authors and genres, sometimes in a group of random people with diverse tastes in life let alone books, it can be hard to reach a happy medium, on where to go for brunch, let alone good books. And then there are the personalities, the loud, the dominant etc.In this case I survived, and all the books, except 2 where I read over 60%, and got introduced to a new author.

Yesterday we met for the last time over a leisurely brunch at the Park Hyatt hotel where my book got voted best read for the year. Sunday brunches are a big happening thing here in HCMC. All the major hotels provide this option with free flow, and many of the smaller business do brunch as well.

Our group had an interesting rule, You had to read 25% of the book or provide the host for the book and the month, 2 bottles of nice wine. Sadly that rule never got evoked.


Our books for the year:
Vietnam the rising dragon. Bill Hayton. The political in-sights into the government and happenings in Vietnam. Mostly Hanoi based.
The Universe verses Alex Woods. Dealt with  a younger boys friendship with an older man, and his support in euthanasia. Good read.
Little Daughter. A small girl growing up in the Karen tribe in Myanmar
The Moment. Douglas Kennedy. An American falls in love with a Starsi agent in Berlin. Fab read. I'm enjoying this man more as an author. Have also read Pursuit of Happiness.
Gentleman and players. My choice. Great read lots of twists
The Power of One. Bryce Courtney. Fab read
The Pianist. Life in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw.
90% of practically everything is  carried in container ships. Sound boring but a great insight into Somali pirates, the seafarers union and life at sea. Interesting read.

And now I'm  bereft, no books and no good kindle reads on the horizon.To be honest I still prefer the paper medium and turning pages. Books are so much easier around a pool! Back to square one. Although on this summer's holiday I do touch down in London where there are heaps of second hand book shops, with western books. Bring it on!