8 brave soles got up at 6:30 for a game of soccer after a challenge was made at a restaurant the day before. It was a friendly match with a post match drink (sparkling water). Although we lost the evenly played game due to laziness on defence, the beautiful game showed why sport can be played across all nations and cultures.
I apologize if I didn't get any close-ups of your child. The computers are VERY slow to load so I can't look at all the pictures to make sure I have some of everyone. We will have all the pics from a trip on a file when we get back! We left Hue in the early morning and got into Hoi An just before lunch. Hoi An is much more relaxed with only 100,000 people but it seems there are just as many tourists. Highlight of the day was touring the local food markets before boarding a boat and making our way to the cooking class on the river. It was a splendid night on the river and we are now off to our hotel for the next two nights. 12 hour train ride happened to miraculously turn into 17 hours. No explanation other then 'train broken' was matched with the sloshing sounds of one of the somewhat broken squatter toilets made for a fun event. We also had the advantage of having numerous unidentified bugs crawling between the bunks combined with the great smell of cigarette smoke floating down from the next train car. Amazingly, the kids didn't complain and went straight from the train to lunch (no breakfast as we missed it) onto a tour of Hue. We never got to our hotel till 7:30 after a day of touring including being dumped on by some rain. We saw tombs of a king who had 500 wives ;), the imperial city, a massive pagoda and a boat tour of the parfum river. We finished with dinner before we finally made the exhausting whirlwind trip to our hotel at 7:30. Good thing we have a five hour drive tomorrow morning. We were getting worried that we were having too much good luck on the trip. It's good the students got a bit of real traveling the last day and a half . Trains in most of the world are never on time and you have to change plans accordingly...lesson learnt Good times had by all! But amazingly no sickness yet and again, no complaining! The kids are doing above and beyond what we could ask from them. For mr. Whitford Today was just as busy as the last day but with many more events. After the usual roosters in the early morning (that the students were getting used to now), and the news blasts from the loud speaker, the students started off with a quick breakfast at 7 before zipping down to the worksite for five straight hours of work. We wanted to finish today so there were no breaks. We made sure the students 'tried' to go to the bathroom so they couldn't use the five minute walk back to the homestay as an excuse when we were working;). After shortage of wifi, we are now updated. I am waiting for a computer where I can download some slideshows for everyone to see. Currently, I can only show the pictures from my ipad so they may not be the best quality. We are off on an overnight train to Hue and I'll update once we are there. The students all miss their families as noticed on the four hour bus ride today but they are all doing well and having a great time! The students were spoiled to an overnight cruise to the Unesco World Heritage site of Ha Long Bay. This area was selected as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Many have never slept on a boat before...luckily we didn't have any sea sickness ;). Now we onto another mode of transportation as we take an overnight train to Hue. The parents of these children can be very proud of their accomplishment. The local workers were surprised at how hard working the students were and couldn't believe that they didn't take more breaks. After a little clean-up, we were done! We had a celebration at the site and handed over the building for the workers to finish the roof and eventually one more school group will finish the flooring and painting. The students played with the kindergartens in session and then bid farewell to Bao Village. One of the greatest parts of this visit was that the students never complained in the village. Even though they didn't have many of the comforts that they had in the hotel in Hanoi, they were all sad to leave and would rather stay there all stinky and dirty and without wifi then go back to Hanoi. Lesson learnt... To all the parents reading this, your children came out of this with a different perspective from this short experience and you all should be very very proud of these fine young adults. The three teachers definitely were. In the afternoon, the students visited an elementary school. The students were in charge of organizing various games for the kids to play. They walked for about 30 minutes to the school and had over 130 students from various villages to organize games for. Groups played ring around the rosy, Simon says and even Hot cross buns on the recorders we purchased. Ms. Goto would have been proud of the music element and they definitely could have used her help as the 'teachers' of it were a little rusty. We even have a great video of a hockey match but I can't post on the free version of this website.... Sorry :). The students learnt some valuable lessons on communicating with a language barrier. Ms. Holmes would have loved many of her ex leadership students skills of leadership building displayed by these students. We also donated a large amount of school supplies, sporting equipment and clothing that we purchased on behalf of empowerment and other anonymous donors. |