It's my life....: Good Day & Challenging Day

Friday Jan 21, 2011 & Saturday Jan 22, 2011

Yesterday, Friday was our second day here. Another nice breakfast at the rooftop of our guesthouse. Breakfast for me starts with a cup of strong Vietnamese coffee with sweet condensed milk. At home I love my coffee strong too but not sweet. I think Vietnamese coffee just isn't "Vietnamese" if you don't have it with sweet condensed milk. Then they serve you a plate of watermelon, papaya and banana. I also had the western breakfast which is egg and a baguette. Tomorrow I'm trying the Vietnamese breakfast.

At 745am our taxi picks us up for our 35 minute ride to the orphanage. We teamed up the same as we did on Thursday, Beth and Annette with the kids in the terminal ward, Liza and I teaching English with the special needs kids. Interestingly no "real" assessment has been done on the kids so we didn't really know their skill levels. They have been taught by many different volunteers. We've learned now that they can count and recognize up to about number twelve and recite ABC's. Kids ages range in our class from about eight to seventeen and all have either mental or physical disabilities. Liza is so incredible with the things that she comes up with to keep them entertained. We noticed that they love love love to sing. The highlight for me was hearing them sing...amazing even with their limited English, by the end of the day they were all singing Old MacDonald and Head, Shoulder, Knees & Toes! So proud of you Miss Liza!

After "work" Beth and I treated ourselves to $3 manicures and pedicures. When we got back to the guesthouse I was so ecstatic to see that my missing bags had arrived!

quananngon@hcm.vnn.vn

For dinner we went to Quan an Ngon a seafood restaurant. It was recommended by my friend Pat, our new friend Bongshu that we met on the plane and our guesthouse reception. Must be really good! When we arrived I just fell in love with the restaurants decor and elegance. The wood tables were so beautiful and umbrellas with string lighting everywhere. We ordered lot's of seafood dishes. My favorite was the grilled squid that my friend Pat recommended. But everything was delicious. Dessert was at a famous ice cream shop that had things like taro and durian ice cream. Ahhh...good day and I slept well.

Today, Saturday was REALLY challenging. The kids that go to school during the week were off. So they came to our class. Our usual class of about ten turned into about twenty five students. Our sweet group turned into a crazy mob. At one point we decided the needed a break so we brought out hula hoops and balls for them to play with. The room got so out of control that one of the dudes-in-charge came in to yell at them. I think he also threatened them because the room settled really quickly. I was so RELIEVED when 1015 came and we got to release them for lunch. I headed straight to the terminal ward for some baby soothing time. I think it was more soothing for Liza and I.

Tomorrows a new day : )

Bye for now.