Fish Pancakes, Vietnamese language and Sneezing

 Klaus loving the Pho

 Chili Peppers Drying 

 CHICKENS!!!!

 Street Food!

 Sugar Cane Juice - made on just about every street corner (price ~ $0.35)

 Bike Parking Lot at my School

 School of the Environment where I study 

 Inside the School it is Open Air 

 My Program Center =)

 Campus

 Flying Skarky the Kite on Campus - March is the Month of Kite Flying 

Banana Stand at the Market

 

 Can you guess what those are? 

 Seafood at Market 

The Streets 

WHAT UP!???! So its been awhile and I thought it was time for an update. I’m currently sitting at an internet café on the street corner with motorbikes zooming past. Interesting aside almost all the businesses here are out of people’s homes. In the back of the café the owners have their living area.

So I thought I’d begin with a few updates and conclude with a few comments on what I’ve learned about Vietnam so far. Also, in case you wondered I couldn’t finish the Bird’s Nest.

Food Update: Funny story – I went to the restaurant with other students. We cannot read the menu but we know that Ga is chicken. So in the Ga section we pick the dish with the longest name. To our surprise out comes a whole big plate of chicken feet. We knaw on those and order another dish – fish intestine. This time the owner makes waves his hands, shakes his head and points to his stomach. Next dish – squid….pretty good. Sadly, the inevitable happened the following day. I finally got sick!! Out for a couple of days and it put a damper on the food adventures for a bit. The day I was starting to feel better we had a dinner with our homestay parents. The menu: boiled pigs ears. On a weak stomach that one was a little rough ha ha. In the event that you care to know…ear cartilage does not chew no matter how long you chew for. Everything else has been pretty casual since that – coconut jelly, pho, various fish and rice dishes (the speciality of the Mekong Delta region), a fish pancake made of minnows, soup, etc.

School Update: Classes started and haven’t stopped. Very interesting learning style here. Four hours of language lecture in the am with notes on a chalkboard. I had a mid-term today. Vietnamese is fairly difficult with 6 tones. In addition the words are made up of various combos of 2-4 letter words. The same 2 letter word can mean two different things when combined with two different other four letter words. Therefore, recognizing words in a sentence proves difficult. It has been a lot of fun to learn a new language though and try it out on the street! So far I ordered ice at the hotel and got a towel/blanket. Then, I ordered butter at a café and got bread…there is room for improvement still =).

Afternoon class is 3-4 hours of various lectures from the college on history, culture or environmental science. These are anything from musicians playing to 3 hours of straight overheads about history to soil sampling. My favorite was a geomorphology lecture because we all know….geology rocks =p.

Life Update: I moved out of the hotel on Sunday and into my homestay. I am living with an older couple. Both at professors at Can Tho university in animal husbandry. I live in a four story house in the city. The area per floor is about the size of a typical living room in the US. On the bottom is the main living area with door solid glass doors opening to the street. The bikes are stored in this room and it also serves as an eating area. Adjacent to this is the kitchen. The next level is my parents living space. I live on the third floor. I have a bedroom, bathroom and living room with a table to study as well as a small balcony.

Schedule Update: So far I have had class every day for about 8 hours including on the weekends. Tomorrow is my first excursion into the countryside to observe an integrated farm system (the farm raises pigs, grows fruit, raises fish, etc). Many farms here produce several products which are related to each other. For example the pigs might fertilize the field and the fish pond, the rice stalks feed the pigs, etc. I am excited to see this model in person!

Now for a few observations: I am first of all amazed at the kindness and generosity of the Vietnamese people. Everyone is very friendly and helpful. I have enjoyed getting to know some students at the university and they LOVE practicing their English. One girl stopped me while I was biking and straight up asked if we could be friends because she has been looking for American friends. It is interesting too to see how much American culture is idolized here. I was surprised to see all the models in the clothing store and product ads were mostly of European descent. My favorite is in the wedding dress stores that have store models with blonde wigs.  

Well that’s it for now =).

Klaus says he is getting tan!

PS People here believe that you sneeze because someone mentioned your name somewhere else.