I arrived in Hanoi with a little bit of time to stay in the city. I stayed in an incredible hostel and had one really good last travelling night. Before I started volunteering I had anumber of things to buy and jobs to do, so I spent about a day and half trying unsucessfully to get these done- apparently nowhere here sells jeans big enough for me!

Oh I forgot to mention......hanoi is cold, like super cold!

And I was so unprepared for it as id sent the last of my warm clothes home before i flew to vietnam! very much regret that now.

I was picked up by a taxi to be taken to peace house (the house where volunteers for peace is based and where we all now live, in the picture for this entry), and we drove and drove and drove. at some point i started to wander what was going to happen to me, but then we pulled up a little dirt track and stopped outside a factory.

The taxi driver had no english but got me out, gave me my bag and pointed at one of the buildings. Fortunately it looked as though some other girl was having a similar experience to me, so i just followed her in. we were shown to our rooms and left to settle in with no introduction. it was all pretty weird at this point and i was really worrying about what id gotten in to.

we were shown around the house and then left a while longer until dinner. the house was freezing, but dinner turned out to be pretty good. Met a few more volunteers before bed. I actually have my own room here which was a big surprise and odd to get used to again. I have so few belongings that i rattle around in there even though its pretty small.

The first week at peace house was very frustrating and slow as everything seemed to be really unorganised. We were taken on a few different tours around hanoi to help us settle in, but my placement wasnt sorted until the following wednesday so they kept just moving me around for a while.

On the friday of the first week i actually ended up going to teach in a small private school. This was awful and i have now proven myself correct in that i wouldnt make a very good teacher. This wasnt necessarily all my own fault however..... I was picked up by a teacher from the school and just before i left i discovered that i would actually be teaching on my own and not just assissting the teacher. Apparently they'd 'forgotten' to tell me I should have prepared something.

Luckily the class only had 15 pupils, but their english wasn't very good and they were too shy to ever say anything if i asked any questions. The worst part was that the lesson lasted over an hour and a half and even when i started flailing, and the lesson started to fall apart the teacher just watched on from the back.

The education system here is so different from ours, and alot of the volunteers who work in schools seem to be left to teach classes of 45 kids even though they have absolutely no training. This is often because the teachers have other things to do, like get their hair cut!

Now I've started my job I actually really enjoy it here, and think that the next 5 months will be much better than the first week. I work in a small company called CECAD (the centre for education and community developement). However, this place also has some pretty weird work ethics, for example, on friday i had a meeting with my boss who's going away this week, and she asked me what work id be doing all week. Considering how new i am this strikes me as odd. Though fortunately there are a few things i have thought of and what to get on with.

Last week I went away for a few days to be a 'pretend' tourist to do some 'research' for 'work'. In theory I was going to visit some ethnic groups in villages that we work with, but in practice it was a really cool cultural experience.

I had the 'most vietnamese' experience iv had so far and was really well off the beaten path. It was in a village where no other foreigners go, and so I had to take my passport to fill out forms so that i could get permission to stay there! The place was so nice purely for the fact i felt it was real and nothing there was fake or setup for tourists, and i had no-one trying to sell me anything! thats such a novelty here.

On the second we got up at 6am to find there was no water or power. excellent. then went to the market where i had a choice of noodles with either dog or duck. I went for the latter for my breakfast. We bought a load of ingredients and then went to a different village to a stilt house. For the morning I was taken to house after and house and given so many tiny cups of tea. We went back to the stilt house for lunch where the beginning of one of my best and worst travel experiences begins.......

There where some officials there who needed us to fill out some more forms about my stay there. I was then asked to cook a dish for lunch. I then realised that what id bought at the market was for this, and really wished i had more than a turnip, 4 tomatoes, some onions and 2 carrots. To make matter worse i was given a machete to peel and chop my veg and had to cook on an open fire where i couldnt actually see anything, but had to squat in the fire. Lunch was a bizarre experience- we all sat around on the floor (the officials were still there also) and the whole thing lasted about 2 hours. There was ALOT of talk in vietnamese as only Hoa (the girl that had gone with me from work) could speak english. And every so often we would all have to take a shot of either rice, ginseng or bee wine (the bee one had small bits that were apparently bee embryos in it!). We had to toast to so many different things like tke 2 drinks for the fact that we'd arrived on 2 legs. Unfortunately I have a real problem with not being able to say no as i don't want to seem rude, and this resulted in me accidently agreeing to try dog today. It really wasnt so bad in terms of taste, but it was really fatty and i struggled to not think about it whilst i was eating. After all the food and drinking of lunch we all lay down for an after lunch nap.

That night was also pretty interesting as the villagers put on a performance of there traditional singing and dancing. It was really interesting to watch, but then they made me get up and sing a song. For anyone who has ever heard me sing, you will be able to imagine how bad this was. I couldnt think of anything i knew the words to, so upon Hoa's suggestion i sang if you're happy and you know it. It was so awful!

Other than this the time there was nice to get out of the pollution and noise of the city, both of which are particularly bad around our house.

Getting work is probably the only down side to it at the moment. It takes between about an hour and a half to two hours per journey. This involves walking in the mud and often rain to get 2 different buses, and I have to stand up most of the way. The are usually packed, hot and stuffy with people pushing from all sides. I'm trying to get hold of a cheap bicycle as i think i could actually cycle it in the same amount of time.

Life at the house is pretty lame as the location and building pretty much suck. There is little to do and it is so non-homely and my room feels a little bit like a prison cell/laundry room. It is so fortunate that its big and so has alot of other volunteers living there.

Now that I work full time and have a real job and all, I now look forward to weekends quite alot, and so with other volunteers, plan alot of things to do. So far we have seen a lot of central Hanoi and have been to pottery village (this was actually pretty lame as they wouldnt glaze what we had painted, so i now have a bowl that i cant use).

This weekend i had my first ever thanksgiving and it was incredible. This coming wednesday is ashleys birthday (one of the canadian volunteers) and so yesterday we made it canada day. Emily, ashley and i all got up early, went to th huge supermarket (it was so scary on a sunday morning as it was truly beyond busy and you really couldnt even move), and then over to ashleys new apartment. we then spent hours and hours chopping and preparing. Between emily, myself and an online tutorial we butchered our firt chicken quite sucessfully. Problem with vietnam is that they eat anything, so it came with head, feet and all other limbs. Only took us about half an hour to get it apart!!

Dinner was so incredible and i didnt have breakfast today as i was still so full. It was made all the more impressive as we made a full roast with pumpkin pie and crumble using only 2 gas stoves.

Now I think I have at last caught up on all my news. Hopefully next time I can write a little sooner, and make it a little shorter :-)