During the last few days, we have had lots of great experiences. Every morning we have a hot breakfast in the hotel and are ready by 8 a.m. to be picked up to start our activities for the day. We have been to several schools in the villages surrounding Hoi An, sometimes two in a day, and we've worked on a new project that we did not anticipate.

A category 4 typhoon hit central Vietnam October 1, 2006. That is the same strength and type of storm as Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans in 2005. Over 15,000 homes were destroyed and 200,000 homes were damaged by Typhoon Xangsane. What the people here need most right now is help rebuilding. Vinh has given us the choice of what we do while we are here, but all four of the volunteers agree that working to build a house is the most important priority. He knows and we know that we are not qualified for or capable of doing construction. A crew has been hired to do the work, but we went to the home today and did some symbolic work. We were there to "make the floor". What that meant was that we were given hammers to use to break up the sediment formed on the flooring. There was a crust of dried mud covering the concrete floor.

The house looks like it is almost ready. It is small compared to American homes, but adequate for the needs of the six-person family that is ready to move in. The new construction has two rooms and is about the size of a single car garage. The room in front is the bigger one and will be used as a sitting room during the day and a place for sleeping at night. There is one smaller room behind it. The kitchen is outdoors, and I guess the bathroom is outside, too, although no one mentioned it. The new house is being built in front of the old one. Since the typhoon and during construction, the family has cobbled together a shelter of corrugated metal sheets to live in behind the new building.

We spent several hours this morning at the house under construction and were treated to lunch at another house across the street. They must have put out everything they had; the table was loaded with rice, greens, whole fish, nước mắm (fish sauce) which goes on anything, and some other things I didn't recognize but ate anyway. The feast was laid out on two wooden tables with benches for the paid workmen and for the volunteers. There was a fan blowing in the direction of the food to keep the flies away, but it wasn't particularly successful.

After lunch, we went back to work for a short while, but Vinh was ready to take us to another school before very long. We also have another host, Hung, who has been with us some, too. We had a hotel van take us to the house this morning, but it wasn't nearby when we were ready to leave. Vinh offered to call to get the hotel's van come get us from the house and take us to the next school, but we were quite a ways from the hotel and only one and a half kilometers from the school.

It didn't seem necessary for them to drive that far for such a short ride. We could walk that far. Since Vinh and Hung were both on their motorcycles, they offered to take us, two at a time, to a bar across the street from the school. They started by taking Deb and Diane first, one on the back of each bike. That left Philip and me at the house. We knew the direction they would be going and it was simple enough that we did not think we could get lost so we started out walking toward the bar. We had a nice stroll through a thinly populated area with homes and gardens sprinkled in between rice paddies. As we walked, people came out of their homes and watched us pass. We waved and called "Hello" and " Chào bạn" and they smiled and waved back. We must have been quite an unusual sight walking that dirt road in an area few Westerners visit. Before long, Vinh and Hung drove up, and we got on their bikes to ride the rest of the way.

The schools we have gone to are all primary schools. We spend about two hours at each school visiting classrooms and talking with the children as much as we can with either Vinh or Hung to interpret. Since we are supposed to be teaching English, we decided that using songs was probably the best way. We have tried to teach The Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Hokey Pokey which we thought would be good for directions and for body parts. We also had the children go around the room saying "My name is ...". We've counted to ten in English and let them teach us to count to ten in Vietnamese. In two classrooms, the students sang to us. Their songs were either political (Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh were the only words I recognized) or about fairy tales. We have crayons and paper for them to use and extras to leave behind so they can use them another day.

Every classroom we have visited has had the same portrait of Ho Chi Minh on the wall and a quotation by him. There are signs that say Work Well and Study Well. They have a green cloth that is folded and hanging on the side of the chalkboard which is used to cover the chalkboard whenever the teacher needs to do that. Several of the classrooms also have a poster of the Five Commandments for Children's Learning by Ho Chi Minh:
Love the Fatherland, Vietnam
Show love to the Vietnamese people
Be good students
Be good at performing one's duties
Have a modest, honest, and valiant behavior

It has all been fun. We have the kids complete attention while we are there. It feels like the circus (being us) has come to town. I am sure we are an amazing sight for them. There have been several boys at each school who are not in uniform, but who hang around outside the door or windows of each classroom watching what is going on. Vinh says they are supposed to be in school a different time. The teachers don't seem to mind them being there.

Even though I have not been able to work on the Books to Live project as I expected, I did tell Vinh that I am a librarian and would like to see the project. He made the special effort to go to one school that was in temporary possession of one of the traveling libraries. I thought it would be a bookmobile or something similar. However, they are simple wooden boxes that unfold to display about fifty paperback children's books. They must be easy to move from one classroom to another, but they don't have nearly as many books as I had hoped. It's a start though. The portable libraries remain in one classroom for two months then go to another school. While they are in one classroom, students from the entire school are allowed to use them.

We are here during the "dry" season. It has rained every day. I wonder what it's like during the wet season. The rain doesn't last long, but with all the dirt streets, we find mud all around.

We have had plenty of time for more sightseeing in Hoi An. Every time we ask the hotel driver to take us into town, he drops us at Kim Cloth Shop. It is on the edge of the historic area where cars are not allowed. I wanted to buy something from them since we have waited at their shop several times now. I ordered and picked up a beautiful dark blue and silver kimono with matching silver gown. They are gorgeous. I wish I would have known to ask them to make the overlap on the kimono bigger. It fits, but it doesn't wrap around as much as I like. Philip ordered two more shirts that look to be a wonderful quality.

Everywhere we go we see Christmas decorations and Happy New Year signs. Walking in old town, we were passed by a motorcycle with two men on it. One was driving and the other one was sitting on the back holding a fully decorated Christmas tree. We have seen everything imaginable being carried on a motorcycle: a family of six, a complete set of bedroom furniture on a platform in front, baskets of ducks and chickens, and all kinds of food and goods to sell.

Near the hotel is a billboard that we pass most everyday. Vinh says that it talks about cooperation between the Vietnamese and Russian people. The images show two symbols of each country. For Vietnam there is a silhouette of Ho Chi Minh and a bold, unfurled Vietnamese flag that blends into the Soviet flag. For Russia there is a cog-wheel and hammer and sickle to symbolize workers, the urban proletariat, and the farmers and peasants. Ho Chi Minh is looking toward the old Soviet Union.