Hello from Tra Vinh. I have finished my second week of teaching, and all has gone well so far. The students are all very nice. They all walk in, bow their head slightly and say, "good morning teacher." Teachers in Vietnam are very highly respected. There is even a teacher's day that is a very important holiday. I am told I may have to sing or dance (I hope not for everyone's sake). There is also supposed to be a teacher's vs. students soccer game that day, so I am more looking forward to that. I have to teach the same students for 3 hours one day and 5 hours the other, so it is a long time in front of them. So far, I like it though.

I also started working out at the gym here in Tra Vinh too. It is small, hot and with old, rusty equipment, but it works. People stare at me every time I go to the gym, but I am getting used to it. Everyone is really friendly though, and anyone that speaks English will always ask where I am from and what my name is. Another question you get all the time in Vietnam is "Do you have a girlfriend yet?" I tried to tell the young girl that works at the coffee shop outside my apartment that I don't think I want to have a girlfriend while here, and she started hysterically laughing because clearly there is something wrong with me for not wanting/being able to find a girlfriend.

I am trying to learn Vietnamese, but it is really hard. My pronunciation is terrible, and people tend to stare blankly at me when I speak Vietnamese. Anyone that speaks any English also wants to practice with me, so it is hard for me to practice Vietnamese. Another problem is that even when I speak Vietnamese correctly, people assume I am speaking English to them and they can't understand me. It is really frustrating when I say something fluently, but they still just stare at me like I am crazy.

Life is good here though. Right now I don't work too much, so I have a lot of free time to do what I want. A few of us have started going to an orphanage outside town, and next week we will start teaching a weekly English lesson to the children. They are all between about 8 and 15. Some have no parents, and others have parents that are too poor to take care of them. If their situation improves, they are able to take their children home. All the kids are really fun and very friendly, so I really look forward to going every weekend.

And now for a short rant about how overblown/ridiculous the whole Swine Flu thing is. The other VIA volunteer here (Anh-Thu) had a fever last Saturday. It was her second day with a fever, so to be cautious she decided to go to the hospital. She did have a fever of 104, so it was probably good she went. The next day, she was completely fine, no fever and she did not have any other symptoms of Swine Flu, but because she is foreign and everyone is absurdly terrified of Swine Flu, she had to stay at the hospital until her test results came from Ho Chi Minh City. I am living in Vietnam for a year, and so far I love it, but you do have to learn to look past some small things, such as rats, open sewers, cockroaches in restaurants, dirty floors and bathrooms, but we both decided that the hospital was too bad to just look past. The beds are wooden slats and they just give you a very thin reed mat to sleep on. There are tons of mosquito's, and you have to purchase a mosquito net if you don't want to be eaten alive. In one of the courtyards of the hospital, there was a swamp like area…perfect breeding ground for disease carrying mosquito's. There were also rats running around in all the open courtyards. Because of a back up at the one Swine Flu testing center, an otherwise healthy Anh-Thu had to stay there for 5 days. She's lucky she did not actually catch Swine Flu while there or even worse, get Dengue Fever from the mosquito's. My lesson learned: only go to the hospital if I absolutely need to, and even then, try to get to Ho Chi Minh City.

Anyway, I am really enjoying things here. I have met several friends, and we have a lot of free time, so all is good. I really like Tra Vinh, but I am still getting used to the heat. It's a nice place, with very friendly people, so I could not really ask for more. Hope everyone is well back home.