Xin chao! Things here are swell, quite swell. I'm falling into a routine now, and maybe working a little too much. I have 3 jobs and work 5 days / 6 nights a week, and I think its starting to catch up with me. Teaching pre-schoolers really takes it out of you...

I've discovered that all you really need to teach young learners from scratch is flashcards. I filled in a whole two-hour lesson with my private students using just a set of alphabet flashcards. There are just so many things you can do with flashcards!

On Saturday nights I teach a bunch of kids in District 6, which is about half an hour on the back of a motorbike from where I live. My driver likes to smoke and talk on the phone while driving through peak-hour traffic with one hand. Anyway, it was quite a suprise when I showed up last Saturday to discover that my class of six had more than doubled in size, with no explanation. And all their parents were there too so I had to play Mr Tayne the Clown-Teacher with my bag of flashcards and spelling and alphabet games. The lesson actually worked really well. Turns out that it was Bin's birthday (one of the kids), which is why there were so many people there! Still, I wound't be surprised to find that next time I go there to teach, my class is even bigger. They just seem to add more and more kids - all their relavtives. It's a private teaching job, which means I teach in their house, not at a school. It's a pretty nice house, too.

After I finished the lesson, the parents asked me 'Teacher, teacher, you enjoy birthday cake with us! You enjoy party with us!". I really couldn't say no, so I stayed an extra hour for my first Vietnamese birthday experience. And they made me lead the singing of 'happy birthday'.

As for my pink bike, I drive like a local now. Which means I routinely cut across sidewalks to avoid red lights, drive the wrong way down one-way streets and cut across oncoming traffic without really thinking about it. When in Rome...

Every time I give a Vietnamese a lift, they say I'm a "good driver". Yay. I bought a mask, too - the fumes in peak hour are really disgusting. I especially hate being stuck behind a bus or truck in peak hour and being forced to breathe in the exhaust fumes. Yuck.

Tam Biet!

Taynos out.