Thursday & Friday

The flight out… .. Considering the delays at JFK for departures due to the snow, I actually felt that I did well leaving only 5 hrs. late….but it has been a long day… and now a 2nd day. Total time from hanging out at JFK till arriving in Hong Kong ended up being 25 hrs. Since the late departure meant missing my connecting flight from Hong Kong to Hanoi, Cathay Pacific Air put us up at a hotel at their expense…that was the good news, the bad news was that the hotel was a 1 hr. drive from the airport.

This morning, I'll be catching my flight from Hong Kong to Hanoi….funny but to this day, it feels so weird to say I’m going to Hanoi…Hanoi was the capital of N. Vietnam, and growing up in the late 60’s, we knew them to be 'the other side’ …the ones we were fighting. Tho very much an anti-war peacenik from those days, it still feels unpatriotic to tell others that I’m going to Hanoi rather than Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Just my personal quirk I suppose.


Saturday, Jan 1… .. the arrival in Hanoi

Not quite sure what to say… for those of you (and me) expecting a peaceful, serene stroll thru the remote countryside like my previous 6 placements, this is not it. If ever I was to challenge myself to get out of a comfort zone, this will be it…but for 2-3 weeks it is not a huge deal…. I’m pretty certain that this is going to be, one way or another, an experience like few others I’ve had.

Hanoi, from initial impressions, is franatic…. it’s very, very noisy, very polluted, and just seems very much like a 45 RPM record being played at 78 RPM speed.   The driving … this is another ‘beep & go’ country…tho traffic and drivers I’ve seen here would make those in New Delhi and Peru seem like elderly little bitties. There are so many cars and bikes and everything is a traffic circle. It is truly amazing how chaotic and loud with beeps it is here. It is not unusual to see an entire family… mother , father and 2 young kids , on one motorcycle weaving thru the traffic or negotiating entry into a traffic circle… absolutely insane . Yes, that’s four on one cycle. Even saw someone text messaging with one hand while steering his motorcycle with the other.

One other thing about the vehicle traffic that is going to be an adjustment....most of the major roads thru Hanoi are 4 lanes, 2 in each direction separated by a narrow strip of land in the middle that you must make it to before continuing to the other side. That is not very unusual until you realize that there are few if any lights on this road and the traffic circles at intersections do not stop traffic...it only slows it. To cross this major traffic filled road, you can't wait for the light to change since there is none. You just cross and the cycles & cars either whiz by in front or behind you and you hope you don't just freeze or guess wrong... 'do I yield' or 'go forward', or ''go back' etc. Somehow it seems to work out, not sure how or why. For those who have seen the 'Frogger' episode on Seinfeld with George trying to cross the street, this country had to be the inspiration for it .  

Volunteers for Peace Vietnam (VPV) has their main house about 45 minutes from central Hanoi, & they have 2 smaller locations, each housing 8 people. It is closer to central Hanoi and closer to the placement where I’ll be teaching. I’m in this smaller house and there currently 2 staff and 8 volunteers here…5 female and 3 male. 

When Ryan, my roommate, and I arrived from the airport, no one was at the house except for two staff…the others were out and about since it was the weekend. Ryan, who lives in San Francisco is Filipino, perhaps 30 and a real nice fellow… if I remember, his full time job is doing video production for Univ. of Pennsylvania and most of his volunteer work has been doing video for NGO’s that need to promote their efforts.  Most of the others here are in their early twenties I would say, only one from the U.S. and I’ll probably find out more when we do our orientation tomorrow in preparation for our placements beginning on Tuesday .

My placement, BTW, is at the college with 18+ year olds. This is also a first for me as I’ve always worked with younger kids who appreciate the dopey. This is however a college for the disabled and/or challenged as I understand, so I’m not really certain how high functioning they all are… I know some have down syndrome, some are deaf & mute, some have palsy etc. It should be interesting… guess with my hearing challenges, I may need to wear a ‘Teacher’ badge to differentiate myself.

Two other things to note since I’ve arrived…. First, this being the first communist country that I’ve ever visited, I always wondered whether one could ‘feel’ the difference. My first answer came very shortly after I went online… I went to my email, noticed I received some postings on Facebook so I logged on… nope, at certain times as I understand, the gov’t blocks many of the social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. But there are ways to access it by using outside country servers and I was able to get on. I don’t have real clarity as to the why’s and when’s and how’s to this, but I’m sure I’ll find out.

Second, yes everything seems very gray colored as I grew up with that image… this however has much more to do with the smog as anything I believe. To tell the truth, I’m not certain if there is ever a sunny day here. Perhaps yesterday was one, I honestly can’t be certain…it may just have been a cloudy, overcast day….I’m sure I’ll find out. They did distribute face masks for the volunteers to wear when outside if we wish… so many people do. Seems like a country of thousands of bank robbers with these masks on.

I went out for about an hour yesterday walking thru the streets…the people all seem very friendly and hospitable and I feel safe… except where cars are concerned.