Mourning, then returning

My dad died March 22. I rushed back from Vietnam but didn't quite make it in time. I arrived about 10 hours after he passed. Even though I knew I had missed him, I was driving on adrenalin and got from Dulles to Wilmington, Del., in about 1 hour, 50 minutes. My brother told my dad I was on my way, but I think my dad had already decided it was time to move on. Ninety-eight is a long life. The viewing, mass, funeral, all went well .... as well as those kinds of things go. Saw all my kids and a lot of family, and that was good.
Moving on ....
I guess Vietnam is just about halfway around the world, because I've flown there twice and have gone two routes -- across the Pacific, and across the Atlantic. Either way, it's 23 hours or so in the air. Taking the east to west route I stopped in Doha, Qatar, and enjoyed the airport for a seven-hour layover. No alcohol, but there is a smoking room. The smoking room was like the bar scene in Star Wars -- I sat between an Italian and a really tall, blonde Russian girl. There were Filippinos, Vietnamese, Brits, Germans and everyone in-between. Ah, smoking ... the universal language. The smoking room was extra unhealthy because there were no fans or vents operating, and it was so smoke-filled you literally had trouble seeing across the 12-foot room. If that room doesn't turn you off to smoking, nothing will. I've only had one cigarette since I've been in there. I'm still trying to decompress.
It's great to be back in Vietnam, even if it was close to 100 and unbearably humid on Sunday. (It was cold and it snowed when I was back in Delaware.) But in Bien Hoa, the hotel ladies gave me a warm welcome, the smoothie youngsters were clearly happy to see me, and my boss gave me my schedule. Back to work tomorrow, which is a good thing. Teaching these students, just like the students in Peru, isn't like work at all. This is fun, so I'll enjoy it while I can.

Xin chao ... uh ... hello

I'm slowly getting settled in here. Bien Hoa is clearly off the beaten track. It's an industrial city about 20 miles from Ho Chi Ming City, but it certainly doesn't feel like HCMC. There are really no tourist attractions here. In fact, I'm probably the biggest (in every sense of the word) tourist attraction for the locals. They all stare at me when I walk the streets or eat out, but unlike other places I've been, I usually get a big smile and HELL-O. Kids follow me along the street like I'm the Pied Piper. The people are a big plus here. They're very welcoming. Everyone wants me to sit down, even if I've been sitting all day. Service is excellent, whether it's the restaurants, or coffee shops (of which there are millions), or department stores. The only time I've encountered attitude is when people are on their scooters. There are billions of scooters -- everyone has one, including teens. I thought about getting a scooter, but that would be like going on suicide watch. Crossing the street on foot is plenty dangerous because there is always heavy duty traffic. And no one slows down when they're on their scooter.
Communication is a struggle. No one speaks English here. They know numbers so you can pay them when you buy stuff, but otherwise it's charades.  American charades must be different as well, because I've had a heck of a time getting my points across. Vietnamese is a tough language. They use our letters, but don't pronounce them the same, so the written word isn't a whole lot of help. Pitch is crucial to the language, and I've never been able to pitch. I'm trying to learn, but failing so far.
The food is awesome, and very cheap. A long loaf of French bread that costs $2.25 in the U.S., goes for 6,700 dong here or about 33 cents. Packaged dinners/lunches at the super market are 18,000 dong, or about $1.50, and they include pork, noodles, and some vegetables. Good stuff. The tastes are surprising as well .... a vegetable soup has a sweet aftertaste, or there's a spicy finish to chicken, which is dirt cheap here. I've just begun to scratch the surface when it comes to the food.
Teaching is fine. The students are great. Very friendly and hard-working. I only have one day off a week, which is sort of OK, because other days I may only teach a class or two. The bosses are great, and they're determined to make sure I have a good experience here. Cheers to that.
Speaking of cheers, the Vietnamese like to go bottoms-up when drinking, which basically means you're chugging beer. Don't like that custom. Local beer is watery lagers, and there's Heineken. Bottoms up!
Coffee is a bit of a problem for me. Haven't found drip coffee yet. It's expresso with sweetened condensed milk. Cheap, to be sure, but it ain't Dunkin Donuts or Dinos. Cigarettes are super cheap as well -- about 95 cents a pack. Picked the wrong country to quit smoking, but I'll keep it on my to-do list.
 Miss family and friends in the U.S., and I miss my favorite students and other fine folk in Peru.

So here I am ...

All things considered, the trip here went pretty darn good. The snow was coming down sideways as my plane sat on the runway at O'Hare. But after a 45-minute delay, we took off. Turns out, that was the last plane to leave O'Hare before the airport was shut down by the weather. Chicago to Tokyo flight was rough: I was moved next to a little girl and her mom and dad, and the little girl puked almost the entire flight. Poor thing. Because of the delay in Chicago, I missed my connection in Tokyo (to Ho Chi Ming City), but the Tokyo airport was so well organized that they already had a new connection with boarding pass lined up for me as I got off the plane.  My flight to HCMC was awesome .... great food, big seats and half-full plane. Good thing about long flights: I watched The Master, Social Network (again), Taken 2; and Wallee. Two things struck me right away about Vietnam when I got off the plane in Ho Chi Ming City. First, the people were very tolerant of my inability to speak any Vietnamese whatsoever  -- and they got me my visa and through customs with no worries. Second, it's going to take me some time to get used to the heat and humidity here. I've been doing some serious sweating, and it's kind of embarrassing.  I spent my first night in a seedy hotel in the center of HCMC. I say seedy because it was cheap for the location, had no towels, the lights went out as soon as I entered the room, and these guys stood outside and yelled "Hey girl" at me as I carried my luggage to the room. But there was a delux Starbucks across the street, where I used the internet to connect with my school, which sent a taxi to pick me up and take me to Bien Hoa. Traffic, which is extreme, moves very slowly here, but it moves. It took almost an hour to get from HCMC to Bien Hoa and it's not a great distance -- about 15-20 miles maybe. Met  my new bosses and folks at the school. They seem very cool. Had a pretty good lunch in town with one of my bosses -- lots of hot peppers and hot sauce, fish I've never heard of, skinny green beans, weird cold pork soup, and RICE. My boss picked up the tab, but don't think it was too expensive. Lots of scooters and SARS masks here. SARS masks are used to keep out dust and sun, I was told. I'm teaching 3 classes tomorrow, so it's time to lesson plan. Miss the folks in Peru (students call the teachers "teacher" here as well), and of course I miss my family and friends in the U.S. But this place has a pretty good vibe.

Leaving ..... again

Another six months in Peru, and another departure with mixed emotions. I think I'm finally better understanding the life and rhythms here. So I guess that means it's time to move on. What I'll take away most from my stay in Peru is the generosity of the people I've met here, especially the students. Sure, thieves stole my laptop and two cameras, but crime is universal. But the students here bought me lunches, dinners, gifts, and they gave me sage advice like, "Don't leave your laptop unattended." I'll miss the students more than anything or anybody here. Next, I'll miss the weather. It's perfect everyday. You could live in shorts and a T-shirt year-round. The locals complain about the cold .... a crisp 45-55 at night, but I'm telling you, this is the best weather on the planet. I'll miss the food a little, but US food ain't shabby. I'd like to open an anticuchos stand and pisco sour bar in the US one day. Maybe when I move to Key West, Fla. I won't miss the people cutting in line, or bumping you on the street. Everyone's always in a hurry here, and they're always late. It's a cultural thing.
I'll be back in the U.S. for three weeks and then I'm flying to Vietnam to teach in Bien Hoa, which is very close to Ho Chi Ming City. I'm looking forward to the new job and challenge (my new boss seems really cool, just like my boss here), but I'm sure I'll look back more than once and realize how good I had it in Peru.

Quality time

My son Jack is here in Arequipa, so let the good times roll. I met Jack in Cusco on Tuesday (11/27/12) morning at our hotel, the Munay Wasi. It was a nice place a few blocks from Cusco's Plaza de Armas. We had time to say hello and then we immediately took off on a whirlwind "City Tour" that included visits to churches, temples, fields, temples, churches and some fields. It was OK, but we were tired, and we also got tired of getting on and off a hot bus every nine minutes to see the churches, temples and fields. You weren't allowed to take pictures of the artwork owned by the Catholics in the churches, but you could take pictures of the Andean artifacts. The next day we toured the Sacred Valley. This was a nice trip at a less frenetic pace. The ruins we saw were impressive, and we went to a pretty cool Inca burial site. They put the bodies in the fetal position and "buried" them into the side of a mountain that now looks like brown swiss cheese (lots of holes where the bodies were placed). After the Sacred Valley tour we had a couple of hours to kill in Ollantaytambo before we caught a train to Aguas Calientes near Machu Picchu. Funny, but the short stay in Ollantaytambo was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We sat drinking cappuccinos at a cafe in Ollantaytambo's central plaza. The weather was perfect, the pace of life seemed idyllic, with schoolkids chatting and locals going about their daily routine at a leisurely pace. The taxi traffic was minimal, and everyone gave us a nod or smile while we sat taking it all in. That'll be a wonderful memory for me. The train ride to Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu was uneventful and we got to a pretty nice hotel, The Green Nature, which was close to the train station, and just as close to the bus that would take us up to the Machu Picchu ruins on Thursday (11/29/12). We toured the ruins, which was pretty awesome, of course. I also signed us up for a hike up Wayna Picchu Mountain. It's pretty much a straight-up hike that got creepier and creepier the higher you went. Creepy in the sense that there are no railings near the top. I panicked, and refused to the walk the "ledge" around the side of the mountain that led to the peak (there was no railing and the drop was very, very precipitous to say the very, very least).  Jack scaled the final 20 meters to the peak, while I sat defeated on a little ledge at the top of ridiculously steep stairs. A young woman I saw had the same experience I did and we both agreed we had gone high enough. I just don't like ledges with 1,000-foot drops and no railing. Call me crazy, or a coward, but that's the way it is. Going down the mountain wasn't bad at all once I got past the steep stairs, so I considered the hike a success. We hung out in Cusco on Friday, flew back to Arequipa on Saturday, and enjoyed some pisco sours Saturday night. We're just going to chill out and visit the school where I teach on Monday. I'm not teaching this month so I could spend time uninterrupted with my son, but I'll be giving new students placement tests closer to Christmas.
Finished up with my 5 p.m. group, and we had a wonderful class of pizza and cake and pictures and exam preparation. They all passed, of course, because they are the greatest students in the world. Maybe I'll teach them again, maybe not. I'll never forget that bunch. Same with the 7 p.m. group. They got through fluency, enduring the writing and speaking assignments and their gringo teacher with the spotty Spanish. We had a wonderful night out. Great, great, great students here.

Blogged down a bit

The blog has been on hold for a bit because I've been dealing with a couple of minor medical maladies and a lot of work. A cyst on my back ruptured (kind of like volcano Misti), which allowed me to sample the local clinic for treatment. For S/.10 ($4), Dr. Ortho at Espiritu Santo clinic checked me out and prescribed 10 days worth of antibiotics, which more or less did the trick. The cyst is back to its old solid self.  Total bill: $16. Not bad. The only negative was when the doctor coughed on my back while checking me out. Oops.
Once recovered from the cyst I got mixed up with some kind of food poisoning. My stomach bloated like a beach ball and the pain was impressive. In fact, the stomach pain wouldn't let me stand up straight so I had to miss two days of work. That's two days of no pay, so that sucks. I haven't eaten for three days, but my stomach is still a little puffy. Guess I'll never have six-pack abs. I'm getting better, though, and will return to work Monday. I really hate missing work, and not just because of the money. I enjoy the students so much that I look forward to work. It's nice when you really like your job.
I've been trying my hand at a little Peruvian cooking (I don't think that's what made me ill -- really). Making some soups with mixed vegetables, ahi colorado (a kind of hot sauce), chicken or meat. It's pretty easy and quick, and the ahi colorado gives the soup a good flavor.
Speaking of flavor, I was teaching vocabulary to my 5 p.m. class, and we were talking about tastes and flavors. Hearing the word flavor, one of my students (she knows who she is) starts singing out flavor-Flav, flavor-Flav. It's nice to see the best of American culture is reaching Peru.
I'm still dealing with the short-change change issue. Bought a sandwich for S/.4, gave the woman S/.20 and got S/.6 in change. I could chalk that up to an honest mistake, except the woman complained to me about the 20 I gave her, asking if I had anything smaller. Same sort of nonsense at a couple of the little shops. My buddy at the corner store never tries to trick me, but when the other shops see the pasty gringo, they give the short-change trick a try. I always have them lay the change in my open palm so we can both see how much money is changing hands.
My son Jack is coming in about 10 days. We're meeting in Cusco, where we'll tour the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and any other sites we can get to in our four days there. Can't wait to see him. I'm at that point in my stay here when I'm really missing family and friends back home. I'm taking December off, and may travel, or chill, or whatever. Return to work in January, and deciding what to do next -- again -- just like the last time I was here.

Crucifixion

I've been out of the blog loop for a couple of weeks, mourning Obama's performance in the debate, fighting a persistent flu/cold thing that has even challenged the farmacia, working lots of hours, and getting my computer repaired. The computer is much better -- the mouse pad and cursor weren't in concert, so basically I couldn't do a dang thing unless I had the patience of a zen master. I don't. Luckily, Samantha, a former TEFL student of mine who is now my boss, knew a guy who knew a guy, or something like that, and got my computer functioning again for S/.100 (about $40 U.S.). Worth every penny, although the cursor remains a little free-spirited at times. My illness is slowly getting better, but at least I haven't had to miss work. I try not to call in sick unless I absolutely have to (don't look at "have to" as a dangling preposition; instead, see it as a semi-modal verb). TEFL class and my Peruvian classes continue to sail along. My 5 p.m. kids got a little sick of me at the end of last month, but now we're BFFs again. I love those guys. Great energy, funny, and pretty darn cheerful considering they're listening to me babble vocabulary and grammar, and being made to write the DREADED essays. My 7 p.m. group, the mature ones, are pretty cool as well, but they're coming to my class after working all day. That ain't easy. I assume my TEFL class is probably sick of me, but that's TEFL. We're together 5 hours a day and the grammar wears most of them down, especially when you tack on observations, student teaching, pedagogy, and my annoying personality. Can't help any of that ... that's just how it shakes out.
I'm sad to report that living conditions at Juan's aren't what they used to be. Trash piles up in the hall (unless I take it out). Dishes pile up in the sink (unless I wash them). My neighbors operate at very high volume -- music, loud talking, TV.  I wear ear plugs ... really.  Juan is in the hospital with pneumonia, and he broke his leg at a bullfight a couple of weeks ago, not that he cares about the conditions downstairs in his house. His daughter is working to keep the place in order and does pretty good, but that's a full-time job. I believe she already has a job. Hopefully, things will settle down and quiet down here, 'cause I love the setting and location. And I really like Juan.
I have to update and/or correct a previous observation about Arequipa. I'm seeing more skirts and shorts on the girls now that's it's spring. Nothing like the U.S., of course, but it's noticeable compared to the last time I was here. Not that I'm looking, or anything. Interesting to note that there's a group of gringos here who all gather at the same "Irish" bar, eat at KFC, Mickey D's, Pizza Hut, and drink Starbucks Coffee. Whatever.
Saw a "crucifixion" in the Plaza de Armas on Saturday. It was re-enactment of course, kind of close to the KFC. Quite a crowd gathered, and people were yelling and cheering and jeering and stuff. Weird. I'll try to post the pictures.
My son Jack is coming here at the end of November. Can't wait!!! Miss all my kids of course. And a  shout-out to Ron Whiteside for taking care of my cat. And if the cat isn't with us any more, yet another shout-out to Ron.
And finally, what the hell was up with Obama in the first debate? He better bring his A game this time. At least Biden came in fired up.