The First Week

So much to say, so much to say. It is hard for me to believe I left the US only a week ago. So much has happened since then that I cannot possibly begin to comprehend it. We are currently in Can Tho, which is the hub of the South both geographically, commercially, culturally, and economically. But, we have only just arrived here. Before I start to describe what it is like here, I will do my very best to describe the time spent in Ho Chi Mihn City.

I met my group of four other girls in the LA airport. We will be together for the majority of the time here, and as none of us knew each other it was a stressful occasion. Luckily, we all got along famously and the rest of the travel was quite uneventful, although it was exhausting. We arrived in Ho Chi Mihn City mid morning, and true to her word, Tahn was waiting for us with a sign (although she would have had no trouble picking us out from the crowd- apparently five white girls with big backpacks do not come into the city on every plane). We then all piled into a van which whisked us through the city.


Whisked is probably the wrong word because, as we learned, traffic is not something to be taken lightly in Ho Chi Mihn City. Every single person, aside from those riding in buses or taxis, are on motorbikes. Single men and women, couples riding tandem, parents with children, sometimes up to four or five people on each motorbike, all swarming around the city. The best thing I could think of to describe it was hundreds of bees, all swarming and buzzing trying to get from one place to the other. The most impressive part was that there was no order to the chaos, or at least none that we could see.


Somehow, though, we made it to our hotel without causing any apparent accidents or injury. We ate a fantastic lunch and then with the intent of sleeping for twenty minutes, we slept for the entire afternoon. That night we learned that the next day, September 2nd, was National Day. and the reason for so much traffic in the city. Traffic at night is busier than that in the day, and it was in that traffic, the night-time pre-holiday traffic, that we learned to cross the street. I saw my life flash before my eyes more times than I wish to remember. The trick is to walk very slowly so that they can just steer around you, but your instinct is to run as fast as you possibly can which would be exactly the wrong thing to do.

So, after orienting ourselves around the district (the city, with a population comparable to that of New York, is too large to know the whole theism so we compromised ourselves to learning district 3) we had to orient ourselves with the group and classes we would be taking. The next two days consisted of orientation sessions in the morning; complete with icebreakers, goal setting, and syllabus learning. Then after lunch, we would have what were called "drop offs" where we were handed a slip of paper with some instructions and had to follow them. They were simple things, like find the post office, or how much fish costs at the market (which is so cheap!), but it is amazing how much of a language barrier there is. I can't even create the same sounds as they can. But, I hope that will come.

The most interesting place we went was Independance (or Reunification) Palace. This was the place that was stormed and basically symbolized the end point for the "American War" as they call it, even though the US had pulled out more than two years earlier. We took a tour through it and it is still used today, but it was eerie to be in a place that had so much symbolism and importance, yet occurred less than fifty years ago. We were all a little subdued after that, but it is a very real part of our combined history and there are not many other indicators that it all happened so recently.




So, after all that we had a break to the beach for the day. It was a crowded, noisy, beautiful beach, complete with little ponies that were being used to attract tourists to buy food. That was quite a day... and the next day we left for Can Tho, our main home for the remainder of the semester.



It took us four hours on a little road, which was full of people the entire way, crossed the river by ferry, and were finally in our city. The impression of it so far is great, although we have only been here for a little bit. There is still tons of traffic and people everywhere but already the sights, sounds, and smells are almost familiar. I think I will save the description of the city and university for another day, as this post is already very long, and I feel like I still haven't adequately described everything. So, that will be for another day. Until then,

Chùc ngû ngon!

Julia