Chúc Giáng Sinh Vui Vẻ!

That means Merry Christmas in Vietnam although at this point it is two days after Christmas. Around the middle of December it got pretty cold here in Vietnam. I had to break out my winter coat. However, weather here in Hanoi is fickle. At the time I jokingly told Bryn that in a week we'd be in short sleeves again. I was wrong. It only took one day for it to again be warm.

By Christmas Eve it was even warmer.  That night I met up with Trinh, a Vietnamese girl that I met at an art gallery a while back.  We had been meeting every so often to teach each other our respective languages. I picked her up from the art gallery around 8:00pm and we went to have Pho, which is a very popular type of noodle soup (it's actually a little strange for me at this point to believe that four months ago I had never even heard of Pho). Trinh is Catholic and wanted to check out the nativity scene at the nearby cathedral. So we went there and then walked around Hoan Kiem Lake (all of this is located near Hanoi's Old Quarter).

There were tons of people out. Christmas is celebrated in Hanoi but not many people really celebrates it. Mostly young people just like wearing Santa hats and getting their picture taken next to fake Christmas trees. I'm not the biggest Christmas person, but it was a little sad that the only Christmas festivities (despite the nativity scene I suppose) were extremely commercial in nature. I also really miss egg nog.   

However, despite this, I had a good time on Christmas Eve. Earlier that week MCC threw a Christmas party. I invited my host brother and some of his friends to come along:

Also, earlier on Christmas Eve I made salsa (it's like the only food I know how to make) which actually turned out well. I couldn't find corn chips but I did end up finding tortillas and so I made my own corn chips. I think my family liked it. Either that or they humored me.

On Christmas day a friend of mine invited me to her birthday party. I went with her and her friends to sing karaoke. Unless someone slipped something into my egg nog in a past Christmas that I don't remember, that is probably the first time I've sung Vietnamese pop songs on Christmas. It also got cold again on Christmas day. I think because of the great temperature change, I caught a cold. Despite this, yesterday I visited my colleague Anh's house for the first time and hung out with her husband and two young sons.  I also Skyped with my family earlier that day.

All in all it was a good week. It doesn't feel at all like Christmas/New Years but I'm glad I could see family and friends.

Updates!

It has been awhile since I've updated my blog. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to write about. A lot has happened since my last blog entry but I've been too busy (and too lazy) to share the stories online. A while ago, I visited Tam Dao, which is located a couple hours from Hanoi. I went with an MCC colleague and a outdoor group he is apart of. These pictures are courtesy of him:

We climbed one of the three mountains. It was extremely steep in certain parts. These three good looking guys were the first ones up.

I also celebrated my 23rd birthday on December 9th. The night before my parents made hot pot and the next night I went out with my host brother, his friends, and Bryn. We ended the night singing karaoke.

Bryn and I also went out quite a bit with Shane, an Australian colleague from The Gioi, and his friends that he made here in Vietnam. Although quite a bit older than Bryn and I, Shane was a great Westerner to hang with. He really showed a deep appreciation for the Vietnamese culture and had some great insights. Through him, I met some pretty cool Vietnamese people. Unfortunately, he left for Australia this week.

A couple days ago, I went with colleagues from The Gioi to check out pagodas in Bac Ninh province. It was a fun excursion although our bus driver had to pull over and ask for directions at least ten times. I kind of wish I had took pictures of each person we pulled over to ask because they all seemed to be doing a different tasks. Some were washing motorbikes, some were running stalls, some were smoking out of huge pipes. Fun times. 

Well there you go. It's the Christmas season but it doesn't really feel like it over here. Most Christmas decorations are in stores and coffee shops. On Tuesday we will have a Christmas party at MCC. Bryn is going to Cambodia on Christmas but I will be here in Vietnam. I've been invited to spend Christmas with some people I've met here in Vietnam, but we will see if anything materializes. To everyone reading this: Chúc Giáng Sinh Vui Vẻ!

MCC in Yen Lap Commune

This week has been super busy: birthdays, trips, teaching English, meeting new people, not mention a lot more work at The Gioi. I'm also having to write stories about MCC Vietnam's other projects.  Instead of rehashing my outing with MCC last week I decided to kill two birds with one stone and just post the story that I had to write anyway:

Yen Lap commune is located in Vinh Tuong district, Vinh Phuc province. It is the poorest commune in Vinh Tuong district. The commune includes one preschool, one primary school, and one secondary school. Its preschool is split into three locations and only one of these locations has a lunch program. At this location there are 119 students with 104 participating in the lunch program. Even though the building only has two classrooms, the students are split up into four classes. As 10:30 rolls around, the children eagerly wait for the dishes to be served. They pass around a damp wash cloth to clean their hands. Each day there is a different dish with today’s menu being rice with eggs and pork. Towards the end of their meal they will get soup to pour into their bowls.

There are 104 children registered in Yen Lap commune’s preschool lunch program. However, only 80 to 90 students regularly eat at school. 5 year old Nguyen Le Hoai Nam is one of these students. His mother, Le Thi Nu, is too busy taking care of her shop and raising birds to make lunch on time for her son. She also has a hard time making him take a nap at home. However, she says that at school he willingly joins the other children in the after-lunch nap. Le Thi Nu wants to send her youngest daughter to the preschool next year and enroll her in the lunch program. However, the school only has a limited amount of space and therefore they are not able to admit every child. Le Thi Nu will have to wait to see whether or not her request will be granted.

Because there are not enough classrooms, the preschool has classes spread out in three different locations. Even though Le Thi Nu lives near Phu Yen, one of the preschool’s three locations, she sends her son to the location near the primary school instead. Out of all three locations, it is the only location large enough to support a lunch program.

Each meal costs 5,500 Vietnam dong. Parents also pay 30,000 dong per month to compensate for teachers’ time and effort. She only makes 100,000 dong a day. Her family of five brings in just 3 million dong per month altogether. MCC Vietnam provides 1,000 dong for each meal. MCC also gives support for cooking facilities and items such as rice cookers. At the beginning of each school year, the staff talks with the parents about the lunch program and the assistance of MCC.

Lunch at school is important for many reasons. One problem the preschool faces is that students that go home for lunch don’t come back in the afternoon. Also, the rate of malnutrition is 13.2% for all preschool children and 13.7% for all the children of the commune. The rate of malnutrition for those in the lunch program is 14.4% due to the fact that many of the children in the program do not get fed enough at home.

The school started their lunch program in the 2006-2007 school year and MCC has supported since this school year (at the beginning of September 2010). In its first year, only 35 students were enrolled in the program. Now there are 104. Every quarter, the preschool conducts a health check. Out of the 95 children that were checked early this school year, 85 have gained weight. However, the school still needs to provide lunch for more children. Yen Lap commune has the lowest rate of students having lunch at school in the district. The required rate is 70% but the preschool has a rate of only 31.5%. There are 382 children from ages 3-5 and 288 from ages 3 and under. Out of those 670 students, only 330 go to preschool. Although many of the children that go to school cry for their parents at first, most all the students eventually enjoy coming to school. 4-year-old Khong Thi Thy Phuong says that the school is fun and that the food here is better than at home. One young mother says that during the weekend her son counts the days until he can go back to school.