But We Thought You Were Old!

I kind of forgot that the students here would "know" me when Calah and I arrived. I'm not sure how I forgot it, I remembered that I knew all about them from their applications and many inquiry emails. And I was the one who had sent them their "congratulations, you get to attend SOP" emails, and many, many others after that with vitally imporant information. So it makes sense that the name "Alicia Temple" to them had many specific connations. When Max introduced us at breakfast our first morning I was greeted by exclamations of "oh, we thought you'd be old!" But it didn't stop at that first introduction, every conversation I had with anyone for the first two days included them laughing and telling me that since Max is older (60's) they just assumed that "Alicia Temple", who was friends with Max and works for him, must be older as well. It seemed like it took them a little bit to adjust to this new Alicia.


But adjust they have and being here with SOP has so far been fantastic. The students here come from all over and its really fun to see them interacting and finding ways to communicate despite some English limitations. It helps that we are here for the week of Festival preparation: there are no classes happening this week, just cleaning and preparing for Saturday's big event. Calah and I find ways to help when we can, which has included aquiring a new skill as, if I do say so myself, expert palm branch weavers and also helping to move massive amounts of palm tree debris to a pile at one end of the land, and then the next day moving it to another location. I don't know if it is the fact that we are guests or that they assume we are just wimpy Americans, but everyone kept apologizing to us for the fact that we had to do manual labor. My favorite was when one of the man apologetically exclamed, "but what will your mothers say when they hear that their daughters were put to work!" Fortunately, I think both of our mothers would approve. It's been nice to not be sitting in an office and out actually doing something!


When we aren't being used as the labor imported from Hanoi (which we have also been called) we find ourselves just chatting with different people, trying to learn a little bit about them and their stories, listening jealously to the things they have gotten a chance to learn about and experience over the last 3 months. Or just relaxing on this beautiful campus, enjoying being away from the city, not minding being woken up by birds. The few times that I have sat down to read (sidenote: before coming I found a Nawal el-Saadawi book in the MCC office that I brought along. Who would've guessed that I'd find a book by Egyption feminist author in the limited office library in Vietnam?! Its a great little treat!) I have got out my iPod with the intention of listening to it and then thought twice. I have gotten so accustomed to using it to drown out the noise whenever I pause for any amount of time in Hanoi but here, it just isn't necessary. Being out of the city and in a new context entirely is simply wonderful.