Hanging with the locals.

Instead of having Team & Coach Relationship Class at the end of the day, most of the teams have now switched to playing games with each other. Yesterday, I chose to play soccer with the Red Team, some Coaches, and a few teenagers who have nothing better to do than hang around camp all day. I'm not quite sure why they feel the need to school eleven year olds in soccer all day, but they do. During shooting practice, they always run up behind the kids and steal their ball to score. And then during games they tower over the kids, with the American coaches towering over them...it's usually a high-action game that ends with somebody falling over.

I've never really played soccer in my life, except for fun when I was younger. And even then, I didn't really get the hang of it. The ball didn't go straight, and I couldn't run with it well. But one thing I've always been great at is defense. I can run down the field and get the ball away from just about anybody. So yesterday I joined in on the fun. The jerk-fourteen year old had just stolen the ball away and was bobbing down the field with the ball. When he got close enough to the goal that I was the only other player he had to pass, he tried to dribble through my legs but my mother's old wisdom of never keeping your legs spread too far in a game brought me quickly back into the game. I snatched the ball away from him and launched it towards my teammates on the other end of the paved field.

But instead of the ball going up and over. It just went over. Straight over, right into the crotch of the jerk fourteen year old. Keeled over, he wasn't laughing anymore. Lauren - 1. Vietnamese local - 0.

Later in the game I was running down field with the ball and passed across. Except another fourteen year old jerk sprinted to it before Lindsay could. He stopped it with his feet and was about to pass it to the teste-less Vietnamese when we both lunged for it at the same time. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground and he was somewhat under me, legs tangled to bits. I stood up, gave him the okay sign and helped him up. For the next five minutes he showed everybody the tiny scratch on his shiny pants and the slight marks on his arms. Meanwhile, my knee had been cut for the past thirty minutes from another tumble on the pavement. I couldn't believe he was being such a baby after talking smack to the eleven year olds for the past two weeks. So I played even harder on him.

Act like a prick, get treated like one. That's my motto. (And it's a good thing they can't understand a word out of our mouths because we get a tad bit frustrated sometimes...)

Everytime we faced each other in the game, he would hold his elbow or point to his knee and then make a face at me. So I made a crying baby face and wahh-ed at him. I had to kick the ball down field at one point and he just so happened to get in the way...once again. But this time, he got it in the face. Lauren - 3. Vietnamese local - negative 2. It was an afternoon filled with blood, sweat, and the Vietnamese tears. The camp kids quickly joined in when we saw how badly we kicked the locals' butts in soccer. It was a victory for the little guy in all of us.


Linh and the Lotus flowers.

Today however, the locals were much nicer. He pointed to my still somewhat-bleeding knee and asked if I was okay. I said yep and then he sat next to me and started counting the piercings in my ears. Surprisingly good English for such a jerk. We had a pretty decent conversation for not really saying anything. He asked about the cuts on my arms and I somehow managed to communicate what happened to him, with a few details left out of course. I think he asked me to play soccer, but that's when the lack of speaking became an issue. Maybe the epic blood-bath of yesterday afternoon won me some street-points with the locals.

The locals who wear Tommy polos and shiny black pants everyday.

Rocked the barefoot look for the AM match yesterday, Mizunos in the PM, and today I shall wear my Vibrams! The kids love them.


Success.

Peace, love, and the skinned knees of summer!


Dat and the bike ride. Also known as, a date in Vietnam.

PS: I scored a goal on a nice play AND successfully hit the ball off my head to one of my teammates. Basically I was #winning all afternoon.

Booze, Boys & an Hour-Long Busride

Tonight after Spaghetti Wednesday, the American coaches and a handful of the Vietnamese coaches hopped on the brown bus and headed to Can Tho to stock up on more Panda cookies and snacks, and of course lots of booze for our pre-Director Thirsty Thursday celebration. We mostly just wanted to get our weekend started since all we do on Fridays is manage the competition.

The bus ride was supposedly only going to be twenty minutes long because we were going to a closer supermarket on the outskirts of Can Tho. Sophia and I chatted it up the whole time. We started out with swapping boy stories. The latest on her dating fiascoes and my brief history of college. Then we realized the ride had already lasted twenty minutes and the sun was long gone. So brought up families, chatting about how amazingly crazy our grandparents all are, how close we are to our parents, and how our siblings both seem to be in very serious/very awesome relationships.

When we saw some shining lights, and what looked like a small town and/or civilization, we brought up partying. I'll leave those details out though :) That information is definitely on a need-to-know basis.

After an hour, I stopped our on again boy conversation and shouted out, "Where the hell are we? This is definitely not a twenty minute ride." All of the city lights had vanished and we were sitting at an intersection with a karaoke bar on one side and a dark field on another. But just a few minutes more, and we arrived at the exact same supermarket we shopped at this past weekend...not on the outskirts of Can Tho but completely in the center of the city.

This supermarket is not Publix or Schnucks. It is a Walmart that meets Kohls-- then they have twin babies together, and those babies are named Tilt and Borders. The first floor has a food court, a grocery store, a meat department, a bag check, and an ice cream shop. The second floor is all clothing with some stuffed animals, while the third floor is reserved for books and an arcade.

My mission was simple: buy snacks, booze, and bug spray for the weekend.

Two bottles of vodka, one wine-spritzer, 24 Tiger beers, a box of crackers, four mixer drinks, a box of cookies, one candy bar, and a yogurt later, I was checking out of the store with a bill of 450,000 dong. Yes, that is only $22.50. We all sat down and had a little bit of ice cream before heading back to Hoa An.

The trip back was filled with yet another flavorful conversation. I am now sitting in a room with my American director, Anna, who is pretty sick, and my other too roomies, Sophia and Morgan, who have been doing nothing but chowing down on snacks with me for the past hour. My laptop is perched on a case of beer, and I'm surrounded by crumbs. #Winning like a fat kid at camp! We didn't have to have a meeting tonight so I've got all the free time in the world! Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.


Linh, Ren, Dat and me during my sick day...no volleyball in the hot sun.


Burning rice pods behind camp.


Captain of my Chubby Ship.


Making s'mores on a coal fire with chopsticks as skewers

And my favorite quote from camp thus far:

Anna: There is so much money in porn.
Lauren: Is that why Vietnam is so poor?

Yes, I went there. Peace, love and sex baby!

Testng my luck...an array of Vietnamese photos.

Hiding from the monsoon.


Yes, this monsoon.


Our daily wake-up calls.


English class, Simon Says...


Orange Tigers, rawr.


Yes, I can balance plastic spoons on my nose.


Beef, cucumber, lettuce, rice noodle, pineapple, and banana spring roll that I rolled myself.


Best latte ever. Best hang over cure ever.


Friday night rave partner.


Soccer relays, week 1

For more photos of camp, check out my American director's website, http://annarosin.blogspot.com...

Can't believe I could finally upload some pictures. Many more to come, hopefully with a posting about Can Tho...wild and crazy Can Tho.

Lost in Translation: 8.1.2011

Ever since I can remember...ever since before I could read...I told myself I wanted to teach people in some way. Sitting in my bedroom I made up stories to the pictures in my Franklin the Turtle books, and soon after I was reading to an imaginary class, calling on students who were talking over me, and making up discussion questions at the ripe age of six. At eight, I bought a teacher's planning book, complete with an attendance record. Everything was perfect. I saved papers from each grade that I thought I could one day use in my classroom, whatever subject I ended up teaching. I'm sure I still have most of that stuff somewhere. I certainly still have all of my French papers starting from the ninth grade, up 'til now.

I'm twenty-one years old, teaching English in Vietnam. Instead of having a wire-bound planning book, I have a photo-copied lesson guide that was bound at a Vietnamese Kinko's. There are no dry-erase boards, and the erasers have to be clapped on a peeling wall every few minutes. The fans don't work, and the windows don't all close properly. But the kids are interested. They're everything I've ever imagined and hoped for. They're brilliant, yet annoying, individual yet somehow all the same. I wish they asked more questions when they're confused, but the few questions I have heard are incredibly insightful and relevant to what I have said...not just the typical question a student poses when they haven't been paying attention.

Everything has been wonderful up to this point. I can get over the heat and I can get past the language barriers, but what took the wind out of me today was when a little boy on Yellow Team, Thuong, asked me how to form a sentence from the verb "to be" because he just started learning English at this camp. We have already moved past the ABC's, numbers,and introductions...and now we're on forming linked sentences with varied pronouns. It broke my heart. Just last night, Sophia and I were talking about how ridiculous the curriculum is for a camp filled with high-risk children for dropping out of school, yet we try to teach them a bundle of information all at one time, and expect them to retain it all for not just an end-of-the-week exam, but a final exam as well.

I wanted to bite my tongue, but I had to tell the boy that if he just memorized the boxes we filled out together in class, he would be able to answer the questions on the exam, even if he didn't understand the material. I can't believe I don't even have my degree yet and I'm already "teaching the test". But we have to here. I understand that not everyone here is waiting for the day they get to run their own classroom, but I look forward to the first day of school. One of my favorite stores is Office Depot. And no, I don't love the first day of school because it means the return of homework and mid-terms, I love the first day of school because it means another year has come for me to observe the way my teacher's work, and to hopefully improve my own methods of teaching. The sick feeling didn't leave my mouth all day, and I can't figure out how to make this a better situation.

Week 2, Day 1...Oh Lordy.

Camp started off crazy first thing in the morning...of course. The American Coaches were exhausted from travelling all weekend,and the Vietnamese were exhausted from the heat of the early sun. But the kids were far from it. I walked into English class and the normally quiet Yellow Team stood up and screamed out their greeting: "GOOD MARNING TEECHUH!" Whoa. But they listened through the lesson, so I suppose that one turned around pretty nicely. Sophia and I were only able to teach about two-thirds of what the lesson called for because the classes last forty-five minutes, and half of that time is used for translating and getting the information written on the board into their notebooks. But somehow, Sophia and I were meant to teach the students how to sound out the beginning of English words so they could identify the starting letters.

Example: What does 'Basketball' start with? And then the students would yell out B and we wrote it on the board next to the letter B. And the lesson called for each letter to be filled in. But, being the bright students we are, added into the fact that the English test from last week had questions from material we couldn't get to, Sophia and I looked ahead to this week's exam and figured out what exactly needed to be highlighted. So we put a star next to the letters that are physically on the test, and then added in a few letters of our own to cover the basic sports names.

B- Basketball
D- Dribble
S- Soccer
T- Tennis
V- Volleyball

Then we had to move on to personal pronouns. Not only did we have to teach what a noun was, we had to teach personal pronoun, and then specify the difference between a subject pronoun and an object pronoun....in ADDITION to teaching them how to use them properly in a sentence. Note: some of these kids hardly knew their ABC's. And yes, I did in fact re-learn English grammar planning this lesson, in case ya'll need any help in the future. The kids wrote down our simple sentences and cirlced the placement of the verb in regards to the location of the noun. Are you lost yet? Because I'm sure they were by this point.

And as if that wasn't enough, we had to teach linking verbs, aka, "to be". There are five forms of the verb in case you didn't know: is, are, am, was, were. We only decided to teach the three present tense forms. And the kids did alright with that...until we had to add in Nominative Predicates and Predicate Adjectives. The Vietnamese coach had to look up the Vietnamese word for the two in the manual...yeah. Fun stuff for an eleven year old at 9 o'clock in the morning. So far, Yellow Team was able to get through about two-thirds, stopping just before the predicates. Red Team was rambunctious all morning but was able to finish the lesson and get everything written down in time for sports.

I think I practiced my teacher-voice with the Red Team today. They have two of the prettiest girls in the camp, two of the most talented boys in sports, and then all of them just seem to be intelligent and well-spoken. Except for one. So of course, when I had the slower boy stand up to answer a question, the rest of the class was ooh-ing and waving their hands through the air. And even better, they started yelling the answer out. Oh to be smart and eleven again. But now that I'm on the other side of the picture, it's funny to watch. Yet I find myself feeling bad for the strugglers, instead of dying to tell them the correct answer too.

So yes, I did have to tell them to stop talking. Then I said be quiet. And then I said, why would you talk while he's trying to talk? I forgot to mention that I said it so quickly that the translator couldn't keep up...so it was immediately lost in the language barrier. Fail. At least they got to run around after class with Sophia at their basketball lesson.

For our third volleyball lesson, we're reviewing bumps, sets, and serves. Our warm-up/practice consisted of standing in a great big circle, which they had to form by holding hands, and teaching them to call for the ball when it came their way. "Buong!" is what
you shout out before bumping, but half the time I still say "Got it!" and it does the job. This was the first time I really saw all of the kids enjoy the sport. They ran from their spot into the center of the circle, called out their hit, and then did everything in their power to get it to the next person. We still have a few control issues with direction and power, but that is to be expected on the third lesson. After we bumped and setted for about fifteen minutes, we switched and let them try out serving once more. And this time, we had a few more successes! And if the ball didn't make it over, it at least went forwrard every single time! Yay for good coaching.

The highlight of the lesson was when I realized there was no pig being slaughtered in the backyard of the camp! No squealing cries, and no pig being wheel-barrowed up and over the bridge. Yes, that did happen last week. And yes, I did cry.

The final part of the lesson the coaches stood on one side of the net, while the kids spread out into various positions. organ set the ball over the net to them to get it back to us in three hits. It usually happened in one, but most of the time the ball was immediately bumped out of bounds. So I pointed to the ball and yelled, "Chai Lom!" (Run, ball!) to get them to understand that they are responsible for the ball as a team. The day ended with a minor English lesson... we asked each coach to teach important parts of their sport in English. So we taught: bump, serve, set, net, and ball. And they picked it up right away! Maybe Sophia and I should start teaching outside or something...

It is a blistering hot day out-- I'm definitely getting my tan on. I miss Can Tho City, it was a weekend filled with drinking, bargaining at the markets, buying things for next to nothing, and lots of good and not-so-good food. Oh, did I mention I did in fact get to go to a rave? Pictures will be posted. Preview: I spent a total of eighty American dollars this weekend and you won't believe everything that that got me.

Update on the Race for First Place after Week 1 Exams/Competition: Orange Team AM is currently in 2nd place overall, with the highest Lifeskills score out of everyone! So I guess Amy, Ricky, Jenny and I must be doing something right!

Peace, love, and Vietnamese KFC,
Lauren

My job, my passion.

Camp- Day 1

The air is cool with a thick layer of humidity. And when I say cool, I mean around eighty...but it's still better than Miami by this hour of the day. We leave our campsite at 7:00 am and head to the Hoa An (Huh-way Ahn) Center about five minutes down the road. The road is a single lane, with mostly mo-peds going to and fro. The occasional truck will blast its horn, each driver has perfected their own tune. Our driver goes with a louder start and a consecutive beep that lowers in volume over time. The blast usually lasts about eight sounds. Definitely a nice change from the blaring horn of the Hummers in Miami.

We pass by a marketplace before turning down a gravel road. People are standing outside preparing for the day. Some are throwing fresh fish into a bucket of shallow water. A woman sits beside a bucket, takes a fish out and lays it on the ground. Then she takes a wooden paddle and smacks its head, killing it instantly. To her left, a girl is selling chom-choms. Across the street, a fruit salesman is lining up his watermelon and mango while a woman slices it into halves and quarters. On the other corner, women are selling fish nets alongside hats and trinkets. We beg the Directors to let us walk to school one day
so we can stop by this place, but a quick 'No' tells us it won't happen. Anna, our American Director, quietly tells us that last year a visitor was robbed on these roads and now the policemen doesn't want us in this area. So that means we may not be able to visit our students homes towards the end of camp.

Arriving at camp, we cross a bridge and enter the gate. The building matches the gate, a pale yellow, the color of my favorite daffodils. Scraps of trash blow across the blacktop and on one side of the buildings I see a pack of bicycles parked under a covering. In the center of the school, a group of older kids are playing a pick-up game of soccer while a few others play basketball. A young boy in a red tshirt runs up to our pack and jumps on Anna to say hello. Clearly one of her own from last year...I can't wait to have that happen, I think to myself. Wait, did I just say that? It's day one and I'm already thinking
of a next year? A few boys I met at our campsite came up and said hello.

One boy, named Lihn, we call him the naughty one, or the trouble-maker, and an older boy named Phar (not sure on the spelling, I just make a sound to get his attention!), and then one of my own from Sunday's orientation, come up to say hello to me. Law-Wren. Hell-oh Law-Wren, is what I hear. So I say hi back and ask how they are and what's up. Their response is always, 'Fine thanks,' or, 'Not much,' guaranteed. The Directors hand us our team boxes, a plain white sliding door drawer with some tape, paper, chalk and string inside.

I head up the winding stairs, first twelve steps, turn left, then eleven more, and wander down the outdoor hallway until I find the door that has an orange piece of paper hanging on the window. Turning inside, I see my AM kids, bright-eyed and smiling. 'Gud Mare-ning!!' they shout, and I can't help but giggle and say, "Good morning!" back. Ricky-Bobby, Jenny, and Amy all join me. Can you guess which one is the American coach?

Here's a hint...none of them are American. Ricky-Bobby and Jenny are Vietnamese. Ricky-Bobby is really just Ricky, but I already nick-named him. Jenny's Vietnamese name is Huong, but she's so adorable that either one works. She is studying to be an English teacher and Ricky is studying biomechanical engineering. Both attend Can Tho University. Amy is from England, and plays tennis at FSU while studying sports management and psychology. The four of us make up the Orange Team Coaches.



After attendance has been taken and orange shirts are given out, we come up with a team name and cheer. The kids decide on the Orange Tigers and our cheer is, "ORANGE! TIGERS! RRRRRR." And we make claws and grit our teeth while growling. And then we taught them to come together in a circle, put their hand in, and yell "GRRRRR!" on three. The first life skills lesson involved discussing what a team is, and what all the important parts of a team are. The kids really listened to what we were saying, and even when they didn't have a response when we asked a question, they gave an effort in the discussion.

I immediately noticed a little boy in the front who paid attention to every detail, even when it didn't make sense as easily to him as it did to the other students. Newly registered for the camp, Dat joined our team a little late. A very small boy of eleven years old, his smile lights up the room and his eyes sparkles every time he speaks. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I can tell there's a spark about him. He's energetic and attentive, and really tries hard to learn what the Americans are saying, instead of just relying on the translations from Jenny and Ricky-Bobby.



After lifeskills, I headed to Yellow Team for English & Sports. I teach English with Jenny, Truong, and Sophia. Truong is attending Can Tho University as well. Sophia goes to Duke and is a 400 meter hurdler from Asheville, NC. She is studying cultural anthropology. Together, we all have an amazing chemistry. The lesson started off with greetings and introductions.
Sophia explained how to say, 'Hello. My name is _____.'and 'I am __________.' Then she taught, 'What is your name?' The translations were perfect and the children knew exactly when to repeat what we said. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and goodbye were also taught. We went over pronunciation, and that's where the fun began.

"Good..."
"Gud..."
"More..."
"Mare..."
"More..."
"Moare..."
"Ning..."
"Neen..."
"Ning..."
"Neeng..."
"Good morning."
"Guud more-neeng."

::clap clap clap clap:: "Good job!!"

And that was the pattern of pronunciation. Harsh 'or' and 't' is a very hard sound for them to make. The 'th' sound is also pretty impossible. I think most of their sounds don't involve the tongue, so having to press their tongue against their teeth is very difficult. So, being the badass woman I am, I taught them to stick their tongue out when they were learning how to say, "I am thirsty". Saying 'turr-tee' at first, I managed a few giggles and even fewer actual stuck out tongues. But there was that golden moment when one of the kids actually stuck their tongue out and made the 'th-sound', and an even more golden moment when an 's' snake sound was made for the 'sty' part of the word. But we had a few good laughs on the way.

My role came mostly with numbers. I had the kids count to ten, if they were able. And then I went over pronunciation. One and two, elementary. Three, we played with our tongues some more. Four, I showed them how to make an O with their mouths. Five, I emphasized the ending more than the beginning, and really slowed down the word so they could see how the mouth works. Kids really are incredible beings. They interpret a lot more than adults even consider, so I made sure that the visual cues were more than enough for them to follow. Six, piece of cake. Seven, a slight struggle. Seh-ven. Over and over again. Eight, hard 't' gave them a run for their money. Nine, money. Ten, golden.

Then, I asked if anyone could count from eleven to twenty. Fewer said yes, and those that did, struggled past twelve. So that's where the fun really began. All of the numbers were written out on the board, with the English words next to them.

11- eleven [ee-leh-ven]
12- twelve [tuh-wel-ve]
13- thirteen [thir-teen]
14- fourteen [for-teen]
15- fifteen [fi-ff-teen]
16- sixteen [six-teen]
17- seventeen [seh-ven-teen]
18- eighteen [ay-teen]
19- nineteen [nihne-teen]
20- twenty [tuh-wen-tee]

Eleven starts off as uhlebben, and then became mostly eleven. Thirteen was fun, mostly because they kept looking to the Vietnamese Coaches to see if it really was okay to stick their tongues out, or if the American girl was just oober-American and'ding-ding com-com' (double crazy). It wasn't until twenty that I had to really over-enunciate my lips. I showed them my teeth with my tongue right up against it, and then for the "wen", I literally grabbed my lips and showed them how to widen them. They played along a lot, but didn't pick it up much. Too Western for the day, I supposed. They smiled a lot though,
so I'm calling it a success.

My first volleyball lesson was with the Red Dragon Team. I teach Volleyball with Morgan, a swimmer from Virginia Tech, who studied Elementary Education. I also teach with Blue, a volleyball player from Can Tho University, and Dui, another boy from Can Tho. We lined the kids up for a quick warmup of arm swings, straight-legged stretches, and jumping jacks. Then we explained the first volleyball hit, the bump. We had them make a fist, wrap their other hand around the fist, and line up their thumbs. Bending their knees, they moved their arms upward, and bumped for the first time. Then we handed them a ball and walked over
to the building walls. We had them toss the ball up, bump it to the wall, and catch it. Rinse and repeat. After a few minutes, and a little bit of translated instruction, we went back over to the court to try some partner bumps. (No, that's not what she said...) They tossed the ball to one another, bumped it back, and then switched roles. Once they mastered that part, they began to bump back and forth to each other.

Van, another boy with an award winning smile at the ripe age of twelve, is a stud at volleyball. he picked up bumps right away and even moved on to sets and digs within the first ten minutes. He's got swag too, which is suprisingly hard to find in Vietnam. The first lesson went by pretty slowly because so many of the students did not want to bump the ball after about ten minutes. The red marks on their arms were insane, but Blue, being the collegiate volleyball player she is, told them all to suck it up and get used to it. Very nice...

The rotation continued one more time through...so I taught another English lesson and another volleyball lesson and then at the end of morning camp we had "Coach/Team Relationship" time...which is supposed to be used for getting to know the kids in
your group even better. We asked them each to write down a goal for school and sports...and they are to look at the goal every week to make sure they are keeping on track with their progress.

We got back on the bus and headed back to camp for lunch; rice, vegetables, pork soup with winter melon, a whole fried fish, and fried bananas. I of course, had a 7-Up, and a ton of rice...smothered in plumb chile sauce. And I ate a lot of vegetables. But unfortunately I did not have any fish. And still haven't. Nap time soon followed and we were up by 1:15 to head to afternoon camp from 1:30-5:30. Orange team, English, Volleyball, English, Volleyball, Coach/Team Relationship. With a brand new bunch of smilling kids ready to learn and play.

**Afternote: Not going to lie, the first day was probably the longest day of my life, and the thought of having to teach the same lesson four times was only made worse when I realized that we had to teach the same lesson eight times because we only see
two team colors per day...But now we just finished day three and I already feel like the hours are flying by. The children are adorable and are starting to learn my name better and better. I've even picked up a few more phrases!! I will now be able to call you all crazy when I get home, and then if you try to call me crazy back, I can tell you that you have no sense. So boo-yah, I'm basically Vietnamese now.

I also learned a Vietnamese game today...it's called 'Kickin' Chicken'. You stand inside of a square with someone else. You hold one leg behind your back and the same arm up to your ear and then hop at each other until one person falls out of the square...and then they lose. So kind of like tsumo wrestling, but not in Japan?

Until next time...peace, love, and little smiling kids. (And yes, I will probably throw away all my clothing so I can fit one, slash two, Vietnamese children home with me)



PS: Tomorrow we're apparently going to be dropped off at the corner marketplace and if we are stopped by anyone, we are to say that our "bus broke down and had to be pushed away so we're waiting for another one..." So please expect a blog entry about the Vietnamese marketplace full of our wild camp children chopping fish in half. =)

Good morning, Vietnam.

Sunday evening, six girls ventured out on a "trail run". Anne, the Vietnamese head director showed us a path and told us to weave around for a few kilometers and then to come back because it wasn't a long loop. I led the pack at a comfortable pace and told them we'd go for fifteen minutes out and then just turn around and head back to camp. The first part of the run was thin...we could only run single-file. But about ninety seconds into the run, we were basically doing a high knee drill because the grasses were so tall around the path that we couldn't run normally.

And then there was the tree branch. I yelled out to the other girls to hurdle over the obstacle but soon heard their shock when they found themselves face-to-face with the branch. We lost two girls to the jungle run. Yes, it was a jungle run.

Continuing down the path, Sophia and I saw a man in the distance. Realizing we were still five on one, we decided to keep up the pace and pass him by with a friendly "Sin jow!". He replied and off we went, unknown brush still sweeping over our legs.

But suddenly the path opened up and we were able to run about three people side-by-side...for a hundred meters. And then the brush took over the path completely. We were lucky to have steered away from snakes, but when the path was completely hidden we opted for running alongside a large field on a matted down area.

And this is the conversation that followed:

Lauren: I feel like we're on someone's property.
Sophia: I feel like this might have been some kind of war battlefield.
::STOP DEAD IN OUR TRACKS::
Both: LANDMINES!!!

Needless to say, we turned the hell around after only running for nine minutes and booked it back to camp. I'm sure they wouldn't have sent us out on a path that potentially had landmines still, but we weren't risking anything...especially since we were on a new piece of the trail.

The pace picked up on the way back and I could feel the earth crumble under me. The run felt like a rescue mission. I was covered in some kind of mud and had a bead of sweat running from the corner of my forehead, down alongside my temple. My breath was steady, focused. Yet I wore a smile. I finally realized I was in Vietnam...not when I ate fish on a stick or showered in river water, but when I went on a jungle run with my new friends and month-long family.

*******************

For some reason, we were dumb enough to wake up this morning, Monday, and workout at 5 am. (Hence the title.) Sophia, Ania, Amy, Keara, Lindsay, and myself all rolled out of bed to the rooster cackling, threw on our still-sweaty shorts and stepped out on the porch to go through a circuit. Thank goodness we're all athletes, otherwise we'd just sit around eating Vietnamese peanut butter all morning.

Lunges, squats, burpies, pushups, and leg extensions flew by. We joked around during our sets of twenty, even talked about how gruesome our track circuits are during the year and winter breaks. Swapping stories worked perfectly until the final move...the plank hold. Dripping in sweat, bug spray, and day-old sunscreen, we attempted to hold ourselves up on the tile flooring while mosquitoes picked us off three at a time. With my head down, the only communication I could understand was the rapid blowing sound coming out of the girls' mouths when they noticed a mosquito closing in on their skin.

The sun rose as we started our second set, and we heard the village start its day. Trucks and mo-peds roared by as we lifted our knees for fifteen seconds and slipped all over the tile for twelve tricep pushups. A lovely way to start the ten hour work-day, in Vietnam.

And I think tomorrow we're going to try for another run...hopefully one that involves an actual road...or maybe we'll just bring along a flashlight for the woods.

I promise to write about school soon. Day one was fantastic and I already called dibs on two Vietnamese boys that I plan on taking home with me. They are quite possibly the most adorable eleven year olds I have ever seen. And yes, I am having a BLAST teaching English to them. Not only are they energetic but they are respectful and really try to pronounce each word correctly. Amazing effort, even better results.

Peace, love, and early workouts!