Blackouts

So I haven't posted much lately. This is mostly due to the semi regular power outages that occur throughout the city of Nha Trang. In the past two days, whenever I have had time to use the computer I have been unable. Since power outages are so regular here, it does not stop the flow of the town; the restaurants cook with charcoal, the people take out their candels, and business resumes as normal.

Things have been running along smoothly here. Jade and I went from teaching one class a day, to three classes a day(athough the other two are more laid back/less structured), so by Friday, we were tired of planning. We went into our main class with enough activities to last about 15 minutes(of an hour long class). Well Crazy Kim's school for street kids is a staple in Nha Trang and travelers/backpackers often make a stop in Nha Trang for the opportunity to volunteer and work with the students. Usually we have an extra hand or two in the classroom, but on Friday we had 6 extra hands in the classroom, giving us 8 adults and 16 students total. After we completed our innitial activity, we figured we would take advantage of the help and had each volunteer take a student or two and read with them. We were so lucky that they all came when we did, and it wound up working out really well!!!

After shopping and teaching some more, Jade and I decided it was time to paint the town red. We began at a bar a little off the beaten path. We were greeted with "hello teacher", as one of our adult students was the waitress. A few minutes later, we recieved another "hello teacher", as another of our students who had just gotten to work. Yeah, so we were served alcohol by our students. Weird, I'm aware. I taught Jade the card game Casino and we spent about 2 or 3 hours playing at the bar. Then we headed back to Kim's(the bar that we teach in) to pick up Trang, one of the girls that works at the bar. We ran into some of the volunteers from earlier that day in class(not travel to teach volunteers) and we brought them along with us to Why Not? Bar(where you dance around in Air Conditioning!!!). So essentially, we arrived at the bar as 5 people all from England and the American as well as the patrons of the bar covering most of Western Europe. I spent the rest of the night getting asked questions such as "are you ashamed of Bush?" and other political/social questions from a middle aged gay man from London, and questions such as "you didn't mind that guy bumping into you?" from a very drunk 20-something man with dreadlocks and a cast on his arm. All in all a very entertaining but random night.

Today, we(as in the travel to teach volunteers) decided to all get together and go somewhere. Destination: Long Beach, where you tube in the shallow water, lay on hammocks as the water flows underneath you, and pick your seafood as its swimming around in the tank and then watch them kill it and cook it. All in all it was a pretty great day. However, Shaun and Kat backed out last minute. So it was Naena the multilingual German, Jade the fun loving Brit, Trang the Vietnamese Lesbian, Ryan the bitter yet entertaining American, and me. It was not as sunny as I would have liked, but at least I got some pretty great pictures and a pretty fun time.

Oh, and I found out how to post videos and pictures, so check with the links at the right of the blog for some entertaining videos and my photo albums!!