Cast of Characters

It's been so easy to make friends! Everyone here is so nice and willing to help, whether they're Vietnamese or a foreign volunteer. There are about fifteen volunteers staying here, and most people have been here together for a few weeks, but on my second day, it's not hard at all to talk to them and participate in what's going on.

So, here's some short descriptions of the people I'm here with:

Sidney - A Canadian woman with blond hair, glasses, and a nose that flips up a little at the end. Back home, she does autopsies for a living, and works for a really famous doctor.

Irena - A Canadian-Japanese girl, 19, who goes to McGill. She's here doing NGO work, but she's a little frustrated with what she ended up doing because it doesn't really fill up her time and it's not really what she signed up to do.

Noel - A Dutch (I think he's Dutch . . . maybe German?) man, 34, very soft-spoken and very very nice. He speaks so many languages - English, German, Dutch, French, Luxembourg . . . ese . . . He works at the same school I'll be working at.

Erik - Very tall and skinny man with long brown hair in a pony-tail, 25, liberal, atheist, very outspoken about his views, which are very strong. A little much for Noel sometimes. He also works at my school, and I'm going with him to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum on Thursday. He teaches middle school social studies in Detroit.

Hannah - British girl, in her twenties, studying medicine. Came here to do medical work but ended up being placed so that she just observes a Vietnamese doctor, who is constantly hitting on her. She has great stories.

Anna - An Austrian woman, very nice, who is very frustrated with her experience because the organization is very disorganized and she never really got to do the work she was promised, so she feels cheated and she's going home a month early.

Lan - A very very very nice Vietnamese woman who's kind of the one who's just there if I need anything. She works here as a paid job. So nice, so willing to help. Married, lived in Hanoi all her life. She's worked here for a couple of months and it quitting August 15 because it's so disorganized and she isn't well paid, and she has three great job offers because she speaks such good English and that's not common in Vietnam at all.

Chuong - The man who is sort of the caretaker, I think - he's the one who gave me the key for my lockbox and who gave me a fan for my room. Also nice - he's learning English and Irena and I tried to teach him what "kind" and "mean" meant tonight. Hilarity ensued.

There are a bunch of Vietnamese volunteers here whose names I don't know yet who speak very good English and are really interesting to talk to about Vietnam, the war, differences between Vietnam and the US, communism vs. capitalism, how the two are actually implemented, etc. (Really, really interesting - I'll post more about this another time.) You just can't talk about this with Eric around because he'll completely monopolize the conversation.

Mark - English guy who's teaching - you guessed it - English.

Woman and daughter whose names I've forgotten - Asian-Americans from California, very nice. The daughter looks like she's 15 but she's really 23.

Couple whose names I've forgotten - Canadian guy and girl, about to be seniors in college. Blond and attractive.

Mariam - French woman, don't know her very well.

Julia - German woman, also doing NGO work. Studied law in college but can't do anything with it, worked for a publishing company but quit when she got an offer to come volunteer here without a fee, needs to get a job when she gets back.

Did I forget anyone? Probably. Oh well. I'll post an addition later.

Many of the people here are leaving at the end of the week. A lot of them either came from traveling in other places, or will go traveling somewhere else after they leave. Or both! Everyone's gone on great weekend trips really cheaply so I need to get all their travel information. $4o for a trip to Ha Long Bay, everything included? I'll take it.