My Last Day

I started my day yesterday by filling in my evaluation form about the Peace House, where I was brutally honest about all its shortcomings, and then headed into the city center to buy a very extravagant amount of DVDs. 42 disks in total. I'm not even going to tell you how much it all cost. But way, way, way (way, way, way, way) less than it would in the US, I promise. I can't tell you everything I got, either, because a lot of them are presents for other people. I've bought so many presents, I'm so excited to give them to everybody, but my sister is getting back from Ireland on Sunday, so my family's going to wait until them and we're going to have a crazy Christmas-in-August gift-giving extravaganza.

Took a bus to the school, stopped at my little cafe where they know me as the odd foreigner girl who keeps showing up, and ordered my last tra Lipton sua – tea with milk – got some lunch, used their wifi. When I went to the school at 3:00, the teachers and the principal had a whole gift-giving goodbye ceremony. It was crazy. The teachers themselves gave me some small things, and then we went to see the principal and the school officially gave me some beautiful flowers (which I had to leave at the Peace House,) a cute little bag, and two packages of green bean cake candies which, upon later examination, are not green and taste like cookie dough. One package is gone – it disappeared mysteriously into the digestive systems of the Peace House people – and the other one is coming home with me. Apparently you're supposed to eat them with green tea, and fortunately a student gave me a package of green tea as a present.

I had bought the teachers some scarves in Hue, so I gave them to them, and then we went to my last class. Not much teaching was involved. The students gave me more little presents, more drawings of me (the girls draw in Japanese anime style, no surprise there,) some tea, a little canister of popcorn (which also disappeared mysteriously when I got back to Peace House.) I taught the kids how to sing the “I love you, you love me, we're a happy family . . .” song, wrote up my home address and email on the board – I'd love for them to write to me, and how cool would it be for them to have an American pen pal? They could brag to all their friends, except that their friends would also have an American pen pal. Maybe I'll try to play them off each other in my letters and cause trouble – and defined “miss” for them. They practiced their English goodbye-saying skills on me and I taught them that the proper way to use it is “I'll miss you very much,” not “I'll very very miss you.” And then we hugged and took pictures and it was all over.

At this point I thought I was going to leave, but I was mistaken. Remember Mrs. Binh and her son? Well, all day she'd been reminding me that I would email him after I got back to America, and after class she made it clear that she actually had him waiting at a cafe nearby to say goodbye to me. She asked me if I wanted to sit down for some orange juice, for chrissakes. I had made it very clear the day before that I absolutely could not spend time with her son today because I was very, very busy packing, so no! I can't stay! I'm sorry! I have to go home! So he waited with me at the bus stop – again – and I took a very crowded bus home toting a big bag heavy with gifts from the school, all the DVDs I bought, my flowers, and my handbag with my computer and a book in it. I don't think I would have made it if a nice older Vietnamese woman hadn't held my flowers for me.

Can I just say something here? This whole thing was cute at first, but it's just become annoying now. I like Mrs. Binh's son, but really. Please, just let it alone. Something like this would never happen in America.

I joked at the Peace House that she wanted me to marry him, but Lam shut me down immediately – oh no, Vietnamese mothers would never want their sons to marry foreigners. Ruin my fun, why don't you, Lam.

So my last night was nice. I managed to fit everything into my suitcase, left behind my sheets and towels and some bug spray and medical supplies and toilet paper for any other Peace House people who might want it, hung around and played memory with Simone, Lam, and some fun work camp people, and then everyone went up on the roof until around 1:00 AM, when I went to bed, and slept for four and a half hours, and it was time to get ready to go. But that's a whole other epic story. I can't wait to tell you.