Starting to get a bit of a rhythm to life over here now and kids are into the swing of things at their new school.
Have had some interesting experiences in the last couple of weeks. One of the things I am doing in my role is doing some outreach visits to a couple of adult shelters in the area. One I go to I have to catch the local bus for 50 mins to get there each way. Am usually the only westerner on the bus. Last week one older lady on the bus thought I was a doctor and as we bumped along the road, horn blaring, she started rolling up her sleeves to show me all of her weird lumps all ready for a diagnosis as the rest of the passengers leaned forward to see what I would come up with. Fortunately I had learnt a rough way of saying "..I am not a doctor.." Khong Bac xi. She looked a bit disappointed.
I met up with another x-volunteer this week, who worked at another one of the adult shelters I've been visiting. She is still in Hoi An doing different things now but was great to hear about what she had done there and what her approach was.
The boys are all good. They are currently practising their lines for The Lion King that the school is putting on just before Christmas. They had an excusion this week to one of the really big and fancy resorts here to check out their big organic garden. The highlight for them seemed to be the food they ate. After work we all met on the bridge in town and went for a bit of a ride along the river as the sun set. The boys found some stone statues to practice their crazy manouvres on. Finn & Lach also found a great tree to climb overlooking the lights and the river. Then back home for Pete's lemongrass & ginger tofu rice. He's been doing lots of cooking to try to keep our costs down. He's actually getting to be quite good at it.
We had a parents evening on at the school last night where the kids had displays set up of the work they've been doing on the digestive system and lifecycles of various animals. They each had to do a mini poster presentation of their topic to the parents roaming round. After that they ran a Poetry Slam where the kids took it turns to stand up and recite their own original poems. They were amazingly good and some very talented kids in the group. They had some judges and did round 1, 2 & 3 and Josh came second overall. We were amazed by what he had come up with and how well he delivered it from memory, and with confidence. The other 2 boys both really enjoyed it and did some funny group poems. Today we spent at the beach and most of the school families were down there too. Seems to be the gathering point for lots of the more permanent expats.
Rainy season hasnt really started here yet which apparently is quite unusual. We've had a couple of false starts with heavy downpours but then the sun comes out and stays out. Still 28 - 30 degrees each day.
2 students starting with me on Monday for 2 weeks from Monash. Should be an interesting couple of weeks for them.
Hoping to get across to Cambodia in Dec for a few days to renew visas and have a look at their amazing ancient architecture.
