Feb 1st - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly! (Week 7)

Sports Day Tug of War victory photo!

This is one of our two classes at NTU

Glenda, me and our student Yen!

Our picnic lunch - Vietnamese style!

Jemma and Rahel at the Cultural Village!   We  were the only ones there!

Ryan is ready for our trip to the mountains of Sa Pa!  Who cares what you look like  as long as you are  warm!

Ryan holding a 4 week old baby at the orphanage!

What a blessing to get to spend time at the orphanage!

Don't worry! The swelling is going down and he is looking much better!    A little cap and he will be good to go!  I wonder if our dentist follows the blog?

THE GOOD. Lots to report on!  It's been a busy couple of weeks with lots to share (Jenny reporting). We have officially finished teaching English at NTU! The teachers organized fun Friday activities for us for the last couple of weeks.  We had a "Sports Day/Cultural Tet Day" and then we had a "Music Festival" where each class learned an English song and had to perform it in front of everyone!
We were very busy teaching and practicing our songs and the "Festival" was a blast.  We performed a traditional and popular Vietnamese song that was all about how important family is!  I think we did fairly well!  Last Friday, we went on a field trip to a cultural village outside of Hanoi.  The teachers arranged this for us and some of the students came with us, while others rode their motorbikes out there (60km) and met us for a picnic lunch the teachers put on!  It was a great way to end our time at NTU.  But, the fun did not stop there!  Here is what you should know about the Vietnamese: they love to bless you with gifts, food, bananas, meals and entertainment!  We were actually really tired after our day out and by the time we got back to the university we were ready to head on home and relax!  But that was not to happen!
We were ushered to the front row of the hall and we were treated to a "End of semester, Staff party, Entertainment extravaganza" complete with speeches, and different acts prepared by each department.  Let me just say this - this was like no staff end of year party back home!  The performances were hilarious- the men dressed as ladies and the ladies as men, there was singing, dancing, impersonations all done with a rocking loud music system!  We were presented with gifts, dragged up onto the stage for some impromptu dancing, and then were about to leave when the teachers announced that we could not go until dinner was finished!  Within minutes the stage area and seating were cleared into banquet tables and then the feast began!  The word I would use to describe this was surreal!  At the end of all the courses, Yen our translator, saw that Jemma was dipping something in a sauce!  Turns out the sauce is a fermented raw shrimp sauce that is not meant for Westerners!  Poor Yen had heart attack when Jemma said she had dropped some pork in the sauce and ate it!  Yen's friend ended up in a bad way in hospital after a similar eating scenario!  But thank goodness Jemma was alright!  We prayed over her and she was a little worried but she was just fine!  So that basically sums up the good.  Meeting lots of wonderful people and just really enjoying Hanoi.

So that is the good!  Here comes THE BAD!  We had a cold snap last week with a lot of rain!  We all got really cold and wet and on one of those days, Barry and Jemma got stuck in an elevator for 45 minutes where they got really chilled!  The following day Barry came down with fever, chills, aching etc!  He missed the last two days at NTU and was in a really bad way!  We thought he had pneumonia!  Well, the night of the "raw shrimp sauce debacle", Barry went to bed and was coughing all night!  He got up at 5:30am to try and eat something and felt really sick.  He went to the bathroom and before he knew it, he went down face first on our tiled bathroom floor!  At 6am he awoke and called out to me!  I found him on the floor with blood all over his face and blood all over the floor!  His tooth was embedded in his face!  I will spare you the gory details.  He went to a clinic, got medication for the flu and is on the mend!  His side tooth was chipped off and his lip is pretty swollen but he will heal and we will get his tooth capped hopefully here in Vietnam!  But, it's been quite a weekend!  So that is the good, the bad and poor Barry is THE UGLY (for now anyway!)  But through all of this, we have been so thankful for where we live and how God has provided for us!

We have 18 more days here in Vietnam and some exciting things planned.  We have this week to connect with our friends we have made and to experience all of the hustle and bustle as people get ready for Tet (the big New Year celebration which is like all of our holidays rolled into one)!  Then we will head north to Sapa for 4 days and then it will be time to pack up and move south to warmer weather and beaches!