72 Hours In

Third morning waking up at 6 am. All time record. Same routine with the breakfast and coffee but then instead of going to the school we had 2 company visits. One being another industrial park called VSIP and then a company inside the park called II-VI. It was a really long bus ride. We had 2 presentations followed by a tour of 2 II-IV factories. Fun fact, it's called II-IV because its first products were made from elements in th periodic table from groups II and VI.  We learned about the workers' working conditions which were seriously not ideal, but what was the most sad was that they were away from their families, which is hard in Vietnamese culture because family is so important. It was sad. Walking through the factories, the workers would not stop staring at us. It was, for lack of a better word, fun at first but then it just started to get uncomfortable. I felt like I was always being watched here, just like Phu My Hung, but in a different, much, much less intimidating way.

Picture from that long bus ride

Ok it may not look like they were staring at us but I didn't wanna take a picture of them as they were making eye contact because thats weird. So this is them working.

After these visits, Tin Tin took us to a Chinese restaurant that was unlike any Chinese I've ever had. By the way I don't know if I've talked about Tin but he works at the Vietnamese school we go to and is with us like all through school and company visits and bus rides. He's a sweetheart. I'll get a picture with him soon. Back to the Chinese restaurant. I was expecting lo mein and fried rice and all those typical things but it was actually a bunch of quality seafood. My favorite was this shrimp where you could eat the shell and it had some tangy sweet sauce on it. Whilst eating it started pouring rain, in a pretty literal sense of the word. Had an extremely interesting talk with Dr. Berman about what Vietnam used to be like. He's seen it through all development stages basically, from rural with no motorbikes to the roaring city it is today. We're really really lucky to get to experience this country with him.

After lunch we had another long bus ride ahead of us to EIU, so we started some bus games. I had never played any of them so I was cracking up the whole time. We played Dirtay Dirtay and Mafia, but the former was my favorite. If you don't know what these games are I recommend you play them. We got to the school and it was still monsooning, so faculty and students greeted us with umbrellas off the bus. Someone tripped on the way out of the bus and we had a good laugh at his expense. The students at EIU were so excited to see us and they were so cute! They had speeches prepared for us and games and I loved the visit. One of the girls presenting was very good at English, and had an Australian accent. I never thought about it, but of course you'll have the accent of whoever's teaching you! It was so cool and I was wondering what a hardcore Scottish accent would sound like on one of these students.

We went back to the hotel and hung out til dinner. Just us Americans ventured out on our own to a pretty Westernized place with good Vietnamese food, but the experience was less fun because the waiters spoke English. Then we went to a club, which was weirdly hopping for a Wednesday night. One of the students was approached by a pimp, and politely declined when offered services. Then, something tragic happened. One of my peers dropped a glass on the dance floor and the inside of my left foot was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was struck by a stray piece of glass. Blood was gushing, so Clarissa escorted me to the bathroom and started fixing it up. One worker was disgusted, but another came in and started coddling my foot and being so so so helpful. She got me a band aid and gave me some extras. I tried to tip her two hundred thousand ( I'd never be able to do that in America, but she would not take it. No matter what I did :( so I had to be content with thanking her profusely.