Friday Funday

After posting my blog entry on Thursday night, I convinced DiDi to go to her own celebration/thank you dinner without ruining the surprise. I then showered, shaved, and put on a dress for the occasion. After making sure everyone in our group snuck by her room and got into taxis before we did, Jackie and I got DiDi from her room and caught a taxi across the city to KOTO. This restaurant is amazing. It was started a few years ago by an Australian guy who saw many street children selling postcards and books around Huan Kiem lake and said “know one, teach one” (hence the restaurant’s name). He went back to Australia, borrowed $50,000 from his mother, and returned to Viet Nam to open a sandwich shop. He trained the street kids, left them to run that store, and then bought the current restaurant and took in more kids to train. They are given so much through the 18-month program besides learning to wait tables, cook, clean, and even manage a kitchen. They get them housing, medical care, a stipend, a bike, and English lessons. Every single teenager who has graduated from their program (the number is close to 300 now) has gone on to hold a great job in a hotel, restaurant, etc. This KOTO (know one, teach one) restaurant is staffed by the trainees and the chefs are trainees as well.

Anyways, our group of 20 people was already sitting on the top floor of the restaurant when Jackie and I brought DiDi there. She was so surprised that she was actually shaking. She had no idea! We then presented her with the flowers and had her sit at the head of the table with Tica, Dale, and Dale’s female Vietnamese friend. The food was excellent and I had a Coke and the pesto linguine before choosing a banana and peanut butter smoothie for dessert. We left the restaurant at 10:00 pm in a taxi full of our group members. Back at the dorm, I went straight to my room, washed up, played on the computer for a few minutes, and then read in bed before falling asleep at 11:30 pm.

This morning I woke up at 6:45, got dressed, grabbed my backpack that I had packed last night, and headed to the internet café. I grabbed an egg sandwich on the way there and arrived at the café to discover that they weren’t open yet. I stood on the curb and ate my sandwich and they had opened the garage door and invited my in by 7:15 am. I sat down, turned on my computer, ordered an iced coffee with condensed milk, and checked my email. I talked to other people and emailed friends, since Andy didn’t get online almost 9:00 am, and then we rescheduled our talk for tomorrow morning.

I then wrote my short essay in Vietnamese so that my teacher can check it during Monday’s review session and then I can use it for the final test on Wednesday. After that I buckled down and wrote my Vietnamese Life and Culture paper, which is about the four generations I met in the flag store last week. I also wrote about how their life and relationships relate to Confucian philosophy as well as including some research about ancestral temples in small Vietnamese businesses. I finished the five page, single-spaced paper (God only knows why he wants it in that format) at 12:30 and it’s a good paper. I can email it to anybody who wants to read it.

I returned to my room at 12:30 and found Jackie in her room. We had this whole day planned out but she was feeling ill. I assured her we could just move our plans to tomorrow and then went down the street to get her some ginger ale and plain crackers.

By 1:30 pm, Jill and I had caught the bus all the way to the lake. We went to the third floor of the big mall and had lunch, which was a BLT and some shrimp fried rice that we split and traded. I then left to walk around the lake and get some more pictures for my final photography portfolio. I got some pictures I like (see above) and also talked to some older people. They offered me a tiny, plastic blue stool (Vietnamese trademark) and I spoke to them in Vietnamese for a while. When they asked my name and had a hard time pronouncing it, they gave me a Vietnamese name, Hoa. They were sweet and told me that should be my name because I’m a pretty flower. That reminds me of the skunk from Bambi…

I continued my walk around the lake and finished at about 3:00, when I walked back to the mall to meet Jill. I read my book for a short while before we paid, and went to the grocery store on the fourth floor. We are making an American dinner with some of Jill’s coworkers tomorrow and we’re having macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, minestrone soup (couldn’t find tomato soup) and some veggies. We’re also making “no bake” cookies for dessert. We found most of what we were looking for and then walked down the block to catch the bus. Getting off after only two stops, we hit up the small American grocery store to get the last few things we needed for tomorrow night’s dinner. We didn’t feel like waiting for the bus, the nearest xe om was charging too much, and we ended up grabbing a taxi. The driver looked to be about 15 years old and had the taxi’s radio turned to an American station. As soon as we got into the taxi, Jeff Buckley’s song “Last Goodbye” started playing and I had this crazy flood of memories from being with Andy. It was a crazy mix of wanting to hear the entire song and also wanting to jump out of the cab.

We got back to the dorm at 4:30 and I sat in my room and wrote most of this blog. I then showered and got ready because this week’s photo class was moved to tonight, as our professor and his wife are having their photography exhibition downtown. At 5:45, Jackie, Leah, Sarah, Monica, Jill, and I climbed into a bigger taxi, got to the Bookworm (the only English bookstore) and looked at the photographs. They were all right, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. I ate the spring rolls and cumquats and had some great red wine as I looked at his binder of other photographs, which I liked better than the ones on the wall. I talked to Donna, the professor’s wife about how most of us have been offered children to buy and then left with Jill at 9:00 pm.

We walked to the bus stop, caught the 31 bus back to the dorm, and I sang for a bit before DiDi called to tell me that she and Brittany were at Le Pub. I got dressed, took a cheap xeo om to the pub, and had a Coke and played Jenga with them until Becca called Brittany and told us to come to this new bar. We walked there at 11:00 and chilled with Mike, Will, and Becca at this new Rasta bar. It was chill but we were tired and planning an early morning so Will and I left on a xe om back to the dorm at 12:30. I was washed up and in bed by 1:00 am.