Trip to Ba Vi--milk village and hike up to a shrine

We went to a small, poor village of ethnic minority Hmong people with a group of Vietamense high school kids. The high school kids put on a small Moon Festival presentation and handed out treats. Children in hanoi get to attend bigger shows on the streets with lights, a stage, loud music to celebrate the Moon Festival--seems to coincide with teh Autumnal Equinox. These kids don't get the opportunity to attend those, so the hanoi high school kids brought a smaller version to them.

After the treats handout, which included cooking oil for the parents. I guess some kids are not getting the nourishment they need and don't grow very well. I asked one kid his age thinking he was about 9. He was 13.

The students participating in the music and dancing for the festival.

This little girl stared at me so long I was able to get a good photo, she just didn't move.

These dudes were much more active.

Some of our students after climbing 900 steps. The change in temperature, probably around 72 up here was really nice.

Our students heading up the steps on a small mountain.

We had lunch here. Sort of a Hanoi weekend getaway place up in the mountains. Nice cool, clean air.

Our first stop was with another group of Vietnamese high school students. We planted several hundred trees under the heat of the tropical sun.

Near our Apartment

View at 6:00am of the road in front of our apartment.

Our apartment building. Our balcony is on the left side, 16th floor. The bank (Techcom..) is really handy, we use the ATM usually which is only about 20 feet from our apartment entrance on the street.

Still construction going on.

This is how the streets are cleaned every morning. There are no garbage cans people use. So garbage is placed on the curb every day and in the morning, these women literally sweep the streets and pick up the trash and put it in one of these carts they push. These carts are then lifted and loaded into a garbage truck and taken away. Where? I am not sure yet. I have never seen a man do this job, always women.

Beautiful huge vases being delivered on a motorbike.

Bell Casting

Last Saturday we met the students early and drove about an hour to a village where a temple was having a bell casting ceremony. Apparently this is a rare event, which makes sense since bells last for centuries! This temple was casting a large bell and 2 smaller ones, probably the size of this one. I think most people in the audience had never seen a bell casting, and we were so lucky to be invited!
We got off the bus and walked up a hill to the temple.

The monk was having a special building built for the new bell.

These large cauldrons had coal and wood burning in them, then various pieces of metal were placed on top to melt down to the bottom. It looked like the metal had been collected from any available source, scraps of copper wire, rebar, pipe, etc. Metal recycling in action! (Although the plastic bags that contained the scraps were just thrown on top too to melt off into the air...)

Some new metal bars were also used, and it was all weighed, through practice they must have known how much was needed for the 3 bells.

The crowd prayed and chanted and many were beautifully dressed.

Monks visiting from other temples helped with the ceremony.

The cauldrons were lifted by a pully on a rolling frame and brought over to the large mold. Another pully tilted the cauldron to pour the molten metal while the head monk added people's donated jewelry to be cast into the bell.

Finally we were treated to a delicious meal of all vegetarian foods, although many were prepared to mimic meat dishes. I guess the monks want to give up meat but not the taste!

We did not get to see the bells. They need to cool for 3 days, then the monk will test them to make sure they have a nice sound. I'm sure they will.

Our School site

So we thought we would quickly take some pictures of our immediate "school" area. We have space on the second floor of a two story building on the Vietnam National University. (Dai Hoc ngoai ngu) except there are some squiggles and dots above and below some letters.

We have a total of 5 small rooms, one office, one teachers' workroom, one student lounge, and two classrooms. The rooms are small and are a bit loud but functional. Lisa and I usually get to school via taxi for about $1.25. When the cooler air arrives in the fall, we hope, we'll ride our bike to school. To get home we sometimes take a taxi with one student who lives past our street, we get out and walk about a mile to our apartment. Today we took a public bus and packed ourselves on with about 14o others! It was so crowded I couldn't put both feet flat on the floor, my left foot was just toes! Getting off such a bus is an exercise in pushing and squeezing.

We bang the drum to mark the beginning and ending of class.

An experiment my students are performing. The one in the foreground is to see if milk would cause seeds to germinate faster than water. No. but it did produce a large population of writhing maggots. Nice.

Lisa in one of the classrooms.

View from our balcony/covered hallway.

Hallway with two classroom doors on the right.

The office and the teachers' room are on the left.

In the teachers' room. Thuy, one of the four Vietnamese teachers, John, the English teacher, and Lisa.

Scenes from downtown-Old Hanoi

We have finished our first week of school. It went well, the kids are adjusting and classes are in full swing. Teaching our AP classes is fun and the pace is extremely fast. A lot of what they need to know they can only get from the textbook. This week for Environmental Science they are designing a controlled experiment, learning about the laws of thermodynamics, calculating Net Primary Productivity and explaining the relationship between photosysthesis and aerobic cellular respiration. In AP Economics they are learning about production possibilities. We are taking them on a day trip to ceramic village next Saturday.


This is the slightly flooded Red River that flows past Hanoi.

In the Old Quarter Hanoi. I guess they want to make sure everyone knows where Vietnam is. Who cares if they get rid of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Borneo, Papua New Guinea etc.? According to this globe, southern Vietnam is just west of Australia.

A neat balcony in Hanoi.

An entrance to a temple.

These are called ciclos. Like a taxi.

Ok, so our air conditioner needed some repairs. These three guys come over to our apartment to take a look. They couldn't reach it, had no ladder so they did this. The scary thing is just beyond those two horizontal bars is a 16 story drop to the road!

The Hanoi Opera House. We were here last night with our students for an International Puppet Festival Show. Really cool.