Birdy Flies Away

Sad Face
(Birdy teaching)

The Three Little Pigs
(as retouched by Luke)

Bad news! For me, anyway. Birdy is leaving Vietnam this week! I’m sad to lose my partner, but it’s for the best. Life here has been incredibly stressful lately, and it’s been harder and harder to stay focused. With Birdy in school, the kind of distractions that we’ve had can really get in the way. We talked about it for a long time, and decided it was the best thing to do. We’re really invested in this project, but we have our own future and our families to think of. I think that’s the hardest part of teaching- having life issues and events interfere with what we do in the classroom. All those things that make life fun and exciting and stressful and overwhelming leak into our work and make us less effective. I imagine it gets easier with time.

At the Beach Again!

Anyhow, we’ve been keeping busy. Our lives are totally wrapped up in the school right now. With the shift in weather, we’ve been having a hard time getting back out there to do stuff. Tuy Hoa is a very small town. It’s bigger than most small towns I’ve ever seen, but it’s kind of like the “Boring, Oregon” of Vietnam. Not much here, not much to see, even less to do. Getting away is hard, as well, as the nearest town of any measure is a 4 hour drive across mountains and freeways that aren’t for a little motorbike like ours. To get anywhere we’d have to take a bumpy train ride, fly, or hire a driver. Traveling sounds even more tiring than going to work right now. So we’re hiding at home, watching movies and eating noodles.

We’ve tried to take some videos of what a drive through town looks like, so I’m going to get one of those up here and let it do the talking for me this week. When I’m driving is when I most feel like I’m actually in a different part of the world, on a little adventure rather than just working. See for yourselves.

This video was taken by taping a camera to my helmet, so the angle is a bit high, 

but you essentially see what I see when I drive!

I recommend muting the video- the sound is fuzzy.

Also, it's bouncy, so if you get dizzy easily you've been warned.