I have no idea how I forgot to mention this, but last night Harry and I got locked in the school! It is a semi-circular shape, with buildings split into three sections, and each section has five levels. Our rooms are the far side of the third section, on the fourth and fifth floor. When we tried to leave we found that all the gates to the second and first sections were locked, so it was dark, no-one was about and we had been locked in the building!! In the end, Harry jumped over one of the gates that had a slightly smaller drop than the rest and let me jump down by climbing onto the other side of the gate and dropping down onto his shoulder! When we reached the main side of the building we tried explaining to the security guys (who spoke no English) that we had been locked in, but this was very difficult when we were standing in front of them and clearly not locked in…! In the end I had to ring Que and get her to translate. We left, hoping that on the way back the gate would be open. However, when we arrived back the gates were still locked, so we asked the guy to open it, which he did gladly, and then locked it behind us! So basically, if there is a fire in the building we are locked in and can’t escape… Vietnam safety right there!
I am actually quite enjoying my classes at the moment as the kids are all well behaved and quite sweet. It was actually quite fun! I have mostly year one, who are still too cute and shy to be loud and annoying, and year four and five who are awesome. I played one of my favourite games today where two teams compete to think of a 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 letter word beginning with a given letter. The first team to finish gets a bonus point, and they get a point for each word spelt correctly. The students always love it.
I would have loved a nap over lunch but Harry and I went on a search for tickets to the Hanoi v Arsenal game. This was easier said than done as all the buildings in our area look like stadiums, and none of the guards speak English. We ended up walking round and round and at one point even ended up on a sports University campus and in a hospital! Eventually we found it, but it was locked, and the entrance was clearly on the next road over, which we didn’t have time to walk to as we needed to go back and teach.
That evening we sat having a few beers in our new local that serves cheap Vietnamese and Western food and invited the others over to ours. They rang back saying they had met some Irish ex-pats who lived near them and so invited us to join them in the old quarter. I had no credit and so couldn’t ring Connor to confirm that we were coming, and by the time I’d topped my phone up we were in the taxi on the way there. When I eventually contacted him, he said the plan wasn’t definite, and they weren’t meeting until about 8pm… This meant Harry and I were paying for a taxi all the way into town, for just two hours, as we needed to back in time for our 11pm curfew… Damn it! (This is why you need a motorbike in Vietnam.)
Suddenly it didn’t seem such a good idea and Harry began moaning at me, saying it was my fault entirely. This was purely because we hadn’t eaten yet and he was starving… It didn’t help that the taxi driver got completely lost and didn’t have a clue where he was going, trying to drop us off in completely the wrong place. (A common occurrence with taxi drivers in Hanoi). At one point he said “Oh shit!!” when he eventually realised where we wanted to go. Harry was cheered up however by the sight of two five year olds sitting in a toy car where you push your feet off the ground to make it move, rolling down the middle of the main road! He looked out the window, did a double take, and exclaimed, “That’s… that’s not safe?!” at which point we fell about laughing. When we finally arrived the taxi came to 200 vnd which was well over, ($10) but we just paid him 150 and got out. Luckily, he’d got so lost he didn’t even make a fuss!
We sat drinking beer hoi and chatting and just as we finished up our drinks (they had run out of fresh beer hoi) two of the Irish guys arrived. We decided to stay over at Connor’s to avoid the 11pm curfew we had at the school and moved to a different street café, with more beer hoi! I left at 12am, just as the others prepared for a very drunken night lock in!
The next day I rolled Harry off the sofa and headed in the taxi back to the school feeling surprisingly good considering the lack of sleep I’d had. My classes went well and I decided to get an early night. However, when Harry and I returned from dinner at 8pm, I turned the key in the lock and it snapped in my hand. Great. I walked all the way back to the office on the main reception and tried having a conversation with them…but it was clear that they didn’t have a spare key! Who doesn’t have a bloody spare key?!! I rang my boss and got her to translate for me and she basically told me to follow them. So, back across the school we went as they tried opening my door with a screw driver and eventually found a key that fit. They then gave me it to try and I demonstrated that it kept getting stuck in the lock, as I think the lock mechanism in the door was broke. So they took the key away and told me to never lock the door, only with the padlock. This is not great security so I am hoping they will get me a new key soon…?!
