When I arrived the teacher was putting inches of make up on all the female kids (they are BIG on make up and costumes here) and I was just watching her thinking that I hadn’t worn make up until I was 17 and even then I’d never worn as much as these kids were wearing now. Then, to my horror, she asked me to help. I nearly died. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, I didn’t know what to put where, and I put too much on one kid so it wouldn’t rub in properly and the teacher had to help… I gave it my best shot and it looked OK but I was very bad at putting on the blusher so some of them looked more like clowns than porcelain dolls! And then the Vietnamese teacher asked me to do her make-up!! I actually died. Was she serious?!
The Kindergarten ceremony was amazing!! The kids had some amazing costumes and the dances were really good, they were all clearly enjoying themselves, and they predictably did a Karate set to Gangnam Style which was very amusing. Twice I found myself close to tears AGAIN just from sheer emotion at the situations I was finding myself in. This is what life is all about. I loved it and the atmosphere was amazing, although everyone was dying from the heat!!
In my afternoon class I had to go to my boss’ house and teach her child, who spoke no English and refused to copy anything I said. It was painful, an hour and a half of sitting around, trying to turn ANYTHING into something practical, for example, counting the objects she gave me, naming animals in a book, naming the colours. However I was pretty much talking to myself the whole time. I played the songs from the CD which worked better, but only because she already knew them, so slightly counter productive. At one point I decided that the important thing was to build a relationship first and then try and teach later. So, when she started doing some sort of strange interpretive dance to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” I just started copying her, which she enjoyed, and I found myself thinking, “WHAT am I doing?!!”
For dinner I was invited to a meal at the school. I was told it would run from 5-7pm, but at 6.30pm nothing had happened, I’d literally just sat in the staff room watching everyone get ready and “whitening” their faces!! At 7pm I had to go and tell me xe om driver that I wouldn’t be leaving, and paid him out of courtesy! The ceremony was just a lot of boring speeches in Vietnamese, and I was mentioned as one of the head guests, which was amusing as I’d only been at the Kindergarten since Monday!! The food however made up for the wait, it was absolutely delicious. Battered noodles (just like batter from a chippy!!), chicken with bread crumbs, beef salad, and pork and black bean sauce with fresh fruit for pudding. The salad here is amazing!! Salad in the UK is crap, but I could live off the salad here.
All in all, a good day!!!
