Baby Diego!

I think its about time I let the world know about maybe one of the best things about Vietnam/ the World.... BABY DIEGO!!!  If somebody asked me 2 weeks ago, "What is one thing that could improve your experience in Vietnam", I would most likely give my normal response, "more puppies, duh!"  Lo and behold, at our guesthouse in Quang Tri we have the cutest little brown puppy which us Americans named Diego.  We thought the name fit perfectly, but what we didn't realize is that Vietnamese people have a hard time pronouncing Mexican names.  Who woulda thunk?  But anyway, quick Diego update.  He is currently teething so he will chew on just about anything near him, including but not limited to the socks that have mysteriously disappeared from my room.  And apparently he is also entering puberty because he will hump just about any leg that gets near him.  Don't worry people, I'll keep you updated on the many happenings of baby Diego.

The baby.

So I have had a big past couple of days and an even bigger weekend.  Let me first start off with a quick progress report on the school fence project.  We have completely finished the foundation and have made some serious progress on brick laying.  We have placed the bricks for 1/3 of the wall, so does that mean we are 1/3 of the way done?  Perhaps.  Either way, our contractor expects us to be finished by the end of next week at the latest, which is a whopping 3 weeks ahead of schedule, so we are gonna have to find some other projects to work on, but there is a lot of need in this community so I don't think we will have to much of a problem with that.  

Teaching is going very well.  Yesterday we had a great class, a class so great that 4 students actually left another class to join ours!  If teaching was a sport, which I'm starting to feel like it is, we are definitely winning.  Don't worry, I'm just kidding.  (But seriously, we are winning).  Yesterday our class loved learning "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, marking the official beginning of our indoctrination of our students to be good ol' Americans (aka obsessed with love sick teenage girls with a southern twang).  Soon enough the Communist Party will be stemming the spread of "Bieber Fever" rather than political opposition.  In addition to slowly corrupting the nation's youth, we have been teaching a little bit of English grammar which has made me realized how seriously stupid English is!  People have always told me that with English, "The only rule is that there are no rules", but I have just now realized how ridiculously true that is!  Teaching English to people who don't speak English is like trying to catch grape flavored jello with chopsticks.  You know what I mean?

17th parallel

But this weekend we did some pretty damn cool stuff.  We took a bus tour around the region, going to various places that were very important during the war.  First we went to a bombed out high school which has been preserved as a "reminder" of the war.  To our surprise, the students at the school 40 years ago were having a reunion and rehashing memories of the war, so we got to talk to a bunch of these people.  Many had vivid memories of the nonstop bombings in the area and were very open to sharing them with us.  But mostly they just wanted to take pictures with us just as we wanted to take pictures with them, so many pictures were taken and some people (cough Corinne cough) got a little more attention...  We were very lucky to have such an experience without even planning it.  Later we went to visit the 17th  paralell, the line that divided North and South Vietnam.  We were able to cross the bridge that connected the two, a bridge that 40 years ago would have been of limits to even the Ho Chi Minh himself.  Amazing to see how things have changed.  We also visited the famous tunnel systems that were used to house and transport troops during bombing raids.  This place was amazing.  A seemingly innocent landscape of shrubbery and trees along the coast was actually home to many kilometers of tunnels deep below the surface.  These tunnels were equipped with weapon storage rooms, bed rooms, bathrooms, wells, and even maternity rooms for the forty something children who were actually born underground.  Walking through them was even more amazing.  The ground, walls, and ceilings were all completely dirt.  No fortifying concrete.  Just dirt.  I definitely wouldn't recommend this trip to claustrophobic people.  The ceilings were built for the Vietnamese soldiers and obviously not Americans, so they were uncomfortably short for my 5'11" self (5'10.5" if you're gonna be a jerk about it).  With only a handful of lanterns placed periodically along the way, it was very dark and disorienting and I could only imagine what it might be like to be packed down there with hundreds of other frightened soldiers as thousands of tons of bombs exploded on the ground above. 

The tunnels

What are you looking at?

Let's go to the beach, beach!

Finally, our day was topped off with a relaxing trip to the beach where we played in the water, relaxed on the sand, played soccer with locals on the beach, and ate a seafood feast in a seashore restaurant.  It was awesome to be in the Pacific at the other end, which I found to be warmer and saltier if you were wondering.  And, in the typical awesomeness that is our Duke Engage group, we pulled off the elusive 4 stack.  What is that you ask?  The widely sought after and seldom achieved stack of 4 people on eachothers shoulders in the water.  With Vui on top like a cake topping, Krista below her, me holding down the 3rd stop with my huge muscles, and Justin supporting us from the bottom like Atlas holding up the cosmos but significantly more impressive, we created a 4 stack that will go down in history.

Right now I am prepping for my class this afternoon which should be fun as usual, but this weekend we are planning a trip down the cost to Da Nang!  So get excited, because we are.

Does Charlie like swimming?

Love,

Nick