8/4/2017 2 Comments School visit...I woke up at 6:48 and I felt that my body was heavier than yesterday and my muscles were hurting. I rushed to the bathroom and got ready. In the morning, we put cement in between wooden box to make foundation strong. At lunch time, we went to the same Vietnamese restaurant as always. We found out that the dogs in the restaurant are not for food and they are pets. When we heard that, we couldn't stop clapping and we were all happy! After we went back to the work site, we carried dirt by passing buckets to each other. We had only an hour to work in the afternoon so we did a really fast job. At 2:53, the bus left and we went to elementary school near the work site. When we arrived there, children were waiting for us, waving and saying "Hello" with big voices and smiles. They looked really excited to see foreigners for the first time. After we got there, about 200 children welcomed us with a performance with colorful folding fans, as well as an English song. I felt that they practiced many times to perform for us. We were all taken by the children and happy to watch their dance. After their performance, we introduced ourselves with a big globe to show where we came from and we sang a hello song with many languages. We taught them how to say hello in many languages and when we asked them to repeat, the children answered with loud voices. After that, we danced the Macarena with them. At first, they couldn't get what we were doing, but in the second time, they saw how we danced and they were enjoying it. They liked the part when we shake our butt . The principal danced with us and students were laughing at him how he danced. When the little boy started to bang the big drum, all the children went back to their class rooms and we went into the one of the class rooms. It was the class of 10-11 year old students. When we entered the room, they shouted "Hello" and started to count numbers in English. We were all surprised that they could speak English. We were separated in four groups with countries where we came from and played with children. The Brazilian team played with footballs, the Japanese team made some hearts and airplanes with Origami, the Mexican team colored the big coloring book with cities from all over the world and the International team taught some English words and places with a globe. Children were all interested in what we were teaching . We couldn't speak same language, but we could communicate with body language and they tried to understand what we were saying, so it was much easier to teach them than I expected. I was in Origami team with Sakura. I was surprised that they knew how to make airplanes and Origami is from Japan. One of the boys could count numbers in Japanese and could communicate with us. He learnt how to speak Japanese on his own and he told me that he is really interested in Japanese culture. He made my day even happier because Japan is far away from Vietnam but even a 10 year old child knew where Japan is and wanted to learn about the culture. Time passed really fast and it was time to say goodbye. We gave some chocolates from Switzerland and pencils. It was really hard to say goodbye. When we were about to leave, some of the children came to us with pens, because they wanted our signatures. We signed as many as we could. We felt a bit like famous people. Maybe we were famous people for them, because they don't have that much opportunity to see foreigners. When we took the seat in the bus, we wanted to stay with cute children and play with them Before dinner, we went to phone shop to charge SIM cards. When we went to the counter to buy, they couldn't speak English so we used Google translate to communicate. It was not our first time to use Google translate, but it was really difficult. It took almost a half hour to charge.
For dinner, we went to our favorite mall which is located at across the street from the hotel and went to Korean restaurant where we went a few days ago. We were all happy that we could eat steaks and no spring rolls. It was a day to remember... we will never forget the experience we had today. - Nanako
2 Comments
Julianne Brown
9/4/2017 05:42:22 am
What wonderful memories you will all have, and I am sure you will have made a lasting impression on the other children too. Looks like the foundation is coming along well. Great work!
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Monica
9/4/2017 07:57:54 am
Nanako what you wrote is beautifull, I am able to feel all those beautifull moments with the children at school... Its amazing how easy it is to put seeds of knowledge in childrens and feel the hole world and others culturs can be easily reached. Beautiful fan folding dance. :0)
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