Vietnam Day 55 (8/2/09)

Will we never just have a quiet weekend to ourselves? This morning we rode off to attend a mandatory thank-you lunch hosted by the People's Committee vice-chairwoman. The chairwoman cleverly got out of doing any work herself by hosting the brunch at her sister's house. We started off the meal with the leaf cake and coconut milk I liked so much when we had it at the road-worker's house. When the rest of the food came out, I found myself eating only half the dishes (the porridge and banana flower) because the pork was especially fatty and the chicken and duck feet had really tough, chewy skin that made them hard to get into. The only thing I really loved was the kumquat juice that accompanied the meal. Throughout the meal, we had many speakers stand up to thank us - based on the translation they all said exactly the same thing: your work here is appreciated, good health to your families, and good luck in your studies (always a popular one). After we'd finished eating, Ming got it into his head to try to knock down a coconut like the locals do and he convinced Phat to do it with him. One of the men we'd been eating with (who I later found out has four wives) eagerly brought over the long stick with a sickle attached to the end and the boys gave it a try. We were all desperately afraid we'd have to send them back to Saigon on a stretcher (particularly accident-prone Ming) but fortunately they escaped without injury. Phat even succeeded in getting a coconut down and got to keep the coconut as a symbol of his victory. It was pretty impressive, though it was pretty funny when contrasted with the local man who cut it down with a single swipe. Nonetheless, I think I actually trusted Phat and Ming more with the large bladed pole, because this man had a very odd sense of humor. He kept trying (and failing) to scare us with the shell from an old bomb he had lying around the yard, jumping at us with it yelling "BOOM" - it made me wonder what he'd try with the pole if he really wanted to mess with us.

The evening was spent in preparation for tomorrow's Fun Run. The Fun Run is an event that we're hosting, a charity race where volunteers (like us) are running a 3K in the name of sponsors who donated money to our cause - we're giving scholarships and free school uniforms to about eighty underprivileged kids, many of whom are the children we teach in the afternoons. Since we were responsible for organizing the entire event, we held a long series of meetings throughout the night to solidify plans.