Final adventures and the trip home

To see pictures from this trip, click here.

This is being written from the living room of Joelle's parents' house in Sumas, Washington on a cool, May evening. Getting here from Quy Nhon was a bit of a process, which began with an overnight train ride to Saigon, a short flight to Hong Kong, and then a long hop across the Pacific to Vancouver, BC where we were picked up and whisked back to the States by Joelle's family. Still a little hard to believe that, for the next two and a half months, America is home for us again.

The week before we left was filled with goodbyes, packing, organizing, and at least one fairly sweet adventure. Phuong, a 4th year student who's been a good friend all year, invited Jason and Steven to visit his hometown in a remote part of Dak Lak province. This was not your typical tourist town visit by any stretch of the imagination; Phuong told us that--apart from his foreign English teacher who visited the year previous--we were the first foreigners to set foot in that part of the country in a long, long time.

Our journey started with a bus ride south along the coast from Quy Nhon. We hopped off the bus at a crossroads about 20 miles shy of the tourist hub of Nha Trang and flagged down an overcrowded van on its way up into the highlands. Wedging ourselves into the backseat as best we could, we survived a hair raising trip on windy mountain roads ("some of the most dangerous roads in Vietnam," Phuong assured us) to the sleepy mountain town of M'Drak.

From M'Drak we were picked up on motorbikes by Phuong's brother, brother-in-law and uncle and carried even further into the countryside. After a lengthy check-in procedure by the authorities at a small local police station we were allowed to go all the way to Phuong's commune, a group of about 70 houses in the midst of coffee fields, surrounded by jungle-covered mountains.
The residents of the commune are, by-and-large, transplants from a single town in northern Vietnam. Phuong's family lived in a poor, overpopulated region near Hanoi and moved to Dak Lak when he was a child, drawn by a promsie of free land from the government. The village that we saw--small, simple houses dotting hillsides covered with coffee trees--had been hacked out of the wilderness by the hands of those first settlers. Electricity arrived in the village just five years ago. Trips into town used to take a full day on a muddy trail (rather than 15 minutes on a dirt road).

We were warmly welcomed by Phuong's family and fed all the best meals they could provide (boiled chicken for breakfast, fresh fish hotpot and dog for dinner). Since most of the village was curious about the foreigners, large crowds were common at mealtimes as people tried to figure out what we were up to.

One of the things that most impressed me about the visit--in addition to the sheer remoteness of it all--was just how self-sufficient Phuong's family was. Rather than heading to the market every day, they grew their own vegetables, raised their own chickens and cows, kept enormous fish in a pond next to their house, grew a variety of delicious fruit in abundance, and bought home-grown rice from their neighbors. Were the global food supply to collapse tomorrow, Phuong's family would do just fine.

A highlight of the trip was the hike Phuong took us on through the rolling hills near the village, down a valley to a meandering stream and finally down to the base of a huge waterfall, roaring in wild splendor, surrounded by nothing but mountains and virgin rainforest. We took turns jumping off of rocks into the pool below the falls, shouting for sheer delight.

Among other things, the trip convinced me (Steven) that I really need to study more Vietnamese if I want to communicate with people outside of a university setting. It was also a good glimpse into the lives that many of my students have lived, as the majority of them come from the countryside rather than the city. Overall, though, it was simply a blessing--a fitting finale to 15 months of work and adventure in Vietnam.

May Holiday

On April 30th, 1975 the course of history changed dramatically for Vietnam. Officially called "National Unity Day" here, it's better known in the West as the Fall of Saigon. Without getting too political, it's the day that North and South Vietnam ceased to exist as separate entities and became, instead, the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.

April 30th is now celebrated in Vietnam as a national holiday which--to no one's surprise--is followed by May 1st (another national holiday--known in much of the world as International Workers' Day--which has little or nothing to do with giving bouquets of flowers to people.) This year, these back-to-back holidays fell quite conveniently on a Thursday and Friday, which led to a four day weekend which was further stretched to a five day weekend for us by the fact that Steven doesn't normally teach on Wednesdays anyway. All that to say: We've had some time on our hands this past week.

So, with bus tickets in hand, we left Quy Nhon on Wednesday morning for a 5 hour trip up the coast. Our destination was Hoi An, an ancient Vietnamese port town that's now a major stop on the north-south tourist route. We first visited Hoi An in December with Will and Carissa and, while it doesn't rank as the most "authentic" Vietnamese experience available (tourists outnumber locals about 3 to 1, I think), it's easy to get to and is a good spot to buy reasonably priced souvenirs. Since we'll soon be seeing our families, friends and supporters for the first time in 15 months, we figured we had some shopping to do.

Hoi An was much the same as we remembered it--pretty, rainy, and crawling with foreigners. We did our shopping, had our fill of Western food and were ready to return to Quy Nhon with our loot. As it turned out, our last day held something far different and more authentic in store for us.

Mo, one of Steven's first-year students, happened to be home visiting her parents over the long weekend in a village just a few miles outside Hoi An. Joelle has been getting to know Mo (pronounced like the first syllable of 'mother') over the last few months and she had previously invited us to come visit her hometown. So we took her up on her offer and, around 10:30 in the morning, found ourselves in the quiet village of Dien Ban, walking up to the front door of a small house and being greeted by Mo, her family and several curious neighbor kids.

Mo told us that she's the only person in her village who speaks English, and we believe her. She said that several years ago a couple of foreigners rode their bicycles through town but we were first ones to visit since then. We strolled with her along the narrow streets of the village, past a house with red chili peppers drying on the porch and roof, stepping off the road when cows came trundling along the opposite direction. We visited her uncle's house where the family's most recent rice harvest was spread out evenly all over their living room floor as it dried (they would normally dry it outside, but the weather hadn't been cooperating).

Back at Mo's family's house we sat down to a tasty lunch of duck and taro soup with her parents, her older sister and her sister's boyfriend. We weren't able to communicate a whole lot with the family (we asked some basic family information in Vietnamese, and her father asked how long we'd been married and if we had flies in America like they do in Vietnam). Still, we felt welcomed and honored just to be there. We've been off the beaten track plenty of times before, but never had the chance to sit down to a meal with a family in the countryside.

The family has a total of seven people, with three beds to share among them all. Mo pointed to a pair of queen-bed sized lofts about 10 feet off the concrete floor of the main room and explained that that's where they went when it flooded. One of the bunks was for all of their furniture and possessions, the other was for the people. The floodwaters reach about four or five feet deep inside their house every couple of years. "We used to be very poor," Mo explained, "But we're doing better now." Mo--the youngest of five--is the first in the family to go to university.

The bus trip back to Quy Nhon later that afternoon took us through rice fields and small towns, over swollen rivers under a threatening gray sky. As we went, it was nice to feel like we understood the things we were seeing just a little bit more than we had before.

To see pictures from our trip, click here.

Living the Good Life

As I write this, there is a man in flip-flops pounding on our bathroom wall with a chisel and sledgehammer, removing broken tiles and making an incredible racket. He and his partner just finished destroying part of our floor (also due to a whole row of tiles which broke rather alarmingly all at once one day). Our apartment and my lungs are covered in a fine dust of concrete and tile fragments, and the weather outside is gray and soggy. Some days are like this.

But as much as we might try stir up sympathy by making everyone believe that we live a life of deprivation and hardship here, the secret is getting out--most of you (especially those who have been able to visit us) understand by now that Quy Nhon isn't exactly the armpit of Southeast Asia. It is, in fact, amazingly beautiful and largely undiscovered by international tourists. In recent years, though, there are a few who have begun to recognize the tourism potential of this area and thus we've started to get the first really nice, world-class resorts being built along this stretch of the coast.

Somehow this past week we had the opportunity to visit not one but two resorts a short distance outside of Quy Nhon. The first, called Life Resort, is a small, comfortable place about five or six miles south of town, sharing a beach with a fishing village. If I were in the practice of giving out stars to such places, I might give it four or so. The beach is clean and the rooms nice and spacious; it costs about $100 a night to stay. The day before our 3rd wedding anniversary we rode the city bus out to the Life Resort and met the new manager there--an Australian fellow who we'd heard was really nice. As it turned out, the reports were correct; he let us into the resort for free, gave us some complimentary cold drinks, sat down for a chat with us and then let us use one of the guest rooms to shower and change after we'd gone swimming at their beach. So we swam, enjoyed the beach, had a good dinner and headed home. A pretty sweet evening.

Four days later we were at it again. This time, our personnel director Susan was visiting from Hanoi and all of us (the Fizzards, Susan, Joelle and I) got into a taxi and headed a little further south to a place called Bai Tram Hideaway Resort. "Hideaway" is an apt name in this case, as it's located off a spur highway at the end of a 3 mile stretch of what is quite possibly the worst dirt road in Vietnam. The jostling, bone-jarring ride was worth it, though, as we were greeted with our very own pristine, private beach and clear, turquoise waters.

Bai Tram is still very much under construction. At this point it consists only of a restaurant/reception area and seven villas (out of a planned 150 or so). We didn't mind, though, as this meant that we had the place almost entirely to ourselves. A former Quy Nhon student and a good friend of Jill and Jason's is the Guest Relations Manager and was able to get us in and show us around. The villa she took us to--a single bedroom house with a separate living area, private pool and beach view--goes for around $700 a night. Sheesh. We swam in their pool, took a dip in the ocean, climbed around on the rocks and generally made believe we were fabulously wealthy for the better part of a morning.

As I floated in the cool water and took in the scenery I quietly contemplated the lifestyle of a volunteer English teacher in Vietnam. Visiting two gorgeous resorts for free in the space of a week wasn't exactly what we had anticipated when we signed up to come over here, but hey--we'll take it.
And even as the sound of chisel on bathroom tile continues to reverberate around our apartment, I can honestly say that our entire time here in Quy Nhon (not just the time spent at 4 and 5 star resorts) has been far beyond what we could have asked for or imagined.

To see some pictures from our pair of resort adventures, click here.

Kontum

To skip all the blah blah blah and just see some pictures of our weekend in the highlands, click here.
The last couple of weeks we've been blessed once again to have a friend visiting us from the States. Kimberly--a friend of Joelle's since their days in New Zealand--came for ten days to see what life is like in Vietnam. After a few days seeing the sights around Quy Nhon, we decided to take a few days and explore somewhere else. Steven had to be around to teach so we couldn't go too far; looking at a map we saw Kontum--a province in the highlands on the Lao border, a bit north and west of Quy Nhon. The guidebooks described Kontum as kind of a remote, end-of-the-road, out-of-the-way sort of place. In other words, just where we wanted to be.

A three and a half hour bus ride took us from Quy Nhon through low plains and rice fields before climbing steeply up winding mountain roads into the hilly plateau of Vietnam's central highlands. A tourist trap Kontum is not, and our first impression of the city was a bit underwhelming. It has the feel of a place that is entirely under construction--roads ripped up, machinery moving to and fro. The surrounding countryside was pretty, but not as striking as the territory further south around Dalat.

However, the big draw to Kontum isn't the tourist amenities (of which there are none) or the scenery but the ease with which you can visit ethnic villages and interact with the people. In other parts of Vietnam where we've seen ethnic minority folks it's always had a bit of an artificial, circus sideshow sort of quality to it--the main purpose of some of the villages we've been in has seemed to be selling souvenirs to foreigners. Not so in Kontum. Just on the edge of town are three or four different villages, and a few kilometers out are many more. The province has around 700 villages, if I remember my numbers correctly. Though some of the villages have modern brick buildings, a lot of the people live in stilt houses with walls made of mud and straw. Their cows camp out downstairs. Everyone was extremely friendly--the kids in particular--and no one tried to sell us anything.

We had a guide for one of our days out in the country and then just walked and biked the rest of the time. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

The Year in Review...

Exactly one year ago today, a plane out of Hong Kong touched down at Noi Bai airport outside of Hanoi and disgorged two very tired, rather disheveled and discombobulated Americans. These travelers' names were Joelle and Steven and they weren't coming to Vietnam to take pictures, buy a few silk scarves and leave. Like a stubborn case of athlete's foot, they were going to be around for a while.


In the twelve months since then, we've seen a fair bit of this here country. We've tasted its food (even some of the stuff that looked gross), swam in its seas, hiked its mountains. We've made friends, embarrased ourselves on numerous occasions, had close calls with pickpockets and purse snatchers, been hit by a speeding motorbike, and somehow gotten a newly-purchased wardrobe stuck in a tight spiral staircase. We've ridden on planes, trains, basket boats, xe oms and elephants. We've watched mold grow on every single piece of clothing and furniture we own, battled hordes of giant cockroaches, sweated more than we ever imagined possible, and witnesed our bus driver getting punched in the eye by a rival bus driver. More than that we've laughed till we cried with our Vietnamese friends, had deep conversations in broken English over strong iced coffee and wondered how on earth a place so different from our home could still be so dang beautiful and sometimes feel so much like...home.


It hasn't all been easy. There have been broken bones (two of them), miserable nights spent in the bathroom, and tears (lots of those) over loved ones so far away. There have been birthdays that we've couldn't make it to (including several literal days of birth, with babies back home popping out like to make Orville Redenbacher throw a fit). There have been hikes we could have gone on, massive snowstorms we missed, foods we have longed for, and people on the other side of the ocean that we really wish we could have just sat down and had a burrito with once or twice.

Has it been worth it? Yes. Absolutely.

Are we excited about coming home for the summer in a few months? Yes. Absolutely. As wonderful as they are, Skype and Facebook are no replacement for a real chat, and we're so looking forward to being able to see many of you this summer. We're also incredibly thankful for the support, encouragement, emails and blog comments y'all have given us over this past year. We miss you guys.

As a parting gift for our one year anniversary, we now present to you the Shetterly timeline--a few key pictures from the past year in Vietnam:

Spring 2008: Encountering the joys of learning a tonal language, our first six months in Hanoi were focused largely on language study. Here we are with one of our tutors.

April 13, 2008: Approximately 8 seconds into his first basketball game in Vietnam, Steven blocks a bullet pass with his right thumb, which promptly breaks. Here he is awaiting medical care at the clinic in Hanoi.

May 2008: The weather grew warm. Uncomfortably so. The logical course of action was to stick a big fan up the back of one's shirt and look like a body builder for a while.

May 2008: 90 degrees in the shade with 70% humidity and somehow she still manages to look good.

June 2008: Ninh Binh, our first escape from Hanoi without the aid of someone who speaks Vietnamese. We survived, and saw a rice harvest in full swing to boot.

Summer 2008: East meets West. The pervasive influence of punk culture extends even to this young, impressionable Vietnamese caterpillar.

July 2008: A scenic shot of the historic battle site of Dien Bien Phu...and Joelle's forehead.

September 2008: A bird's eye view of Quy Nhon, our new home, confirms that yes--this is indeed a dang beautiful place.


October 2008: A class of Vietnamese students goes to the beach for a picnic and invites some foreign teachers along. A good time is had by all.

November 2008: Steven makes a fool out of himself by singing "Stand By Me" with his teammate Jason in front of 500+ students. Joelle continues to look really good. Both receive flowers.

December 2008: Christmas parties and excited students. Fun.

Christmas 2008: Visitors from distant lands arrive to celebrate the day with us. We are blessed.

January 2009: Three Iblings siblings and Steven make their way through southern Vietnam on the way to Thailand for classes, a conference and elephant riding.

Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.

He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.

-Ps. 126

Anyone still reading this thing...?

Wow. I wouldn't blame you at all if you had stopped checking our blog. As it stands it's been well over a month since we last updated.

To employ a much-overused phrase: It has been the perfect storm of busyness, travel, computer problems and laziness that has kept us from updating you all on our lives in a timely manner. Sorry 'bout that.

As I write this, I sit overlooking a city street from a cafe in Chiang Mai, Thailand with a brand new HP laptop at my fingers. How did we get here? Where did the new computer come from? What on earth has been happening the last month and a half? I'll try to give you the quick-and-dirty (or not so dirty) explanation below:

• December flew by in a blur of activities, visitors, celebrations and extra classes. As a team, we wanted to make the most of the season with students, so we had several things planned each week. From cookie making parties to Christmas movies to a big party with around 120 students AND Santa Claus himself, we did our best to communicate the meaning of Christmas to anyone and everyone who would listen.
• Partway through December, Joelle's brother Will and our friend Carissa arrived in Vietnam to celebrate Christmas with us. We had a great time showing them around Quy Nhon, traveling with them, introducing them to students and enjoying the season.
• After Christmas, Carissa headed back to the states and Joelle's younger sister Bethany arrived from Egypt where she's been living for the past several months. After a few days in Quy Nhon we picked up and traveled to Saigon via the scenic route (hitting up the coastal city of Nha Trang and the highlands city of Da Lat on the way).
  
• From Saigon, we flew to Bangkok and then Chiang Mai where we've been for the past few weeks. Steven took classes for his MA degree in TESOL for two weeks while Joelle, Bethany and Will gallivanted around the area.
• Sadly, our time with Bethany and Will came to an end. Will headed back to the States while Bethany returned to Egypt. We had a couple days of down time, then started our annual conference with our organization.
• For the past several days we've been hanging out with some 600 other teachers from all across Asia taking teaching workshops, fellowshipping, learning a lot from the Word and relaxing. In another few days we'll be returning to Vietnam and a period of relaxation before the next semester begins. Whew!

As for the new computer: If you'll recall, I (Steven) got pegged by a speeding motorbike a couple months back. In addition to a cracked shoulder blade, our poor HP laptop was part of the collateral damage of the whole incident. It had been riding in the bike basket and landed hard on the pavement when I went down. Though it didn't die instantly, it slowly grew less and less usable until it was finally apparent that a new one would be needed.

One of our teammates offered to have her parents bring us one from the States (they were coming to visit her in Thailand). We took her up on the offer and a few days later, lo and behold, we had in our posession a newer, faster, and cheaper laptop than our old one. Sweet.

So we are back up and running with the technology stuff again. If you've tried calling or emailing or checking our blog or pictures lately and haven't seen much, our apologies. We're a bit backlogged now on getting pictures uploaded, but hope to have that done soon. Check our photo album regularly to see if anything new has been added.

Thanks for being patient with us. Really, we're alive and we're glad you guys care about us!

Thanksgiving: Better late than never

If you're more of a picture person, you can click here to see the album from our Thanksgiving weekend adventures.

Our first Thanksgiving in Viet Nam has been a good reminder of all that we are thankful for! Life, health, friends, being loved first, so that we can love others…..

It is a good time to say, even in the midst of a broken scapula, we are doing well and loving the city and new friends we have been placed with. We are very thankful this year that we are finding ourselves in the middle of exactly what we have been challenged to do for this time in our lives. Thankful to a Father who calls us by name and gives purpose in life.

The preparation started off with Jill and me (Joelle) working together to create our first Thanksgiving meal ever! And not just for our families, but for 10 of us in total. Our old teammate, Susan, joined us from Hanoi. And also, we were blessed by the presence of 4 of our long distance teammates for the weekend. These 4 girls are teaching in a city about 7 hours away by bus. They are with our same organization and it was a fun time of reuniting, laughing, sharing and encouraging. I myself was greatly encouraged by getting to see the hearts that our teammates have for their students. One more girl, our neighbor and coworker here at Quy Nhon University, joined us also, making the 10. She is from Belgium and experienced a first also – her first Thanksgiving meal!

Our visitors came a few days before our Thanksgiving celebration, so we had a chance to show them around the city, go bowling with them, take them to class and generally have a lot of fun.

The day of our celebration (which was on Friday due to teaching schedules) was a mixture of the traditional and not-so-traditional. In true Vietnamese style, Steven lashed half of our furniture to his bicycle and pedaled over to Jill and Jason's with it. Since it makes him more visible to (and thus less likely to get pegged by) speeding motorbikes, he's considering carrying around a stack of plastic chairs everywhere he goes now.


Even though the “turkey” (roasted chicken) was served with chopsticks, we managed to put together a very American food experience. You know all those recipes that call for canned this, or pre-prepared that…. we stared from raw veggies sold in an open market and ended up having quite the feast! Many hands make light work. Many hands also take up a lot of the counter space, so some of the prep was done on the kitchen floor. That errs on more of the Vietnamese style than the American, but worked just the same in getting everyone involved in the great afternoon.

And yes, everyone took part. Steven made everyone pumpkin coffee and also made whipping cream from scratch (using a whisk). Vigorous whipping may have reinjured his scapula, but we had really good whipping cream to go on top of our pumpkin pie! Meanwhile, Jason washed all the dishes and we women sat and relaxed after the meal. It was a great time. Like eating Thanksgiving meals at home, there was far too much food and we all did our part in eating it up.