Day 1

I cannot remember the way I was first greeted upon my arrival at the Anh Linh Free School. Today, it seemed odd that on my fifth visit to Anh Linh, and third of the year, that I would still be accorded the same treatment as my first visit -- warm welcomes from all of the students, an introduction to the 200 elementary school students, and plenty of high fives and name recognitions from faces I had no recollection of meeting before.

I arrived at 9:00 sharp. The 200 kids of the elementary school were in full recess mode. By 9:15, one brandishing stroke of the arm sent the 200 kids into neat, orderly rows, with all eyes and hands at the attention of Ms. Thuy (the principal). It was no coincidence that I had to introduce myself to the entire group of students, all of whom already knew my name. The introduction, I then realized, was meant for me -- the one person that cannot even remember the names of his own club members.

The morning was spent by troubleshooting laptops, arranging donated books and clothes, setting up a new computer station for Ms. Thuy, and helping to prepare lunch. Lunch was simple: rice, vegetable soup, and beef.

After lunch and a shift at doing the dishes, a game of Rummikub (my first time playing -- reminded me of mahjong) was played. The first class of the week that I was to teach was the computer class, which started at 2:00. For two hours, I toiled with the chalkboard to explain Blogger to a group of 16 eager young kids who, for the first time, was able to use the newly-installed internet in the computer lab.

Little did I know that it would take 15 minutes just to show each kid where to type the URL in, and another 15 minutes to show where the "@" sign was on the keyboard to log-in to the Blogger account using the anhlinhschool@gmail.com account.

After two hours, the result of the lesson was clear. 16 posts by 16 kids on a brand new blog: anhlinhfreeschool.blogspot.com. With the new blog set-up, I figured it was about time that I changed the address of this blog to outreachvietnam.blogspot.com to better reflect the Outreach Vietnam-run and Anh Linh student-run blogs of the Anh Linh Free School.

Internet success!

Communication 101: Referencing their "dictionary" before striking a conversation with me!