Good Morning Vietnam!

Taxi Seizure?

A month ago, I experienced a taxi tantrum. But this month, I have managed to experience another taxi adventure--a complete shutdown of the motortaxi driver's brain.

As usual, I made eye contact with a motortaxi driver and made my way across the street to him. As usual, I gave him the directions to where I wanted to go and climbed on the back. But moments later, the most unusual occured. When the driver put the bike in gear, he should have slowly edged his way across the large sidewalk to the street. But instead of aiming for any one of the many large gaps between the trees and poles that lined the street, he veered the wheel straight for a space that was no more than half a meter wide. "You aren't going to try to squeeze us through there, are...?" Before I could even finish the thought, the fellow gunned the throttle and sped us both directly toward a cement telephone pole. "Whoa nelly!" I yelped in my head, "Hit the brake!"

Nope, too late. We barreled into the pole centered slightly to our left. Fortunately for me, I was able to hop off the back of the bike as soon as we made contact. But the old fellow was not so fortunate. I looked on in shock as he ground his head straight into the pole. To make matters worse, instead of braking upon contact, he continued pushing on the throttle. The bike and driver slowly grated themselves across the pole and into the street where the two eventually fell over.

When the driver stood up and picked up the bike, I could see the paint on the front of the bike had been scraped off and the driver's head was bleeding slightly. He appeared to be somewhere in between a daze and unconsciousness. I was wondering how else we could have hit the pole. It had been like aiming for space and hitting the moon.

I kindly gestured that I was going to take a different driver, hoping that he would be understanding as to why. Afterall, how could I trust this guy to take me all the way to District 7 when we couldn't even make it off the sidewalk?


Highlights of the Month


I have work at an English School! For the past year, I had been looking for a consistent job and it appears that I've finally found one! I've been

Teaching an English class at VUS school in District 5

teaching now for a few weeks and the classes are great. Most of my students are between nine and twelve-years-old, but I have one class with five and six-year-olds. The younger children know no English at all, so it is exciting to watch their progress!

I'm also looking to teach classes through a University here. Teaching University students would not only give me additional experience from teaching young adults, but it would provide me with a wonderful opportunity to make Vietnamese friends who are my age.