Just Checking In
It’s been a hectic few weeks. I missed last week’s post because I was buried under work and sick as hell. I grew up in a time and place where you needed to see bone sticking out before anyone would even mention a doctor. I followed that tradition. Waited it out. Thought I’d tough it through. Then finally dragged myself in and walked out thinking the usual: you idiot, why didn’t you do this two weeks ago?
The sickness? Diarrhea. Three weeks of it. Just slinging mud every day like clockwork. I lived on bread for a week thinking that’d settle things. It didn’t. Just gave me more time to sit and think about my poor decisions.
Before I left the States, I signed up for a TEFL program to teach English in Vietnam. Something to do. A way to make some money. Turns out, it’s not a cakewalk. There are 18 of us in this thing, people from all over the world, trying to relearn how to speak and teach the language we’ve spent a lifetime butchering. One more business day left. If we make it, we get a certificate and can breathe for the first time in weeks.
Right now most of the class is hanging on by a thread. People are cracking. Everyone’s walking around pale, sweaty, questioning life choices. It’s a bit of a circus. If someone showed up with a camera crew and pitched it as a reality show, I wouldn’t blink. Grammar rules, lesson plans, teaching demos. It’s enough to make you miss the simplicity of life back home.
Half the class has gotten sick. Stress. Food. Climate. Maybe all of it rolled together. Still, we show up. Because if you miss a day, you fall behind. And no one wants to start over.
The one thing keeping me from walking into traffic some days is the students. They throw us straight into the fire and tell us to teach. No warm-up. No fluff. Just go. But the students I’ve had? Good people. Kids and adults. Sharp. Curious. Funny. Makes it all worth it. Reminds me why I signed up for this in the first place.
And I’m not going through this alone. Everyone’s drowning together which somehow makes it easier to stay afloat. There’s comfort in knowing everyone else is just as lost.
I’ve fallen in with a group in the class. We have been ordained ‘The Pirates’. Mostly black clothes and a dark sense of humor that probably keeps us from going off the deep end. One guy was deep in the advertising and fashion world. Another’s a photographer who works with musicians. There’s also a motion capture artist in the mix. All of us a little strange in our own way. We were all sick of life back home.
It works.
Outside of class, life’s starting to settle a bit. I take Grab bikes everywhere now. It’s the only thing that makes sense in this traffic. Like Uber but with mopeds. You hang on, say nothing, and trust the driver not to clip a bus. I’ve gotten so comfortable I started texting while riding. Stupid but efficient. And maybe a little thrilling.
Vietnamese lessons have been on hold. Can’t do thirteen-hour days of training and teaching and still have brain space to learn a tonal language with six ways to pronounce the same word. I’ve got the basics. I smile, say “Chao em” or “Chao ban” depending on who I’m talking to, and people smile back. Usually. If I get the tone wrong, they still seem amused. Or confused. Hard to tell sometimes.
Once this course wraps, I’m taking a break. August is when the teaching gigs start opening up. Until then, I’ll stick around. Dig through some record stores. Wander the alleys. Get lost in the noise and dust of Saigon and see what surfaces.
It’s exciting. But not in that bright-eyed, travel blog kind of way. It’s exciting like standing on a rooftop in the rain. Uncertain. A little dangerous. Kind of beautiful.
And no, it’s not as cheap as people say. Still affordable, but not the dirt-cheap backpacker paradise I’d heard about. The city’s growing fast. Locals I’ve talked to say give it five to seven years and it’ll be another Singapore. You can feel it shifting under your feet.
So yeah. That’s the update. Still here. Still tired. Still trying to figure it out. But for now, I’ve got a seat in the middle of it all and I’m watching it happen. That’s got to count for something.
Love & Light;
MM
Feeling any better?
So what was wrong with your stomach?