time well spent

Last week was one of 'those' weeks.  It was the final week of classes and I was busy, busy, busy.  I had 21 periods of class scheduled in four days, a lot of visiting planned and a pile of marking that needed to be done. On Sunday night, I was asked by my Vietnamese tutor to go visit her father in the hospital.  I went and she asked me if I was able to go to the death anniversary of her grandmother on Wednesday.  I said that I had a class on Wednesday, so wouldn't be able to go.  She asked when I was teaching and then told me how we could make it work.  I wasn't so sure and told her I'd think about it.  I asked some friends for insight and finally decided that I would really like to go see her home town and spend some more time with her family.  They are an amazing bunch!

It was a 2 hour bus ride through the mountains.  I live in a beautiful country!

Many of you know of how I enjoy coffee, so it will come as no surprise that I was happy to see coffee being processed!  The harvest has just completed and now it is time to dry the coffee berries.  I saw a lot of coffee on the ground and even got to walk on it!

This is the older section of my tutor's home.  Can you see the coffee drying?  Her dad was able to leave the hospital!  That's him standing in front of his house.

Coffee drying.  It gets brown before the bean can be taken out of the berry.

The highlight of the death anniversary is the food.  It is shared with family members and friends.  I am the first foreigner that has ever been in their home; what an honour!  These women were very patient with my very limited Vietnamese and enjoyed getting to know more about me.  They kept asking why I didn't take Jeremy and Isaiah with me.  Next time!!

Some of the men that were there!  We had a great time.  Lots of food, lots of laughter and lots of songs.  The Vietnamese love to sing and asked me to sing for them.  We sang some Christmas carols together and they snag some folk songs for me.

My tutor's niece and nephew!  They were a lot of fun.  The little girl warmed up to me by the time I was leaving.  Isn't she beautiful?

One of the women invited me to her home to take pictures of her garden.  It was amazing.  So many varieties and colours.  I saw some flowers that reminded me of Papua New Guinea and some flowers that I have never seen before.  Here is my tutor with a plant that she thought looked like a snake.

The view from the garden...

A hibiscus.  It was taller than I was and not in a pot.

I'm not sure what this is called, but they are all over and I think they are pretty.

This was the only coffee tree that the beans had not been picked off of.  I was so excited to see it.  The last time I was on a coffee plantation was in PNG and I don't remember seeing the coffee on the tree.

My tutor's parents and me!

After the meal, the men started kareoke.  My tutor and her brother took me to the only kareoke place around for English songs.  They were all translated into Vietnamese :)  So, after a long discussion they decided to take me to a waterfall about 5 minutes away.  So we hopped onto the motorbikes and went to see this...

It was a wonderful day with many firsts, indeed, time well spent.