Brand New Song and Dance

A group of students from Johnson State College (JSC) is spending the next few weeks with Clear Path International in Vietnam. This is possible due to a partnership between Clear Path, the Break Away Program and JSC. The students and staff will be posting tales and photos from their journey to this blog. You can read all of their posts by clicking here. Photos can be enlarged by clicking them

(Written by Caroline Cole)--

Today we had the pleasure of meeting with the economic students here at Hue University. Once again we were called upon to perform. It seems as if we are morphing into a song and dance troup of sorts. We did our now famous rendition of "This Land is Your Land", followed by a rousing "Lean on Me." Luckily, Vietnamese people are extremely polite and our efforts were well received. The economic students sang us various songs as well. At this point some of the Vietnamese tunes are becoming familiar. We also played games and chatted with the students. There was a question and answer period as well. We fielded questions ranging in subject from why-we were-here to which-country-we-would-live-in-if-we-were-getting-married-to-a-Vietnamese-person. This latter question was no doubt directed at Chris, the sex symbol of the group. At any rate, we will be working with these students in coming days digging an irrigation trench. I look forward to getting to know them better.

This afternoon we taught lesson number three to the street kids. I'm proud to announce that our group has successfully completed the ABCs. I am teaching the youngest group along with Laura. Actually we are sort of the American mascots while our "interpreters" do a lot of the heavy lifting. It is really awesome to see them interact with the kids though. So much more physical affection and closeness is shown than in America.The kids are ridiculously cute and incredibly smart. At that age kids are like little sponges. I really think they are going to download a lot more English than we had imagined in the coming weeks. It is also increasing my pressing need to learn more Vietnamese. I wish I could be in on their cute little banter.