And the work begins! - 7/12/10

Opening ceremonies began with a song from our teachers greeting us in English. Several important people came to the ceremony including a director of education from Saigon as well as a few people from the U.S. consulate (sorry I can't remember everyone else that came, it was a crazy day!) An official banner was hung and we listened to several speeches from the various important people. One of those was Thuy (shown in picture). She is the director of the Thuan An Center. She and Paige (director of the Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss) have spent countless hours putting this program together.

The ceremony was followed by a special luncheon and then the teaching began! To start out, the teachers are all gathered together in one room for two days and then they are separating out into groups for the remaining weeks. I'm actually not scheduled to lecture to teachers this week so I have no first hand experience in that area yet; however, I am working with parents and kids the rest of the week.

Let's just say nothing else happened today to report. Too busy. I did get to spend a bunch of time with Hillary in the afternoon and an interpreter named Minh who is such a nice, caring, and hilarious person. He is an interpreter with the People to People program with the U.S. He's also a personal tour guide and he only works for himself because the tour companies "charge too much! They say this is the way of the U.S. I say this is too much money!" So we hired him to take us (Janet, Hillary and I) around Saigon our last day in Vietnam and then drop us at the airport. We don't leave until almost midnight so hopefully we will get to see some off the beaten path stuff. And he is a vegetarian so maybe he will know some different places to eat.