Xin Chào from Can Tho!

As you can tell from the title of this entry, I’ve finally had my first vietnamese lesson! Xin chào means hello as well as goodbye. As predicted, the lesson was a bit overwhelming. While I now know some basic greetings (hello, goodbye, how are you?), my pronunciation is far from ideal. There are six tones in vietnamese, which to the trained ear are easily distinguished. For those of us much less familiar with the language the tones sound very similar and are frustrating to identify. Even with these problems in understanding the language, having even just one lesson has made me more comfortable about spending an extended period in Vietnam.

While I will be taking a seminar and field work course while I’m in Can Tho, the courses are conducted specifically for my SIT program and not with other students at the University. However since we won’t be interacting with the students in the classroom, SIT has developed a program for current and recently graduated Can Tho University (CTU) students to spend time with us. Our second day in the city, Tien and other volunteer students took us on a bike tour of the campus. The campus is beautiful. Well known for their environmental and agriculture programs, CTU boasts rice fields (where they grow seedlings for study and then pass along to farmers), buffalos, greenhouses and lots of field testing stations. We visited the environmental building where we met some of the professors who would be lecturing to us during the semester and saw some labs and classrooms. Unlike many of the academic buildings in the U.S., the building was designed very open, with courtyards and open air hallways and staircases. Other stops included a look at the dorms (there is one for each province in the Mekong region), the gym (lots of badminton and ping pong) and the Learning Resource Center (LRC). The LRC was just recently completed and is our equivalent of a library with access to books, internet as well as a bookstore and cafe.

So the bike tour of CTU wouldn’t have been possible if not for the purchase of our new best friends--our bikes. One speed with hand brakes and a light powered by pedaling, the bikes are our source of mobility while in Can Tho. While traffic here isn’t as crazy as HCM, riding a bike here definitely takes some practice. Formal road rules don’t always apply so learning to use your bell and knowing where you are going are essential to road survival. No need to go into the statistics about road accidents here, just know that SIT requires all students to where a helmet and aren’t allowed to drive a motorbike.

With our bikes we’ve been able to travel all over the city. And while I really don’t know where I’m going, the Tien (who graduated from CTU) and the CTU students know plenty of English and are more than welcome to be our tour guides for a bit. They have introduced us to some vegetarian restaurants and on Friday night took us out for pancakes. Unfortunately these weren’t my favorite chocolate chip pancakes, but a savory pancake (that is paper thin) that is folded over and filled with rice, vegetables, shrimp and pork. After another course of soup (similar to a stew, but made table side) we went to a cafe for dessert. As I’ve already wrote, the fruit here is unbelievable and are a major part of desserts. We tried a cold flan and something that can best be described as a granita with a very sweet, almost bubblegum flavoring surrounded by a variety of fruit and then slurped up with a straw. Two very different flavors, but very good.

Saturday though probably had to be our best day so far. In an attempt to adapt even more to the Vietnamese schedule we met the CTU students at 7 a.m. (it’s typical for them to get up at 5 a.m.) to go to the floating market. The market is one of the best known things in Can Tho. Vendors gather their boats in one area of the Mekong River to sell their produce wholesale, giving them mobility and easy access to markets. These goods will then be sold in the local markets of the surrounding provinces. To known what each vendor is selling an example of each item is hung from a pole on the boat. A popular tourist attraction, a pineapple vendor allowed us to come on their boat, while she cut us pineapple in twirled slices. From there our boat ride continued down a branch of the River where the banks are much closer together. We could look in the homes and towns built along the shoreline and stopped at a home where a family makes rice paper. In addition to making rice paper, they grind their own rice flour and raise pigs. Our final stop was at a place the Vietnamese consider ecotourism. Here there were a variety of fruit trees as well as animals, ranging from snakes to monkeys and turtles. Much different from any other form of ecotourism I had previously experienced, the visit proved to be an interesting look at life by the Mekong and the influences the river has on tourism.

Tomorrow is our first day off since being in Vietnam. With a whole day to explore, I’m hoping to spend a good portion on my bike trying to find my way around the city!