29th to 33rd Days

Hello, it's been almost a week since I wrote last and I'm sorry about that. As I presume you already figured, I was very busy this week. On Sunday I had my very first workshop (the other girls had already their first one when I was in Cambodia) at KTDC (the place where we had our presentation skills training), in front of about 20 people so it was very relaxed and it went very well, I was proud of my presentation! And in general, the whole presentation was very good! In the evening we had a dinner with the AIESEC intern supporting team, and I finally met Yusuke, our new intern from Japan, who was very nice. I also met Jesse, an exchange member from the USA, who wasn't part of any project but had his own internship in Ho Chi Minh City. It was a very warm evening, I met a lot of AIESECers that I had never seen before!

Monday was even better, because we had the biggest workshop ever for this project, in front of a whole school!! There were about 1'200 students listening to us!! A great experience!! I had to wake up at 4am to be in front of FTU at 5am so that we could all travel together to the school which was quite outside of the city, and it started at 7am. First there was a huge ceremony (which occurs every Monday morning in every high school of the city - if not of the country), with saluting and singing the national hymn and every thing, it was very impressive how disciplined the students where!! After that we could start our workshop (version 3, designed extra for that school), and I must say our translators made it very fun for the students, and I think it was a success. After the workshop we went to talk with the principal for a while and then they showed us the school and as it was the break for the students, some of them were courageous enough to come talk to us and ask us for our email addresses etc.

After that day we were all pretty exhausted so every one just went home and slept until the next morning, where we had a big meeting with all the team members, but in the end we didn't do a lot of things, we just rehearsed some parts of the workshops and talked about new tasks and about the "Lead the Change Contest", that was all for Tuesday.

On Wednesday we had an other workshop, in an Australian international school, and we could see right at the entrance that it was a very wealthy private school, it looked more like a hotel to me ... But the director was very friendly and showed us the conference room where we would have the workshop (it was very big and made us feel professional!), and so we presented our workshop in front of around 80 to 90 students who were eleven to thirteen years old. It was very lively and the students participated very well, it was also Yusuke's first workshop so pretty exciting for him I think! In the afternoon we gathered in a supermarket near my home (and near the airport), to shop for the HIV-infected children of the shelter home we would be visiting on Saturday, with the money we had collected from our friends and families in Europe. We bought a lot of toys and books for them, but also a lot of useful things such as pens, pencils, paper, glue, scissors, english books, etc. and we'll see how they like all that!! We still have a lot of money left so we will buy the same things for an other shelter home, and if there's still something left, we will give the spare money to the directors of the shelter homes so that they can maybe take a day trip with the children, I think they will be very happy about that!! On that same evening, after the shopping, we all went to the airport where there were some other AIESEC members (the members of the intern supporting team), to pick up Jan (from Belgium), an other member of our "Living with HIV/AIDS" team.

Thursday was an other workshop day, in the International Highschool HCMC, but only in front of twenty to twenty-five students this time. The atmosphere was nicer this time, because we could feel closer to the students as they were a little older and there were fewer of them than the last couple of times. Myself, I couldn't present because I had lost my voice, I think it's because of the air-condition at night which makes a huge contrast with the heat during the day. So I was only in charge of the slides and I watched Khoa take my part. Now I'm already better as Xuan Minh's mother gave me a lot of things to drink and pills to swallow...

28th Day

Today was Carlijn's 22nd birthday and she was in a very bad mood, but it was very funny because all the attention was on her and every body was extra nice to her so she couldn't stay in that mood for very long! We woke up at about 10am and Melanie et her were both very hungover so it was too much for Carlijn to reed all those emails and sms!

For lunch we went to pizza hut (to have some European food for once!), and it was exactly what we needed. After that I still had to get some things for Carlijn's party so I only had a few hours at home to rest until I had to leave again at 4pm to pick up the birthday cake (not only for her, but also for two other AIESECers, Ai Thao and Noo, who had their birthdays on that week as well). We had told Carlijn that we would have a meeting at 5:30pm where we would discuss a lot of things (and obviously she wasn't looking forward to that!), but the real meeting time was at 5pm so that every thing would be ready for the surprise.

But I had some trouble on the road: First the taxi driver took a looong time to bring me to Ben Thanh Market (maybe he wanted to make more money, they often do that here), and then when I arrived at the bakery the cake wasn't ready, and then we were stuck in the traffic jam on the way to the coffee shop where we were all supposed to gather... But at the end I arrived at 5:15 and there was still plenty of time to prepare every thing, and when Carlijn arrived at 5:30 we were all ready and screamed SURPRISE when she entered the room.

It was a big success, and the two other birthday kids were also very pleased. They all said that they never had such a nice birthday, and Carlijn was very enthusiastic about the cake, she said "I never had such a big and beautiful cake for my birthday!!", so I was very happy that it went so well. Every body also gave a little speech, the atmosphere was very warm and I think we never felt so close to each other as a group. And also, it's always very fun to hang out with the AIESECers when we're not talking about the project, they are really fun people!! We also gave Carlijn a birthday card with some pictures of the team I had taken on the day before and every body had signed it, she was very happy about it too.

After the fake meeting, we all went to a karaoke bar (that's the favourite place most Vietnamese people like to go to when they go out, it's also the case for most Asian people in fact, I noticed that when I was in China last year). We had a room only for us and we sang a lot of songs as you could imagine, most of them in Vietnamese (hihi), but I have to say, some of our team members sing really well !! At about 9pm every body went home because we have a workshop tomorrow at 9am (the first one for me, I'm very excited!), and some of us were supposed to go pick up our new intern Yusuke (from Japan) at the airport, but at the end only Dung went, even if I had offered her to join...

On my way back I had to take a motorbike taxi,
and I had some trouble to understand what the man was saying when I was asking him how much money it would cost, and instead of showing me the price with his fingers, he would say a lot of things in vietnamese to me, and looking at me as if it should all make sense to me. So I called Xuan Minh and asked her to translate, but he didn't really want it because he liked the fact that it was all very confuse so that he could make me pay more money. After a while we agreed on 60'000 dong and it was quite all right to me (he asked for a hundred at the beginning), but then during the whole ride he was talking to me and again I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but this time even if I couldn't understand the words, I understood their meaning very clearly! (He was complaining about the fact that I was paying to little money and that he had to drive too far and that I should be glad because the taxis are a lot more expensive etc. and he was going on and on about it). And when he finally dropped me in front of the house he didn't want to accept my 60'000 dong and was pulling a long face, so that was just too much for me. I left the money on the motorbike and just went home. If he didn't want to take me then he simply shouldn't have agreed!! I guess he thought i was just a common tourist, but I'm far from that now!!

Days 24 to 27

Hey every one,

It's been a long time since I wrote on my blog, that's because I have been very busy this week preparing the workshops and some other things. To sum up :

On Tuesday I had a meeting with Nhung and she updated me about the newest tasks and project (there were a lot as you can imagine, I mean I wasn't there for almost a week!), so as soon as I came home I had to prepare a lot of things, such as an alternative to the version two of the workshop (some adjustments), and a new version (number four), for younger kids. We also started to plan Carlijn's surprise birthday party (on Saturday 24th), and it was pretty stressful because as we're always hanging out, it's difficult to keep the secret (also because there are a lot of AIESECers involved).

On Wednesday morning I had to attend a meeting with two student clubs of some other universities, and our team tried to ask them for partnership with our project, mainly to promote our events (above all the "Lead the Change Contest", which will take place very soon!). I was mainly there for "decoration", to show them that we were on the international level, but I think it convinced them because after more than two hours of discussion they signed the "contract". Very professional!

On Thursday the second raw of the AIESEC recruitment started (and lasted three days), and I was asked to help our whenever I could, and as I was free on Thursday the whole day I couldn't say no! I met a lot of "potential" members, some of them were very convincing and some others were very shy, but they all had the same goal : They simply had to be part of AIESEC!! I was very impressed, and there were really many candidates. I was told there were 285 people who applied, and 130 passed the first raw, but they would only need 25 at the end. Xuan Minh (my host) also applied and passed the first raw, and she would go on Friday for the second raw. She was very anxious (she really wants to be part of AIESEC!), and she told be afterwards that she was a little disappointed not to have had a chance to prove her motivation a little more (in the second raw they were in groups of 10 and they had 20 minutes to solve a problem, teamwork basically), so for 10 people and 20 minutes, that leaves only 2 minutes for each to say something, not easy ! I really hope she will pass, she really has potential and is very hardworking!

On Friday I met the girls at 10am at the Highlands (they just came from Con Dao the evening before) to discuss the newest things and at 2pm we had a meeting to rehearse the workshop number 3 which will take place on Monday in front of 1200 people (!!). It lasted until 6pm and I still had to take care of some things for Carlijn's birthday so I was very exhausted on that evening, but it wasn't over because the girls wanted to go out to celebrate so I went back to town at 9:30pm and we slept at Melanie's place again that night. It was nice actually, but I was much too tired to enjoy myself so I went to bed at 1:30am and the girls only came home at 4:30, and I was so scared in the apartment alone, lying on the floor, so I couldn't sleep until they arrived!

23rd Day (last in Cambodia)

Yong picked me up at 9am again and he brought me outside the city to the Tonle Sap lake, where the Siem Reap river flows into and the Mekong river comes out !! It was beautiful, that's all I can say about it ! And fascinating to see the people really living on the lake (that's the concept of the floating village ...). I took a boat to drive around on the lake for 1:30 hours and then Yong brought me back to Siem Reap where I went to the Children's Hospital (the same one I told you about on my 2nd day in Cambodia), and I made a blood donation (my first one, I was pretty proud!), and at the end they gave me a T-Shirt, that made my day !! Also every time some one in Siem Reap saw me with the plaster on the arm they smiled and said "Oh you went to the children's hospital, you're a very kind person, thank you very much!", it was really nice! After the donation I still had some time to spare before I would take my flight at 6:20pm so I decided to go to the Angkor National Museum, which was very interesting and a good conclusion of this trip ! Back in Ho Chi Minh City in the evening I was very tired and little stressed because I had a presentation on the next day, but then Nhung (the team leader) called me and said that it was cancelled, so "ouf!"