Today was the day I was waiting for....The opening of the new kindergarten in a small hamlet outside of Bac Giang!
I was met at the hotel by Mr Quyen, the Country Director of East Meets West. Then Tung arrived. He is the EMW Director of Education, who I had been corresponding with via the Vietnam Education Society. Finally Mr Quang, Education Director with the Bac Giang district arrived. I was surprised when Mr. Quang presented me with a very large bouquet of flowers.
We then headed by car to Bac Giang about a 1.5 hour drive from Hanoi. As they only had seat belts in the front, I opted to sit there. On the way, Tung informed me that I would be giving a speech. What?! No one told me about this so I went to work writing my speech on my smartphone as we drove.
Once in Bac Giang, our first stop was to buy gifts. On my behalf, Tung had asked the kindergarten staff what they could use and had a long list. I had told him my budget for gifts was about $200. When we arrived at the store, a very large pickup truck with Mr. Quang's staff was waiting for us. They had planned ahead. $200 buys a lot of stuff in Vietnam! Tung said the kindergarten staff wanted scooters and toys. It didn't sound terribly educational to me but i agreed. We bought 8 scooters, 2 rocking horses, 4 Lego like sets, 4 Teddy bears and 4 dolls. We filled the trunk of the pickup truck right up! After buying the toys, Tung said the kids would very much like to have some candy and I wondered if that was good for their teeth. But Tung said they really love it so we went to the store and bought some chips and some lollipops and somehow squeezed two massive packages of chips into the truck.
After shopping, we went to a special restaurant only for government officials where they had a big lunch waiting. There were more government officials there and there were lots of toasts with Vietnamese wine and rice whiskey.
After lunch, we drove another hour through the countryside to the hamlet of Thanh Chung. At the front of the school was a large banner thanking all the organizations that helped to fund the new two room kindergarten. Our large stash of gifts was then displayed at the front. Some of the kids jumped up and down and tried to get on the scooters but the teachers said they had to wait! Many of the children were dressed up ready to give a dance performance and the local media was present.
The presentation started off with the children dancing to some modern Vietnamese music. Then the MC introduced me and I gave my speech, while Tung translated. Then I was presented with more flowers, and then the gifts were presented to the children. They were dying to sit on the scooters! Following the presentation of the gifts and more speeches, they brought out a very long ribbon with many pairs of scissors and all the partners cut the ribbon at the same time to open the kindergarten!
Then we entered the kindergarten rooms to see them. They were really well-built lovely spacious rooms and brightly decorated. All the children were there and each child then got their lollipop and chips and we did more photos in each of the rooms. All the staff were so appreciative! It was really nice to have such a grand celebration!
I could have spent a lot longer at the school but the school day ended and parents came to pick up the kids. We then visited a pagoda and a statue of a famous Vietnamese leader before meeting the local officials and the teachers for a big dinner. Tung said it would be "fun". Turns out fun meant a lot of drinking!
There were probably about 50 people at this dinner. Each table was packed with delicious Vietnamese dishes, lovely onion and coconut flavoured sticky rice, vegetables, sweet potato fries, soup, stir fried pork, gigantic shrimp and so forth. There were several water bottles filled with a purple fluid on each table... I thought it was Vietnamese wine but it turned out to be an herb infused rice whiskey!
Then the toasting started and basically went on continually for about 1.5 hours! I was personally toasted and thanked about fifteen times. Each time you are supposed to toast, swig the shooter of whiskey and then shake hands. I had to take very tiny sips so not to get drunk. I even had one teacher thank me in her best English and then she sang traditional Vietnamese songs and the theme song from the movie Titanic while holding my hand! So heart warming!
By the end of the dinner Tung was belting out Beatle songs and other pop songs along with the teacher!
By 6:30, it was time to go. The principal of the Kindergarten sent me packing with a doggie bag of coconut sticky rice.
It had been an incredible day and one I will remember for many years to come!
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