No Rest for the Tired

First of all, excuse me if this post is disoriented or incoherent. I still haven't gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep since arriving in Hanoi. I took 1.5 sleeping pills last night and still couldn't do anything more than lie in my bed begging for sleep or death.

I was expecting the heat, but it's still a struggle. Every drop of water I drink I immediately sweat out. I shouldn't have brought any makeup or a hairdryer--much too hot for that.

The volunteer accommodations here are modest by American standards (no AC, no real shower, no cable) but for Hanoi they are pretty good.

A view that can't be beat 

And in the daytime

Is this the same window? I'm too sleepy to tell

 I'm top bunk in our room which means that every time I get out of bed there's a chance I'll step on a girl's face (no ladders).

The room I share with 6 other girls

The common room, and our clean water supply

Kitchen

If I die here it will be because I'm terrible at chopsticks and starved

The bathroom-- we all share a pair of community flip flops for some reason

I came here having been told that I would work with the NGO SJ Vietnam. The first morning was normal: we did cultural orientation, learned how to count to ten in Vietnamese, and were warned that if we tried to drive a motorbike in the streets we had a 100% chance of death. Also to not drink the sacrificial wine, because somehow that would also kill us. 

That first afternoon I had a meeting with one of the SJV interns. I assumed we would be going over what I would be working on for 2 months. However, when I went in to talk to her she told me that they actually had no work for me with NGOs, and that I would be relocated to Halong City (3 hours away from Hanoi) for the entirety of my 8 weeks.

This was the point where sleep-deprived, culture-shocked Angela started having an inner panic attack. But on the outside, I couldn't think of what to say. The intern was talking very fast and some of her words were hard to understand. 

Basically, I would be working in a completely different program, in a remote city with many more diseases, with no other volunteers.While I'm sure Halong City needs the volunteers, I have not been vaccinated for any of the diseases that are very common in the Vietnamese countryside. If I went to Halong, my chances of getting sick, already pretty high, would only get higher.  I left the office thinking I was going to cry.

After several frantic emails between myself and my mother, I went to bed for 5 hours of restless sweating. I woke up to an email informing me that Good Old (sorry, Young) Mom had taken the initiative and emailed my volunteer organization representative. While this was probably a good move, I did have to be here for 8 weeks and did not want to be hated by my host organization. I did sign a waiver saying that they have no liability for me, so they could poison my water and it would be all my own fault.

I went down to the SJV office and they had me work for 7 hours researching grants and funding, which is the kind of stuff I love. As of now, the plan is that I will be teaching English in the mornings, and will switch off between NGO work and orphanage work in the afternoon. Not what I was expecting but hey, at least I'm not dying of an obscure Vietnamese disease in the countryside. 

Angela