What do you even do?

I realized I've posted a lot about Hanoi culture, the trips I've been taking, and the food I've been eating, but not a whole lot about the volunteer work I've been doing. So here's a quick overview of how I've been spending my weekdays in Hanoi:

Every morning I teach English to children in the building where I live. There are three age groups: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Overall, it's a very good experience, though it's very difficult to get the children to speak up. Culturally, I think quiet voices are encouraged and they are afraid of messing up. This makes it hard to practice English skills.

However, the children are lovely, and very eager to learn. The exception to this would be a little boy who told me "I hate you. I very very hate you." yesterday.

In the afternoons, I work in the office of an NGO, writing up grant proposals for a disabled center that was destroyed by typhoons last year. It's very interesting and fulfilling work, but sometimes work is slow. This is evidenced by a series of bored webcam photos

My best friend, the fan

The day I got a $2 manicure. It chipped off in 3 hours

Next week, I will hopefully be finished with the bigger proposals for my NGO. At that point, I think I will begin working in the Bo de Pagoda orphanage in the afternoon. I've heard this placement is kind of tough, because the Vietnamese nannies are very rough with the children. Also, and I find this shocking, children are not allowed to be adopted from the orphanage. They are raised there and then set out into the world when they are old enough. I've also heard there's a lot of corruption--the orphanage itself is run by the monks of Bo de Pagoda, and a lot of the money that is meant for the orphanage is actually allocated to the temple.

Some pictures of me teaching English to children:

spot the white girl