Ha Giang

I originally went to Ha Giang because I had planned to do some volunteering teaching English. In the past, I have used the website workaway to find volunteer opportunities in Thailand and I had great experiences with it. Using workaway again, I found a project in Ha Gaing that looked pretty interesting. I felt pretty excited about volunteering but then it almost didn’t happen. The contact that I had been emailing, stopped emailing me back and I didn’t know if I even had a place to stay. While staying in Thon Tha, I also started hearing all kinds of negative things regarding the organization. I didn’t know what to believe. I really wanted to volunteer, but I was getting sick of the disorganization…..Getting told I would get picked up, emails not getting returned and so much confusion. However, I decided not to give up and I am really glad I didn’t.

I tried to hike this mountain daily

The house I stayed in was a very clean and very modern three story huge house. There were three other Vietnamese volunteers, and when I originally got there about seven other foreign volunteers. When I first got there I was a bit lost. Nobody told me anything and I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know when I would be teaching, if I could do laundry, what I could eat, if there was hot water, how lesson planning worked…but eventually I figured it out. I also had to accept that the organization was disorganized and I could not have any preconceived ideas regarding it.

The other volunteers and I drove motorbikes to China!

When I first started teaching it was a bit challenging for me and I had to find my groove.Pretty much everything about the way the children were being taught went against my teaching philosophy. The students, including the 6 year olds were told to copy straight from the board. When I did an informal assessment on one particular six year old girl, I realized she was unable to identify all letters and letter sounds yet she was being expected to copy word from word into her notebook. I learned most classes consisted of a test that students would take during the first half of the class while the second half was spent having it corrected. I knew that I could not be one of the volunteers that show up for a couple weeks and try to change everything. However, I also knew that I would not be teaching my classes in this manner. Once I started teaching and lesson planning I become excited and motivated. I felt really good to use my brain to plan exciting lessons. It was even fun to “prep” and it made me miss my Hawaii Kinder Class.

Monster Prep!