In
exactly 1 month I will be landing in Hanoi, no doubt in a jet lag induced
stupor, with bloodshot eyes and the haggard look of a person who just completed
a transcontinental and transpacific flight. Just the kind of first impression I
want to make on my new hosts, "Hi I'm Tyler and I don't know what day of the week it is, let alone the time". Inspires so much confidence doesn't it?
Vietnam
is a non-commissioned country, meaning the Fulbright program in Vietnam is
administered by the US embassy in Vietnam, not a separate Vietnamese Fulbright
Commission. As such all the ETAs gather in Hanoi starting July 28 for a month
long orientation. After the orientation is complete the ETAs are sent
to our placements across Vietnam to start work in September. I found out a
couple weeks ago that my teaching location is the Dong Thap Community College. Dong Thap CC is in Cao Lanh City, the capital of Dong Thap Province located in the Mekong Delta. Cao Lanh is approximately 147 Km southwest of Ho Chi Minh City (used to be called Saigon when Vietnam was divided) on the banks of the Mekong River, specifically the Tien River branch. If
you are scratching your head trying to imagine the shape of Vietnam or what I am talking about I have included a map, Cao Lanh is marked.
Now
that the geography sidebar is concluded back to the point which was time
flying, and boy does it. My entire undergraduate career zipped past me and
before I knew it, it was over and poof I was an adult. So I should have
expected that my time leading up to Vietnam would have vaporized as well. Foolishly I
didn’t and I can’t believe that in 30 days I will have left this country, my
friends, family and cats behind for 10 straight months.
With
each passing day the Fulbright and the journey that it will be looms larger. My current emotions are mixed. I applied to Vietnam because it was
extremely different from the US, Australia and every other country I had
visited. All those things that were so exciting in the application process
are now morphing into significant challenges. All in an extremely tonal language I don't know. In addition I
am realizing that my experiences in Australia, which I thought of as good
preparation, are going to be like kindergarten compared to this. In Australia I
went to an orientation with a large group of other American students, most of who were going to Melbourne and the University of Melbourne to be exact. So when you arrived you had a
built-in network of support…this won’t exist in Vietnam.
The
orientation will be wonderful no doubt about that. A nice hotel, other ETAs, useful and necessary training sessions, being guests of the US
Embassy, etc. But then the honeymoon will abruptly end, all my newfound friends will be
scattered across the country and I will end up in a place where I will stick
out like a sore thumb. I won’t speak a lot of Vietnamese and will surely be socially and culturally awkward. On top of that you start teaching
almost immediately at your affiliation once you get there. I knew all
of this when I applied, but I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be a
Fulbright Grantee (despite the near-constant encouragements by those around me) and the reality of this endeavor is sinking in.
The
silver lining to this gray patch in my overly silver cloud (it's a Fulbright after all so one can't lament too much) is that I have made
contact with the ETA who was at my affiliation last year plus all the other
ETAs are only an email away. Furthermore my affiliation has hosted Fulbright
ETAs in 2010 and 2011, so I am their third, which means they know what they are
doing. All of that is comforting (or should be) but I can’t shake the feeling
that I will be very alone for the first couple of weeks or months in Cao Lanh
in a way that I have never been before.
Therefore I will end this ramble by introducing my excitement’s new neighbor, Trepidation
and his wife Nervous Nellie residing at What Were You Thinking Boulevard,
Limbic System, Somewhere in my Brain.
