Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Happy Birthday
Today was our teacher, Ms. Canh's Birthday. Some of the parents gave her gifts and her boyfriend sent her a sparkliing bouquet of yellow roses. I got the kids to sing her a couple rousing rounds of "Happy Birthday." Our progress today was outstanding, many of the kids came out and recited the numbers, 1-10, in English, and we went through some very basic addition and subtraction today.
The highlight of the day from the kids standpoint was the photos I brought in. I took photos of as many of them as I could and they spent the first part of the morning inspecting and chattering about the pics. Ms. Canh and I were able to give some of the photos to the parents who were around. The father of two of the girls was especially tickled with the photos of his daughters inspecting a book.
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I rounded off the day in Bill Clinton's footsteps, visiting a silk shop in Van Phuc village. They showed me the entire process of silk making, from harvesting the cocoons all the way up to finished product. At this shop they still use old fashioned "Jacquard" looms, which are actually driven by a punchcard that "tells" the loom how to form a pattern. Some folks consider this the forerunner of the modern computer.
The highlight of the day from the kids standpoint was the photos I brought in. I took photos of as many of them as I could and they spent the first part of the morning inspecting and chattering about the pics. Ms. Canh and I were able to give some of the photos to the parents who were around. The father of two of the girls was especially tickled with the photos of his daughters inspecting a book.
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I rounded off the day in Bill Clinton's footsteps, visiting a silk shop in Van Phuc village. They showed me the entire process of silk making, from harvesting the cocoons all the way up to finished product. At this shop they still use old fashioned "Jacquard" looms, which are actually driven by a punchcard that "tells" the loom how to form a pattern. Some folks consider this the forerunner of the modern computer.
