Vietnam

I promised an entry about Vietnam...

We did most of the important sights of HCMC in November...it was nice but hectic...went to the War Museum, the Cathedral, the Post office, Binh Tahn market, some local food, etc. What was most special about it was to have my dear nephew, Ti-Jin, who had flown to HCMC from Singapore to spend some time with us. What i admire most about this young boy is that he is patient. He spent 3 hours roaming a little market because his aunt (myself) and her friends wanted to do some shopping when the rain started pouring and they were stranded there...and while they were happily doing more shopping, he was pretty much left to fend for himself. Such patience...

Ti-Jin and I

The Cathedral

Walking around the Streets of HCMC

The famous post-office

Not-to-be-missed Vietnamese coffee, the Vietnamese way!

Elyssa and Ti-Jin also did the Cu Chi Tunnels and a special temple on the outskirts of HCMC. In the mean time, Fay and a few friends wanted to start Ruhi Book 5, in English, so I spent a few hours in the mornings and afternoon to do tutor them.

One of the days was Baha'u'llah's Birthday and we had a nice celebration at the Baha'i centre before spending a day out at the theme park, many of us...which included Fay che and EL koko, Guat Looi che-che, Kaixuan, Kai En, Ti-Jin, my mom, Elyssa, Lydia and Sophie and I. We walked around the lake, did silly poses for photo-taking, ice-castle, paddling in the swan-boat on the lake, the haunted house, and ate some food here and there. ;)

Oh, and of course, we hung out around the house, went to the pool, and here's Uncle Ganesan trying to ride a bicycle with my mom on the back..hahahha...classic!

The day before Elyssa and I were gonna return to Battambang, there was a youth gathering at Fay's house. It was nice to meet so many lovely people, mostly new to me, who are actively serving the Faith in whatever way they can. And here i was gonna 'inspire' them to become junior youth animators..hehehe. The Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program hadn't taken of yet in Vietnam and so, December was when they had planned to have an Intensive Ruhi 5 campaign to start. After the morning and and afternoon of ice-breakers and some other activities, we had a barbeque by the riverside, where we also had some games and singing!

An added note to this: During my recent trip to HCMC, i found out that there are now 4 junior youth groups there...Qudos to the animators!

After months of silence...

I hope the lack of entry in this blog has been explanation enough of how busy the past months have been. In summary, August to October were months of preparation at Gems, while we were also having the Holiday Program. It entailed preparing for a new intake, training teachers, reflecting and making changes on the curriculum, re-arranging the classroom setup and also preparing for a new level...Primary 1.

November involved a visit from my dear Nisha, a week's holiday in Vietnam and having mummy with me in Battambang for a few days (too few, if u asked me).

Then came December, with Uncle Sherif Rushdy who is currently helping CORDE with a series of strategy clarification/planning workshops to plan for the coming years (by the way, i'm back in work with CORDE), Aunty Shaku who runs 2 sessions at UniED for students preparing their research paper to graduate from university (and i'm supervisor for 5 of these students), and Counsellor Lee Lee, whose main program this time around was guiding us on matters of the Regional Baha'i Conference to be held in Battambang on 31 Jan and 1 Feb 2009 (for Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand and called for by the Universal House of Justice).

And right now, i'm in KL, at my mum's old home in Meadow Park 2, writing this blog after months of putting it off! I'll go into each of the above a little bit now.


Ok, so rewinding back to October....Molyka, an old friend/student/teacher of mine, had a housewarming at her parent's newly built home. We all dressed up and had a good lunch at the place followed with prayers.

It was also at the end of October that we bought our new fridge...and sold off the old, trusted fridge that served me well for 3 years!
There was also a few visitors who came around this time, among them was Ms. Farnaz from Australia. We visited a few junior youth groups in Ek Phnom district on one of the weekends.
And of course, Prema being Prema... skies and trees at the pagoda where one of the junior youth gathering is held at.
And November came along...and Nisha, too.
Then, we went to Vietnam...and this is where i end this post. More about Vietnam in another entry! (to be continued...)