Day 3

The chicken dance lives on in Vietnam. 

It's becoming Survivor here. People keep getting sick and it seems that everyone ranges from "very sick" to "I'm mostly fine" with no one feeling 100%. Be it from the food or the crazy heat, it's hard to tell, and more likely a combination. But those of us who didn't vomit during language class continued on! 

In addition to language class (which was its usual entertaining mess) we had a speaker talk about rural development in a region call the Mekong Delta. This is the region where they farm the catfish that murdered the US catfish market, and do other farming (like rice). It was a really interesting talk but a lot of the issues that came up were problems due to 'well it looks good on paper, but in reality...' which is frustrating. 

After class we went to lunch, which is always a meal and a show thanks to my lovely companions!

 

Another fun thing is that on the first day, during UEF's welcome ceremony, they did a dance to a song that we have decided to adopt as our on and now play it every time we get in the bus. http://youtu.be/9R3ZrbFYXPA

Today's visit was to the US commercial service, which is part of the US Consulate. They are involved in getting US investors to put their plants and offices in Vietnam. It's lucrative because labor is so cheap, but there's a problem with the few number of skilled workers. 

We had a laid back rest of day considering people seemed to be dropping like flies. The Vietnamese student who has been taking care of us, Kate, took us to dinner at a place that had a kitten in the room we were eating in, and yes, we most certainly did play with it (against our better judgement). Very sorry I have no pictures of the cat :( (but here is some food!)

After that we went to a super cute cafe that had waterfalls and ponds inside and Kate bought us these little cream puff cakes.

All in all a good day! The group is all really awesome. Everyone is really cool and fun to hang out with. 

It was also a day of weird animals. Besides the kitten in the restaurant, we also saw puppies in a bike basket as well as chicks for sale. And lastly, I leave you with a chicken under a wire basket on a sidewalk. (in between the pole and the bikes)