Ramblings

I am a first time blogger and having a little bit of a hard time uploading photos to my blog. It seems like I can only do one per posting because if I upload a few, the images don't appear. So if fellow bloggers can give me some advice on how to deal with this, please let me know! I have lots of pics to show. This pic is also of Hoa Lu.

I started my Vietnamese lessons last week and I think my teacher (I actually have to call him teacher) thinks I am lying when I tell him that I really cannot read or write Vietnamese. Most of the words I know are just by memorization. I had 2 lessons and I am already practicing to read even though we haven't gone through the whole alphabet yet! But the lessons are definitely helping, I can tell that I am able to communicate better and starting to get a little more confidence. The only part I find frustrating is that many of the words that I do know are pronounced differently in North Vietnamese, but I would rather keep my southern roots. It is a big compliment when he says I sound Vietnamese and I know I am pronouncing it wrong when he tells me that's how a foreigner would say it (ouch!).

There is the International Film Festival on Women & Migration this week. I went to a film yesterday called 'Dying to Leave' which was about migrants who escape by container boats or taken advantage of by trafficers. It was pretty depressing, but quite eye opening - when you think of migration you might think it might be a developing world problem, but you have to think where these people are trying to go ... it's the places where we don't think it's a problem. There was a story about a girl from Eastern Europe who was told by a friend that she could get her a job in Italy since she was not able to find work in her home country. When the girl said she didn't have a passport, the friend said she would lend her the money - she doesn't know that she is being set up and the friend oh course makes a commission for every person she hooks. The girl goes on a bus thinking she is heading to Italy, but soon finds out she is getting dropped off in Albania and is sold then forced to pay back her 'debt' over the next 5 years until the authorities recognize she is a victim of trafficing. I am hoping to catch a few more films this week. It is an impressive set up - the films are in English, but they have headphones for the Vietnamese and offer simultaneous translation.

I feel like I have a blind date tonight, but really I am meeting this guy from England that might be a potential roommate for dinner. We have emailed a few times and he hasn't find an apartment either and suggested that it might be easier to get a few people together and rent a flat instead of looking for a room to sublet. I am pretty quick to assess whether I am going to be friends with someone in the first few minutes (I know you aren't suppose to judge a book by its cover, but I like to think I have good intuition), so we'll see if we make a good match (as roommates). If that doesn't work, there is a guy from Paris who is arriving in Hanoi next week also looking for a roommate, but I haven't told either about the other because well I figure it's better to wait and see ... plus it'll be funny because they probably don't know I am female because my name is more common for a male, but I have been told a few girls are named Hieu. They probably suffered the same fate as I, their fathers really wanted a son. Hieu actually means to love ones parents.