Today I said goodbye to my students for a month. They are all college freshmen and must go serve a month of Military Training. They'll come home on Christmas Eve, but of course that's purely coincidental as Christmas is not a celebrated holiday here. Nonetheless, I taught them all "I'll be Home for Christmas" along with many other carols. I'll miss them!
I was able to do something cool with them before they left, though. I created a DVD and made a copy for each student, and on the DVD are some videos of Christmas Carols (with lyrics) and the Nativity Story (2006). I explained the difference between the religious and secular meanings given to the holiday traditions, and showed them a preview of the movie in class, which they seemed to enjoy. Jesus' birth may be the global "reason for the season," but they really know nothing about it here. Not even the jetsam and flotsam of words like "Bethlehem" or "Emmanuel" are known here, so I hope I did it justice, to talk about both sides of the holiday and list important vocab-words with them.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and we celebrated well. We invited a group of volunteers that work in the Vision Cafe to come and create a Thanksgiving meal with us. These are students who are in their final years of college or have recently graduated and are looking for work or preparing for advanced degrees, and they donate their time to help the English Club of the cafe be successful. We roasted a chicken and ate green beans and mushrooms, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, salads, and brought-in-our-August-luggage cranberry sauce. Janet represented us in spectacular style, and the students were excellent helpers to cut and mash and prepare. It reminded us of home (all but the heat and humidity) and we miss dear family and friends.
Tonight I'm writing up on the roof. The temperature is pleasant, and I am feeling peaceful, if tired. We're in a good season, both literally (the rainy season is diminishing and nice cool-ish temps are coming) and figuratively. Kids are happier and it seems they are finding their emotional footing for being here and investing themselves into the family business of relating to people.
Merry Christmas, Danang! is a musical/theatrical show that the expats of the city put on each year and invite a couple thousand friends to. We know one girl who now counts herself as a daughter of God and she says that MCD was a key part of that journey. Anna is in the choir and improving her skills of music-reading and parts-singing, and she also has one of the few speaking roles in the show. She's quite the thespian and I'm proud of her!
No comments:
Post a Comment