The longer I go without writing this blog the less I can think of saying. Maybe my life has become too ordinary. Of course it's all a matter of perspective. Last night, for instance, I went to a party that a friend of mine threw. He won a bet with another teacher and that teacher had to agree to take a group of 8 out for drinks and a feast. I was looking forward to the party--especially the feast--and in preparation, I ate very little during the day. Unfortunately, I arrived a little late to the party and most of the palatable food had already been eaten. I did arrive, however, just in time to eat some coconut worms. These things evidently thrive on rotting coconut husks. They're big, fat, white, oversived maggot-looking creatures, and you're supposed to eat them while they're alive to prove that you're really a man. . .I wasn't drunk enough, or insecure enough about my masculinity to eat a living one, but I did end up eating grilled (and thus dead) one. My neighbor at the table generously plopped one in my rice bowl. I knew that there was going to be no easy way out of this situation, and so I opted to just take the plunge and eat the disgusting little creature. I grimaced and took the plunge. The texture almost made me vomit at the table. When I bit into the thing my mouth filled with a thick, fatty liquid. A swallowed and promptly chased my worm with a glass of beer and then fought the urge of commiting the supreme party foul of vomitting at the table and consequently permanantly damaging my reputation as a man. I don't know where this tradition comes from, but for some reason, occasionally Vietnamese men like to undergo these absurd "fear factor" type rituals. No one in their right mind says, "I want to pay a lot of money to eat some living worms", or "What sounds good tonight?. . .hmmm, How about grilled goat scrotum, that would be awesome. Maybe we can chase it with some pig vagina and buffalo penis".

So I've started a project here. I've got four students officially working for me now. They're teaching English and Computer skills to a group of children at one of the local orphanages. So far it's been going pretty well, but I suppose I've had a few bumps along the way. There's an office here in Can Tho called the Can Tho foreign service, and it's basically an agency whose soul purpose for existing is to cause foreigners as much difficulty as possible if they should choose to do anything other than what they are expressly permitted to do. Everything that I want to do, from organizing classes to making an announcement has to approved by the foreign service. It's such a ridiculous dis-service to the country. I'm trying to organize a program which everyone involved with agrees will be benificial, I'm going to fund it, I've got partners, both in the Can Tho University Youth Union and at this local orphanage who want to go through with the project, but I've got to send documentation to some office of xenophobic power-weilding paper pushers in order to procede. They'll take two weeks to respond. Hopefully by that time my partners will still be interested in continuing the program. The "foreign service" office at the University is even worse. They've declined to allow me to use my address at the school as a contact address for my project. This makes things especially difficult given that I actually live on campus and thus, both my home and office address are at Can Tho University. Despite the complications, I've actually begun the project. We've begun teaching some of the classes and purchased the computers and study materials. We've theoretically organized a big brother / big sister program in cooperation with the youth union. The students that are helping me are awesome. I tried to recruit students who had a real financial need for the position. It was intended to be a need based scholarship. I think I was partially successful, but not entirely so. One of my student-workers deceived me. . .She claimed that she was very poor and that she really needed the job to support her study. Since giving her the job, I noticed that she wore more expensive clothes than everyone else (although when she took the interview, she was definately not wearing such clothes), and that she has one of the most expensive motorbikes in Vietnam. When I started noticing this I began to think of a way to confront her about it, but decided that I needed to give her a chance to do a good job. She seemed to be doing alright, so I postponed talking to her. Yesterday, she informed me that she needed to quit the project because she's preparing to go to Australia. . .I think for a marriage visa. I'm not sure exactly why or how she's going, but she's leaving at the end of this week. . .so I'm in the unpleasant position of having to find a replacement for her in the next couple of days. This time I'm going to try not to be fooled so easily.

The other day I took a day off and went with my friend to visit his family in the countyside. We had a pretty wild time. . .as far as it goes in Vietnam. . .ended up spending the night in the police station as a matter of fact. Shortly after arriving in . . .we'll call it Kien Giang. . . we were invited to his Dad's friend's mansion just off of the highway. It was definately one of the biggest houses I've been to in Vietnam. Three stories with a large fountain and an actual yard. The men sat outside at a sort of picnic table and immediately took off their shirts to settle in for the feast: Squid sauteed with chive flowers, stir-fried wild pig, and turtle soup served with copious quantities of banana wine--rice liquor preserved with a kind of banana. . .rather tasty, but a little strong. I was obliged to follow suit and remove my own shirt to enjoy the feast. It was the first time I've had a shirtless dinner party, but I think I like it, homoerotic to be sure, but comfortable nonetheless. We proceded to get sauced and a couple of the men decided to place bets on a British Premier League football match that was to begin in a couple of hours. Between the two of them they bet almost a thousand dollars on the match. My friend's dad abstained from the betting--being a high ranking police official in the province I suppose such activity would be frowned upon. Nevertheless, the fact that these guys are betting more than the average yearly income of a Vietnamese peasant on a football match in the presence of the man who would be responsible for their incarceration was a little disarming. I questioned my friend about it later that night, trying my best to not call his dad a corrupt official. To my surprise, he all but admitted that he thought his dad was corrupt and that was one of the reasons he chose to seek employment in the University rather than take his father's advice and generous job offer in the police department. Although my friend doesn't have any aversion to bending the law at times and is not at all opposed to betting, he's not a fan of the hypocracy that's so widespread over here today, and I think he gains some points in my book for that.

Later that night, while at the police station (we slept there because his house was too crowded and his dad has a bed in the back of his office), my friend told me a truly disturbing story about how his best friend (whom we'll call Nam) "accidentally" burned his other friend (whom we can call Phuc) to death. Evidently they were at a party and Phuc needed to leave early to return to work. Nam who was already drunk tried to convince his friend to stay by threatening to burn him if he left. Nam had a bottle of gasoline in his hand and motioned like he was going to pour the bottle on Phuc who was smoking a cigarette. Unfortunately, the bottle slipped from his hand or somehting like that the gas ignited and Phuc was engulfed in an enormous fireball. His friends tried to smother the flames and get him to a hospital, but it was too little too late and Phuc ended up dying in the hospital two days later. Now nam should have been imprisoned, but because my friend's dad has some power in the police department, he was able to convince the authorities to allow Nam's family to pay compensation to Phuc's family and let Nam off the hook.