Da Nang, Vietnam 2 – Gabriel

Gabriel Kossovan
October 3, 2023

It has now been 4 weeks since I touched down here in Da Nang. I can’t believe just how much time has flown by. I’m already starting to look ahead and get a little sad when I realise, I have to leave in less than a month. But in the meantime, I aim to make full use of my time here. I try to make a point, a few times a day, be it when I’m eating breakfast at a tiny table on a street corner or when I’m having one of my several daily coffees, to take a few minutes, look up, look around and try and be truly present. I try and soak it all in because to be here, in this fantastic country, having this experience, all while still getting to work towards my degree, is such a fantastic opportunity.  So I try and be explicit about being present in this experience, being thankful that I get to be here and looking around and enjoying all the tiny little details that make Vietnam such a wonderful place to be and that bring me joy.

Looking beyond my own attempts to live in the moment ere, as I approach the half way point of my time here, my teaching in the classroom has picked up, with me now getting the opportunity to plan and deliver whole lessons. As time has gone on as well, the kids have gotten used to seeing my face around school and many of them have even learned my name so I’ve started to feel like I’ve settled in a bit. That still doesn’t stop the grade one and two kids from mobbing me every time they see me though. I’ve also started teaching an English club at the local university which has been a fascinating experience in its own right. After teaching elementary students, its interesting to go teach university students and to find yourself teaching the same topics, just more advanced and with students with a bit more skin in the game. Teaching university students as been incredibly rewarding as all the student know that a good command of English opens up a lot of opportunities for them and as such they are really driven to learn. We’ve been working on basic sentences that will help them in day-to-day life to start and really focusing on working on the pronunciation and clarity of individual words. It’s been really great to slowly start to develop rapport with them and see their skill grow, or just to see them light up when they nail a sentence.

It’s been just a great first month and as it comes to a close, I can really say that I’ve come to feel at home here, even more so then when I wrote my last post. I’ve got my local spots I go to and my own routine and as such a real sense of home and belonging has started to take root even if I can’t speak the language. For most of the rest of the weekends of my trip, I’ve got flights planned to various other cities in Vietnam, plus Cambodia as I try and really maximize my time here. While I’m excited for the opportunities to see more of the country and try even more dishes I’ve never had before, I think I’ll miss the weekends where I would just walk the streets, checking out shops as I went with no particular goal in mind. I’ve come to really know this city, or at least a decent chunk of it, and I can say that I can walk most places without google maps. Its like I said, this city is becoming less of a destination, but more simply a place where I live and I just know I’ll miss it when I leave.

Until next time,