Vietnam Day 2 & 3

Professional: Dr. Kay and I met with our co-faculty from UMP on Sunday afternoon. We went over the course guide for the next 2 weeks and discussed our plans for small group work in the afternoons. For the major paper (development of a nursing theory based upon the students' concept analysis), we decided that the UMP faculty would review the student papers first for formatting in the UMP style (similar to MLA) and their review of content. Then they will forward the papers to us for final grading. Our focus will be on the content rather than format.
Our first day of class started with a broken toilet spewing clean water all over the faculty restroom! It was from a broken sprayer (similar idea to a bidet...). A quick thinking student tied a glove around the sprayer to stop the shower until maintenance could be summoned. Then we discovered that Dr. Kay's email with the PPs for the day's lectures had not reached the UMP faculty to be printed for the students. Ms. Thoa and I took over printing duties while Dr. Kay started lecture. Our translator is a nurse who is in a Master's program in Australia. I am not sure of the details--whether it is online or if she goes there for class and returns to Vietnam between. At any rate, we are so happy to have her in the classroom. To lecture, we go over 1 slide at a time and then she translates for the students. I did a short lecture on plagarism from Dr. Kay's slides. This generated lots of questions from the students. Kay gave permission for me to use it with my own students.
We were asked to join the Dean of the Faculty of Nursing-Medical Technology for tea this afternoon. Tran Thien Trung, M.D., Ph.D. has been at the UMP for about 2 1/2 years. He welcomed us to the university and thanked us for working with their MSN students. He also discussed the need for a PhD in Nursing program here. He said, "Doctors cannot teach the nurses for the PhD!"  I was happy to agree with that comment! The assistant dean was in Kay's class in 2009. I did not get her card so I do not have her name. Dr. Tran's assistant is in the background.

The next few pictures are of the students, the UMP faculty-Ms. Thoa & Ms. Gna with our translator, and Dr. Kay at the end of a long day of theory lecture.

 Personal: Last evening (Sunday), several students picked us up to take us on a tour of HCM City.

We saw the Saigon River and then some areas of downtown which is still called Saigon, although the larger urban area is Ho Chi Minh City. The Saigon area is typically where the tourists spend time; it is in District 1. Our hotel is in District 5. Many of the shops in this area carry high end brands that we see in our stores. However, there are open air markets, inside stall-type markets, and street vendors all over, some with open fires cooking the food that they sell. I believe this next picture is a statue of Ho Chi Minh but I had trouble understanding for sure if that is what the students said. The building behind is a government building.

We had wonderful ice cream at a shop. One of the students said that this ice cream was good but that the ice cream in Hanoi where he is from is much better.

 Next we went to an indoor market and enjoyed fresh coconut milk. One student, Nam, bought me a beautiful fan. Later, we went to see the church that is on the fan.

We finished the evening with dinner. Note what I did NOT order on the menu!! In case you cannot quite read it--"Stewed goat penis-medicinal". I had fried rice with pork which was delicious.

That is all for today. Check back on Wednesday-Vietnam time-for an update.