One of my groups of Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese trainees during an "oral expression" workshop

Job stuff

During the summer, the AUF organized four trainings of two weeks for the teachers, animated by the educational advisers.

So, some 350 teachers had the occasion to complete their training during an initiation (for the new teachers) or a methodological and linguistic recycling, at the CREFAP in Ho Chi Minh City and in Hanoi.

Between the two inservices I animated with my colleagues, I was able to take one month of holidays in Belgium, where the weather was charmingly cool and rainy :)))

They returned to school after three months of summer holidays (they have no school leave during the year except a week for the Têt).
They grew up, and so did the program :

For 1998-1999, there are 600 Bilingual Classes in Viet Nam + some "intensive French" classes for the 9th graders who did not pass the middle school exam.

In Can Tho we have 52 bilingual Classes and 2 "intensive French" classes (1448 pupils, 38 teachers); in Vinh Long : 5 Bilingual Classes (119 pupils, 4 teachers).

There is only me who did not grow up, and who am still alone: no local homologue was appointed.

Alain likes preparing rebus at home

Yum-yum : snake, eel, etc.

Is teachers' day : every pupil has to celebrate his teachers, it doesn't much matter the age of the ones and the others. The teachers are themselves going to celebrate their former teachers, etc.

It is a very busy day for them, because they should be at first celebrated in their school(s) then go to celebrate their former teachers, then be back at home to receive their pupils... If you want to make a fortune in Vietnam that day, be a florist (I sometimes receive more two hundred, true and false flowers) !

As for the bilingual classes teachers, they also invite their favourite educational adviser (I do not boast : I am the only one ;)) !

"Hello? Pierre? We need you. THE AUF decided to participate in Can Tho's international Fair. It would be necessary that you rent a double stand, furniture and a cellular phone with modem cable ; that you hire some hostesses and that you take charge of the decoration, bilingual of course. I send you Alex and Jean-Pierre,who will stay with you two days. Then you will animate the last four days, all right ?"

" But... Er... The Fair begins in three days, you know? "

" Bah, you are going to manage, aren't you ? "

"GLOPS..."

On this one, we made it like super champions... Of course I called all the teachers in, paid a visit to the director of the Fair (because of course all the stands and the furniture were already booked), convinced a cellular phones salesman to rent me the model which we needed, spent my evenings to prepare the decorations and signs, which my good friend Tang translated one by one into Vietnamese...

Mr Serge Degallaix, Ambassador of France, was very interested. He notably asked numerous questions (and took notes) on Can Tho's Bilingual Classes.

Since he stayed three times longer at our stand than at the others, we considered it as a victory :)

Coordination

The Provincial Popular Committee invited the representatives of all the NGOs working in Can Tho at a meeting with the authorities (educational, sanitary, economic, agricultural, etc.)

An intelligent local initiative !

And on this photo, you see only the representatives of the "health - education" branches, where I was the only representative for "education"... You can easily spot my dear friend Andrée, with her orange-coloured polo ;)

Rather than to repeat the modest celebration of 1998, we had decided to have a big festival in 1999.

From January, the organizing committee (I and 4 teachers, so that the fest would be their realization and not mine) prepared two activities : a big spectacle combined with an exhibition of posters on the subject "Holidays in the French-speaking world".

Have all the classes in the show ? Impossible: there are 54 of them, if we had given them 5 minutes each the show would have last 5 or 6 hours ! A preliminary selection indicated the 21 better plays, to polish up for the big day.

As you can guess on this photo, the last moments before the opening were intense...

Lights on !

We're on for a three-hours show (interrupted with breaks, pricegivings...) with songs, playlets, a magician, dance, competitions...

And a nice public, sat on small plastic stools in the yard of a Secondary school, on a Saturday evening...

We did not believe in it. The night before, we didn't sleep. The same day, we wondered what was going to fall on our heads.

During the show, we feared everything... Power outage ? Rain ? Accident ? Ban ? NO.

The happy public having left, we realized that we had DONE IT ! YES ! We did not just "hold on" from 18:00 to 21:00... We enjoyed ourselves, relaxed, sang, danced, roared...

And the jury indicated the best plays, to the authors of which we handed presents of course.

All this for less than 200 dollars...
Yes, we were proud of ourselves !

No, this is not Bertha...

Here's Bertha !

A Honda XLR 250 "Degree"

The quality was unequalled in Can Tho and the prices quite reasonable.

The owners were Anh, French-speaking Vietnamese, who had renewed everything herself to obtain this superbe place, and her husband Benoît, super-nice Frenchman, who often came to relax there and to put some atmosphere in after his job.

Regrettably, Benoît and Anh flew away for another country in 2001, but Anh's brother stayed there ; then in 2002 Benoît and Anh came back :-)

A monk in a Mustang convertible in Can Tho ?

No... This virgin skull belongs to my cousin Frédéric Gieling, 28 years old, Quebecois. This picture comes from his selection film for "The Journey Destination World", in which he participated in 1998-1999. He was one of lucky eight candidates who went around the world, in numerous countries, realizing a short film a week for Radio-Canada and TV5...

After Japan and Hong-Kong, "Froutch" had chosen Vietnam and paid me a small visit in my deep South...

"Tabernak !"

"This is really different !" is the expression we'll remember from his stay in the Mekong Delta...

He had not planned to make one of his 17 required movies here, but the charms of the Delta and the love of my boat pilot for alcohol emptied the camera batteries of our young reporter, who was then engaged as journalist by Radio-Canada (you can admire him from time to time on TV5 also).

(Sorry, the pics are not very good)

Relaxing

Near Hanoi in October, 1998, with Marie-Anne, Roxane and Nadine, dear colleagues and friends...:)

After a few hours on the motorbikes in the campaign, we visited the Paintbrushes Pagoda, before going to the potters village... A whole program :)