Day 4 by Don	Day 1-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Back Home
	Mate, align and center on axis is a feature of PTC that one can struggle with to understand...but from my experience something finally sinks in and it becomes natural...but until the concept is learned, is difficult.  Even in English, I am sure there is a better model that could be easier.  Maybe in the next version, but until then we struggle in Vietnamese-English trying to understand the concept.  We invent a game based on one that Sheila suggested with 2 small paper boxes with letters and numbers.  I would get two people and with each box numbered or lettered, we would go through the scenario of mate-align-center on axis.  I would try to say “Mate 6 to A” in Vietnamese and they would try to perform the actions on the small boxes.  We all finally learned! Well most of us.  We have been working on this concept for a day now and as I look around to see what people are working on, they have already passed the rover example and onto the F11 fighter planes! They have mastered it.
	One of the women couldn’t show up today, as she has to go to a wedding.  The blind student and his helper who I thought had dropped out yesterday are back and our student with the large smile is trying to get him caught up.  Today I sat with our blind student and talked to him.  He has been going to the university for 4 years now.  His English is very good, but he is very quite.  We talked about his eyesight in that he has low vision.  He wants to work more on the computer, but these are very expensive and he can’t afford it.  The computer lab here and at the university is only open during specific times.  He asked how people with vision problems work on computers in the US and I mentioned JAWS.  He says they have this at this school.  It was while I was talking to him that I realized that he should have one of the laptops that we were going to give to the school.  With his knowledge, his low eyesight, he could champion the use of computers to the low eyesight and blind people in Vietnam.  I let him know that I have a computer that would be ideal for him and that I’ll bring it to him tomorrow.  He is ecstatic.  And a little part of me feels like Ophra.  Thanks for the laptops Mike, you have changes someone’s life so far away, someone you will never even get to meet.
	After work, the four of us headed out to Marble Mountain.  This is a marble statue Mecca for the bargain hunter.  I try to look up the store that sold the statues to me in January which all broke on the plane coming back.  At the very least, I expected a “good” deal on a set of new statues.  Although I couldn’t find it, I will try again later.  After visiting one store, a couple of women come and ask us to visit their store.  Enjoying the culture and company of someone who speaks broken English, we start heading to their store, but get side tracked and start heading up the mountain to see the shrines.  I expected to loose them, but they climbed the mountain with us! We now have our own somewhat free tour guides to be paid later in their store.  Since I have more marble artwork than I need at home, I feel no obligation at all to buy from them, and just start to enjoy talking with them.  Climbing the steep and irregular stairs, they soon are pulling, lifting and helping Deanna up the stairs.  She is having fun with them.  We get to the top look out and sit and watched life go by.  You could see all the way to the mountains, the Han River, the valley with rice patties, the busy life down on marble row.  You could envision what it would have been like here 35 years ago...F4’s flying into the airbase coming back from missions...and now we site peacefully talking as friends.  We talked to our “guides” and learn new phrases...sin chou boy toui...sin choy boy sat...good morning, and good night.  I am sure my spelling is off but that is what it sounded like....hey at least I got the English words correct.  For the rest of the night all of us are trying to remember these two phrases.  Luckily there was the four of us and our guide to gently remind us the correct words.  We visited several of the caves where the Vietcong had used for infirmaries in the 1975 war as they called it.  On the way down we saw a monk chanting and bonging the bell with a big log swing from the temple.  He had the biggest smile and thought it hilarious when Deanna showed him the video she shot of him.
	We finally arrived at the bottom and started the negotiation of marble.  We were tough, and Deanna got some good deals.  Robyn bought her two elephants.  Robyn definitely needs to master the art of negotiation and pays way too much, but she likes them.  Linda bought a bracelet that matched the one she got in South Africa recently.  Since I had experience of some of the art Deanna was buying, she paid about half of what was the original offer...maybe $10 too much, but still a good deal.  Since Deanna didn’t have her money, the women offered to motor bike us back to the hotel about 4-5 miles away.  Anytime there is a ride on the motorbike, Robyn’s eyes light up in glee.  Since we were all getting hungry, I asked if there was any place to eat first so they offered to bike us in the opposite direction of our hotel to a place where we had eaten several times before.  We try to order spinach with garlic, all of our favorite but don’t know the Vietnamese name.  I even wonder back into the kitchen to see if I could find it.  Later four girls who spoke a little English said it is called “ma-soon” I think.  Later in the week others would pronounce it differently.  We order way too much, but it is all very good.  An hour later our tour guides are back to pick us up and they biked us back to the hotel.  Linda and Deanna said “sin chou boy toui” to them with hugs as if they were family.  They had been so nice and helpful.  I love the people of Vietnam!
	Day 1-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Back Home