Four more days of teaching and coaching, that’s all. This trip has been a whirlwind of learning and experiencing new people, places, and things, and we don’t want it to end.
That being said, we don’t think this trip would be the same without the help and guidance of our Vietnamese counterparts. They have facilitated the bonds we have created with the kids, and have spent an extreme amount of time and effort sharing their culture with us, despite our child-like excitement and amazement at every ounce of what this culture has to offer. We can’t imagine how exhausting it would be having to constantly answer questions about things that, to them, are common sense and common knowledge. Not only have they put up with our loud, inquisitive personalities, they have let us into their lives, and let us hear their stories, and for that, we are extremely grateful.
Even though it’s only been two weeks, it feels as if we have known the Vietnamese coaches for years. Though it took some adjusting on both sides to understand and become comfortable with one other, it wasn’t hard. We have all shared our stories, and through that we’ve become aware of the wide range of backgrounds we all have.
“We don’t think this trip would be the same without the help and guidance of our Vietnamese counterparts. They have facilitated the bonds we have created with the kids, and have spent an extreme amount of time and effort sharing their culture with us, despite our child-like excitement and amazement at every ounce of what this culture has to offer.”
As student athletes at Duke and Stanford, we have been lucky that despite the “bubble” so often created by living on a college campus, we have still been exposed to a vast array of diversity. Through our teams and our peers we have learned how to interact and be vulnerable with people whom we may not typically have much in common with. Thanks to these prior experiences, we have been able to be very real and honest with one another, and form genuinely close relationships. Relationships that we hope will last far beyond the span of this trip.
We’re sure seeing the Vietnamese culture through a purely foreign lens would still be a fun experience, but attempting to see it through the eyes of its own people has been enlightening.The best part is that it hasn’t felt like we have been lead on some kind of tour, it feels like visiting old friends in a place we have yet to know. Regardless of the various paths we have walked through life, at this point in time, those paths have converged. And at this point in time, we have all come together to focus on something bigger than ourselves.