Next stop: Hanoi

Kalispell woman launches teaching career in Vietnam

The first time Jeni Scarff set foot in Hanoi, in 2001, she may as well have been in Morocco, stepping onto the Casablanca tarmac.

Construction had ravaged any amenities the terminal may have had. Grimy, barren concrete walls herded her inside. Stifling tropical heat made her struggle for breath as if she were in a steam room. Rank cooking odors choked the air.

And the airline lost her luggage.

But the family that accepted her as kin - indeed, the warm reception of the Vietnamese in general - implanted an affection which, on July 19, will propel her into the next two years of her life.

"More than anything else, it was the people," the 1999 Flathead High School graduate and daughter of Peggy and Greg Scarff of Kalispell said, explaining her decision to begin her teaching career in the northern capital city of Vietnam.

"They just took me under their wing. Everywhere I went, I always ran into somebody who was so interested in you and wanted to know your story."

With a freshly earned teaching degree tucked in her portfolio, this fall Scarff, 25, will teach kindergarten in the school where she carried out her student teaching last fall, the Hanoi International School.

Although a generation removed from the deep political chasm and emotional scars of the Vietnam War, she is keenly aware of its impact on the U.S.

She sympathizes with those who bristle at her desire to travel, live and work in the stronghold of what had been America's fiercest enemy. But she makes no apology for her fondness for the country nor its people who showed such concern for her.

To make her point, she cited the man in Na Chang who - with his sole remaining arm (tattooed with his wartime prisoner identification number) navigated his scooter through the jostling streets - deposited her in the care of his son while he checked three pharmacies to find a salve to heal her blistering sunburn.

Scarff's curiosity about Vietnam was sparked in high school history classes. She saw that teaching often stops at the U.S. involvement in the country's long-standing conflict because many teachers are uncomfortable with their own knowledge in the area.

She decided to do her own research. Her interest piqued by the scant information available, she decided she would visit Vietnam herself.

Jim Soular, her teacher for Literature of Vietnam at Flathead Valley Community College, pointed her to Vietnamese authors writing about their war, their culture, their history.

He also used his contacts to introduce her to a Hanoi family which agreed to house her in their Spring Hotel when she visited in May 2001. It was they who sent a cab for her to that Casablanca-style airport.

On the cab ride to the hotel Scarff followed Soular's advice to look out the side windows, watching as the lush green rice paddies abruptly gave way to the concrete city. It softened the shock of Hanoi traffic straight ahead, where vehicle size determines right of way, cars pass at will, and pedestrians and bicyclists steadily weave in and out as they dodge along the streets.

"It's a very, very well-choreographed, just insanely crazy dance," she said.

The Tran family offered her green tea and their company every time she arrived at or departed from their home. They included her in family weddings, soccer games, meals. The eldest son, Linh, became her perpetual guide and helper, showing her how to order food, negotiate treacherous streets and blend in as well as possible for a fair-skinned American who was under constant scrutiny by curious city residents.

Then, after 30 days, her visa expired. She left the country, but not her desire to return.

Back in the Flathead, she continued working toward her University of Great Falls degree in elementary education with a minor in communications arts and social sciences, through the university's outreach program at Flathead Valley Community College.

Knowing she intended to teach internationally, she set up her student teaching experience through the university's connections with University of Minnesota's Global Student Teaching.

In August 2005 she was back in Vietnam, ready to begin at Hanoi International School.

It's geared to children of expatriates who live and work in the country but who may be transferred at any point. Children of Vietnamese parents who also hold a foreign passport may enroll as well. To make their learning globally mobile, the school administers International Baccalaureate and International General Certificate of Secondary Education curriculum from kindergarten through high school graduation.

Scarff noticed a distinct difference on her return to Vietnam. Her first visit came just four months before terrorist attacks stunned the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Four years later, there were drastically fewer Americans in North Vietnam.

But she relished one familiarity when she moved back in with the Tran family.

"They literally accepted me as their daughter," she said. "Because of that inside loop, that close connection, it let me see so much that regular teachers will never see."

By August 2005, Tran Linh had a wife and a 4-year-old son (5, in Chinese years), who played easily with Scarff. Linh answered others' inquiries as to Scarff's origin: "She's from Vietnam … she does everything the way we do." He stuck by her as they went from shop to shop, finding exactly what she and fellow teachers needed for their lessons but had no way to locate without that personal help.

Both in coming and going, she had to reacclimate herself to Vietnamese food and to American food. She finds today that, when hungry, she's often hungry not for American food but for Vietnamese cuisine.

Although Scarff still does not speak fluent Vietnamese, she can communicate on a basic level - and happily discovered that nearly everyone speaks English.

Now, as she prepares to begin her two-year contract at the privately

owned, 10-year-old school with a teaching staff of about 150 and a student population of about 2,500, Scarff is looking forward to the kindergarten teaching experience.

"I'm excited and terrified at the same time," she said. "I will have a classroom full of kids who don't know a word of English, and they are in school for the first time ever."

But she's almost guaranteed of a class full of eager learners.

"Because of being in the Asian culture, they value the education they are getting," she said. Many of their Third World backgrounds have shown them that education is the ladder out of poverty.

"They've also got a high respect for teachers. Teachers are treated like royalty," she said, then added with a grin, "And the money is good."

She sees changes in herself already - pared-back consumption, low-fat diet preferences, an appreciation of the "rolling market" that flows past their front door. And she feels a sense of connection in the Tran home that houses several generations.

"It's all about the family, the extended family." Her own family plans a visit next year, a treat which the Trans eagerly anticipate, she said.

She knows she will miss Montana's skies, mountain bike trails, lakes and rivers, ski slopes. She plans a visit home next summer, but is considering either Chile or Guatemala for her second international teaching experience.

For now, though, she is eager to head back to some of the most welcoming people she has met.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com