Weekend on the mountaintop

Last Saturday all the teachers and school staff took a trip to the mountain Bana, where the air was cool and sweet and the view was spectacular. Here's Danang from 1,487 meters (that's almost 4,900 feet):

The Danang bay is on the left, and the sea coast to the right. The big peninsula in the center is "Monkey Mountain." There aren't any mokeys there. Maybe in the past?

We DID, however, see a family of monkeys grubbing food from tourists at the top of Bana. 8 or 10 of them altogether, about the size of large house cats with throughtful, greedy little faces and clever fingers. It was my first time seeing monkeys in the wild. I could have watched them all afternoon. Someone threw one a stick of gum. He ripped off the paper and started peeling the foil like a fruit skin.

Here's a blurry picture of me feeding one:

It was good to spend time together away from school and the routine. Everyone needed it. Stress is pretty high here at FSEC with Me and Nicky about to leave, and with new staff being hired and trained. Praise God for rest, for friends, and for high elevations.

Here's me, Simon, and a newer teacher Steve:

Slideshow

Follow this link to a slideshow I put together for my students about Bryan's and my trip to Cambodia. Tanks, elephants, head bandages, ancient ruins, and more! The file is 18 megabytes.

http://tylersmith.badongo.com

It's the real thing

Yesterday some kind of noxious bomb left over from the war went off in the hills outside Da Nang. A family we know well with three small children lives in a community half a mile from where it detonated. The mother described the experience as "suffocating...like it had sucked all the oxygen out of the air." Some acrid substance in the air made their lungs and eyes burn. Their infant nearly stopped breathing. She took all her kids on the motorbike and headed for town. People in the neighborhood were breathing though wet towels and trying to find a place with clean air. This morning the family's pet bird was dead.
At moments when life here feels secure, a place devastated by war only a few generations ago, things remind us of the suffering that so many went through. Praise the Lord that today it is only a lingering memory and peace and health are the norms.

On a lighter note:
Our phone was been dead for several days. The man who came to fix it on Monday said a mouse had chewed through the line, so he stuck a new wire out the window and around the outside of the house instead of through the wall.