He taught English in Vietnam through Project TrustAfter three years of exams I didn’t want to go straight into a university course

He taught English in Vietnam through Project TrustAfter three years of exams, I didn’t want to go straight into a university course, so I deferred for a year. I’d heard of Project Trust through friends; the community aspect appealed to me. I didn’t want to go to a country just as a tourist; I wanted to do something of value.I didn’t know much about Vietnam before I ended up teaching English in a teacher training college in Thanh Hoa, one of Vietnam’s poorest provinces. The amazing thing is that I probably made better friends there than I have here. People assume there will be language and cultural barriers but I didn’t find that. Of course, you have to invest time to become part of a community I had to work hard and adapt my behaviour.

I ate what they ate, shopped where they shopped, lived where they lived and we didn’t drink at all. I tried hard to learn Vietnamese and put a lot of work into lessons, which I think helped earn me some respect.It was incredibly hard to leave Scotland but it was harder to leave Vietnam because although I can go back, it wouldn’t be in that role I would have to go as a tourist. The year just made me so much more confident about my own abilities and it also gave me a different view of the world. The Vietnamese call it the American War, not the Vietnam War I ended up calling it that too.. They could end up being flayed and gutted, or sliced and diced, but from the looks on their faces they could hardly wait.

Ranging in ages from 17 to 77, they were articulate and eerily cheerful. “Better to leave my body to the professor here to take apart than have the maggots do it,” said Juanita Carberry, 77, a former seafarer and author from London. “I am a great recycler so I thought what better use could I put my body to than to recycle it for educational purposes?”Whether the exhibition is purely educational or a licence to print money is a moot point among his peers in the field of anatomy. More than eight million people around the world have seen the travelling exhibition – tickets in London are £10 – but the German professor claims he is €2m (£1.28m) in debt.”Why shouldn’t he make some money out of us?” said Phillip Beet, 45, a car park supervisor from Leicestershire.