“She told me she wasn’t going to be able to come back,” Mary Kathryn said. “I started crying, which made her start crying. I called my parents and they actually drove down and took us to dinner to try to calm me down.”
said. “At one point I looked up and saw holes in the rock and light from the sun was coming through. I said (to Tram), ‘How pretty, how did they do that?’ and Tram said, ‘You all did it, with bombs (during the Vietnam War).’”
The next morning, Tram and Mary Kathryn presented their families with a win-win solution. Tram and Nikki could be five-day boarders, shearing dollars off their room and board expenses; and the Nguyen sisters could stay with the Menck family on the weekends.
The Mencks created a blog of their trip, which can be viewed at: http:// menckfamilyinvietnam.blogspot.com/.
“I was surprised at how easy it was to get my parents to agree to it,” Mary Kathryn said. According to her mother, Karyn Menck, Tram and Nikki adjusted quickly to life in their Nashville home, and Mary Kathryn’s father, Kevin, and younger sister, Sarah Beth, enjoyed the added company. At the invitation of Tram and Nikki’s parents, Buu and Hanh Nguyen, last summer Karyn, Sarah Beth and Mary Kathryn made the long flight to visit their home and family in Xuan Loc, Vietnam. “It was really good for the girls to see another culture,” Karyn said. “We got to see it not as tourists, but with a family. It was just wonderful.” In addition to meeting the girls’ family, the Mencks were introduced to authentic Vietnamese food, shops and culture. “It was interesting because they (the Nguyens) don’t speak any English and we don’t speak Vietnamese. We each communicated with the girls,” Karyn said. A highlight of the trip was the Nguyen’s parting gift to the Menck ladies. “They got us each a traditional Vietnamese outfit,” Karyn said. “They took us to a seamstress and we each picked out our fabric and the dresses were custom made for us in a matter of days.” For Mary Kathryn, a visit to area caverns was particularly eye opening. “There were carvings in the stone and the caverns had been made into temples,” she
This past May, the Menck family watched as Tram crossed the stage and received her Bible and diploma from The Webb School. While Tram is moving on to the Oxford College at Emory University in Georgia this fall, she still plans to visit the Mencks, and will definitely be keeping in touch with Mary Kathryn. “How can I live with somebody for two years and see them 24-7 and forget them?” Tram said. Despite her departure, the Menck family home will not be idle. Mary Kathryn, now a senior, and Nikki, a junior, will attend Webb as five-day boarders again this year, as will Sarah Beth, an incoming seventh-grader; and the family is welcoming a new member to its fold – Bao Nguyen, the younger brother of Nikki and Tram, who will be an eighthgrade five-day boarder at Webb and spend weekends with the Mencks. “I don’t know how to put it into words,” Karyn said, referring to the impact of the family’s friendship with the Nguyens. “(But) It’s something that we would never have experienced if Mary Kathryn had not gone to Webb.” The Webb School’s enrollment this year includes students from eight different countries including China, Korea, Taiwan, Great Britain, Vietnam, Nigeria, Brazil and Jamaica. Webb’s international students account for approximately 14 percent of its total enrollment. Editor’s note: The five-day boarding program at The Webb School is limited to students who have a blood relative living within a 75-mile radius of the school. The Nguyens have an aunt who lives in Nashville that they also visit on weekends from time-to-time.
Summer 2010
Facing page: Mary Kathryn Menck, left, and Tram Nguyen in Vietnam. (Submitted photo) This page (top to bottom): Mary Kathryn Menck sports a Vietnamese hat (Submitted photo); The Menck family models the traditional Vietnamese outfits given to them by the Nguyens (Submitted photo); Members of the Nguyen family and the Menck family in Vietnam (Submitted photo); Tram Nguyen and Mary Kathryn Menck stand in front of the Junior Room on The Webb School campus this May.
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