Yup. It is still hot. Sweaty at 7:30 in the morning after you walk to school hot. I knew there would come a point when it would feel so different that it was still hot. I have hit it. We have had a few glorious nights when we have slept with the windows open, and last week brought beautifully breezy mornings when I was tempted to keep walking to the park instead of school. On the flipside, how fantastic is it to spend every Sunday morning at the pool?
I realized a couple of things when I looked at my blog the other day. First of all, it has been way too long since my last entry. There is no doubt that we have entered a new realm of daily routine and life here. Time is flying. Today you could not have convinced me that Thanksgiving is a week away. The other thing I realized is that my pictures and descriptions have become much less about Vietnam and what is new in our life here, and more about happenings within our own smaller, daily, expat life. I have therefore promised to try to capture more of the daily, uniquely Vietnamese aspects of life that shape our days here.
We are almost well, after a week of passing around a cold and fever/achey virus. Quite honestly I am always a little relieved when we pass something around the house quickly because it lets me relax, knowing that it is not a mosquito borne disease that we have to worry about. Thursday, I was home from school as well as Maeve, and we actually had a nice day reading - all of us! I read 3/4s of Three Cups of Tea. Maeve has reached that moment in time where she has transformed into a reader. It's so exciting, so fun, and seems like magic. I was so happy at the joy she took from a lingering visit to the Fahasa bookstore downtown. Needless to say we left with a few samples and always take the opportunity to grab a few good English books when we can find them.
I returned to school the next day with a rose on my desk. : )
Thursday was Teachers Day in Vietnam. What a nice surprise it was to get a few sweet gifts. I have to say that I definitely feel how differently I am viewed in the eyes of students and parents in Asia. Don't get me wrong, I had many wonderful students and worked with some fantastic parents in the states. But here, I am thanked profusely by parents every time I see them. And yes, students have their moments, but overall, there is this huge, looming expectation that they will behave, be respectful, and be good students. I have to be careful to make calls home when it is really necessary, because calls from teachers can bring extreme ramifications. I smiled on my trip to the doctors the other day because I actually recognized almost the entire trip downtown. I wasn't sure that would ever happen amidst the cacophany and chaos of Ho Chi Minh life. It's beginning to feel familiar.
Just as my friends in the states talked about some of the best conversations with their kids happening in the car on the way to places, Maeve and I have great conversations on our taxi rides.
So here's something that made me happy about Vietnam the other day. We had not yet bought cell phones. I had heard that some people, as foreigners, had to go through lengthy processes of registering to get a phone. We actually have survived pretty well without one. (And there is the added fact that you can't really use it here to call businesses or get information because , well, most people speak Vietnamese and I don't.) Anyway, my friend got a spiffy new phone that is pink and rings "Oh Micky You're So Fine.." and she offered her old phone to me. I was a little confused about how that would be helpful, but my friends David and Urko in the IT department at school put a SIM card in the phone for me, replaced the battery, and voila! I have a cell phone, complete with number, and a month's or more minutes all to the tune of 200,000 Dong (about $12). (You actually purchase a card with a chip that goes into the back of the phone and gives it a cell phone number and minutes and then you just load minutes onto it.) So I know that the pay as you go phones are getting more popular over time, but why the heck do we have to pay so much money to use cell phones in the US?
I love seeing babies on their moms' backs like this. This is in our apartment complex.
Our local bakery on the street in front of our building. It is Korean, and everything tastes as equally white flour sticky sweet as the sugary doughnuts the girls love the most. We do live in an expat community, but it is the Korean expat community. It is very interesting. Most of the American, Brits, and Aussies that live in HCMC city live in a place called An Phu, which I have not yet been to. It is about 45 minutes by taxi.
I have high hopes for this new Lotte Mart (also Korean) opening in December. I hope it may bring some one stop shopping back to my life. We'll see. It may be one stop kimchee shopping.
Maeve made the school newsletter with this one from the Halloween parade. She is with her closet kindergarten friends Andrew and Tommy.
Being silly at home. It is lovely how happy and settled the girls seem to be.
Waiting on the SSIS morning bus. Maeve likes to be first in line and Dad takes her down a bit early so she can. P.E. = swimming now. Can you say even happier about life at school? Charles and Sophie usually keep walking after putting Maeve on the bus for breakfast and coffee.
It seems we finally have people appreciating our beautiful little house on Trenholm Road. They are renting , with a contract to buy when their home in Texas sells. (You'll notice I said when. Keep your fingers crossed.)
The weekend's job it to find a turkey for the big day. We're celebrating with our friends the Perkins.
The weekend's job it to find a turkey for the big day. We're celebrating with our friends the Perkins.
What do we celebrate?
I am thankful for this life changing experience,
and our health.
I am thankful for our friends and family whom we miss, all of the wonderful people in our lives,
and our new friends, especially those who make us laugh so hard we have to cross our legs.
I am thankful for Aunt Nancy's recovery,
and the cabin visits we will enjoy with her and many others for years to come.
I am thankful that Grandma Riley had such a long and interesting life, and that I told her how much she meant to me before she died.
I am thankful for the luxurious time we have together as a family
as we look towards three weeks off for XMAS break.
I am thankful for you, taking the time to share this unique part of our life with us, if even just by reading.
Tan biet for now.
