Hi friends!
This morning a miracle happened. We turned off our A/C, opened all our windows, and we are enjoying fresh air throughout the house. It feels very strange to have the same temperature in every room. After a month of slinking from air-conditioned room to air-conditioned room, tightly closing doors behind us, I feel like someone coming out of quarantine to have all the bedroom doors and windows flung open.
So what happened to make all this possible? It's raining. We've had some afternoon rains that were wonderful for cooling off an already hot day, but this is the first time we've woken up to rain that had been falling steadily for some time. That was about 6:30 this morning. It's now noon, and it's still raining. It stopped for brief moments this morning, and we considered going out and accomplishing something--even talked about going out on our bikes and just risking another downpour--but each time, before we could finish the conversation about what we should go and do, it started pouring again. It's one thing to venture out in a break in the weather and then get caught in something, but it's another to deliberately go out in search of a taxi in pouring down rain and go somewhere that you don't actually need to go at that precise time. So we're still home.
Our choice was validated when our neighbor across the street came over and told us that school has been cancelled today and tomorrow because of the storm that's coming through. Whoa. School cancelled because of rain? In advance? Ok, I guess we're right to turn on Pride and Prejudice and call ourselves "rained in!" Another neighbor texted us to say that Vietnam experiences 10 storms a year, and this is the third one. Does that mean 7 more by the end of the calendar year? Or by the end of the lunar year in February? We don't know, but the kids are excited about the flooded streets.
We've been home A LOT lately. At least, the kids and I have been. Last week we all took a turn being sick, so sometimes I was home against my will being nurse, and other times I was the one grateful to be home and shut in to my dim and cool bedroom. When we're home in the evenings, we are the "Tonight Show." Our house is on the end of the block, which is great for air and light, but it also means that more of our rooms are visible to our neighbors. When we first moved in, we had adults and kids alike standing just a couple feet from our windows, watching, but now it's pretty much just the 6-12 year old boys who openly watch us. When we're on the 2nd or 3rd floors we can feel somewhat removed from it (though I do wave to my across the street neighbors when we're both in our second floor living areas), but we know that if we go down to the first floor between 5:00-8:00 in the evening, we are turning on the show for the neighborhood boys. Sometimes we invite them in for card games and candy, sometimes we send Daniel out to play street soccer, and sometimes we just aren't up for interaction and we alternate between ignoring them and asking them to go home. They do all disappear when it's time for dinner at their houses, and then they usually come back again for an hour or so before bedtime.
Today I got a hint about what kinds of information our neighbors have learned about us. I'm sorry to have to admit it, but we've been eating quite a lot of instant noodles lately. They're just so darned convenient! We have one of those bottled water dispensers that can serve you hot or cold water, so we don't even have to heat water in the electric teapot when we want them. I haven't been doing much cooking, so at all times of the day Tim and the kids are helping themselves to instant noodles. Well, the neighbors across the street are a mom and son and her parents, and we've been helping the son with his English homework. The grandmother occasionally gives us bananas or something like that as a thank you. Today we were given 5 packages of instant noodles. The kind Daniel has been requesting. I joked with the kids that they had noticed how many instant noodles we're eating, but then when I reached up to put them in the cupboard (the cupboard directly across from the window facing their house) and realized that just yesterday we had used up our last package, I felt like it was perhaps more than a joke--that they really had noticed that we'd run out and were happy to supply us with more. I don't even know if I'm serious to wonder whether the instant noodles they gave us have to do with my empty cupboard space where noodles usually go--it's just too weird. I am daily thankful that we are welcome oddities in this nation, and not looked at with fear or suspicion. It's great to be here.
