Soldiers

I hope to write more about this later, but my yesterday left me with a flavor of what it is to be the winner and the loser in a civil war.

I met two men, each 65 years old.  Both helped me yesterday.  Both were soldiers in the Viet civil war.  I didn't get a picture of either of them to put on the blog, but let me describe them to you.

One helped me when my motorbike was broken down on a street corner.  It would start and idle, but if I gave it any gas at all it would die.  I had an hour before I had to be at an appointment downtown, but I didn't know of a nearby mechanic shop.  A man sitting on his motorcycle saw my distress and motioned for me to let it idle for a while without killing it.  He asked me a "Where you fron?"  and when I replied that I am an American (Tôi là người Mỹ) he smiled and gave a thumbs-up.  He explained that he was in the Viet army on the side that the Americans chose to support.  He worked with a group of US Green Berets and was in Saigon when it was liberated by the communists in '75.  The GIs left, but he stayed in a country that would never again be kind to him in terms of employment and opportunity.

The former soldier used his motorbike to push mine to the neighborhood mechanic's corner.  (I balance my bike, he puts a foot on my rear bumper and accelerates his bike, and away we ride.)  The neighborhood mechanic had a 6' tent for shade and a compressor and toolbox to indicate his trade.  He had my engine taken apart and was cleaning it in a matter of minutes, and after 25 minutes he and I shook hands and I gave him the full $4.50 he asked for.  My Viet friends say I could have negotiated him down to $3.00, but I know I was in no position to argue, as he saved my bacon with the repair work he did.  I'm grateful.

The second former soldier I met yesterday helped me, but indirectly.  He is the director of one of the departments of the University, and he has his diplomas and credentials on display in his office ... next to his pictures and awards for military service in the People's Liberation Armed Forces.  His help to me is in setting me up with an evening class to teach, starting next week.  (The University department that hired me tells me that they will be starting my classes soon, but I won't actually believe that until they give me a schedule and classes to teach.)  This second soldier was on the side that won back in 1975.  His credentials as a soldier are on par with his doctoral degree, or at least they are displayed in the same case in his expansive office.

The first soldier is one of thousands of motorbike drivers in the city.  I've met several of them, and one of the first Xe Om drivers I rode with is always reading at his corner when I go by.  His English is fluent and he reads way more than I do, but his employment is bottom-shelf as a driver of the occasional customer wanting transport by motorbike.  I don't know for sure if he's a former soldier, but it fits the description.  I'd be surprised if I learned that my literate corner Xe Om driver wasn't, in fact, a former soldier of the side that lost in 1975.

The second soldier was a comrade-in-arms with the cadre of men who have led this nation for the last 40 years.  He is a capable leader and well known and well respected, and some of the people in his social circle still wear their green uniforms to work, decorated with 3-4 stars on the shoulders.

It's better to be on the side that wins. Just sayin'.


Photos from today's Ceremony of Start-of-School:

Video:

Other Random Photos:

Some friends over for a fast game of NERTZ and then guitar-led singing up on the roof.

The Boys

[Tim]

An update on my guys:  The boys are both on-the-mend, I think.  Since roughly the beginning of September we've been in and out of tummy troubles and culture shock.  Sometimes it's hard to tell where one of those ends and the other begins.  Culture shock is not limited to "OMG they do THAT here???" reactions.  It's more like a trauma that can affect you in a variety of unanticipated ways, and depression/low-energy was especially worrisome for us with the boys.  Compound that with even a little bit of physical distress and you've got a sick kiddo.

Today they seem much improved over a week ago or even several days ago.  Their energy is back up, and their outlook on living abroad is brighter.

Here are some snippets of blogposts from them, and then random pictures that tell more stories.

[Michael]

The past few weeks were full of shells. It turns out that Da Nang beach is full of live starfish, white bait, mud gudgeons, and countless cool shells.
This is my current shell collection:

Unfortunately, most of the shells had little dead creatures inside, and so we soaked them all in bleach water. Some of my favorite shells were ruined. We found a lot of the shells in the aftermath of the storm, and also we found about 10 puffer fish, some of which were still half puffed up! There are a ton of clam shells, about as common as mussels on Beverley Beach in Oregon.


[Daniel]


Hello! Today we did so much adventures! Such as getting out of bed.... uh, too common, it's 7:00 in the morning. In that case I'll tell about thing that happened two weeks ago. Michael and I were at a several-days rivalry with chili seeds. Since I am a very competitive person, I grabbed a handful of chili seeds and rubbed my hands in the oil than I stuffed it in his mouth. Funny prank, huh?  At this point I realized this was a bad idea. Mom and dad were both mad.

Somehow, I got the chili oil on my face. And I mean my lips ... and my eyes. Some of you might know that I am extremely sensitive to spicy. Yeah, it hurt. We had to walk our bikes home that night 'cause I was completely blind.  Anna led me by the hand and my dad took my bike.

Michael being zipped into the Hamster Ball.

Daniel being inflated and sealed.

Hamster Ball meets Pacific Ocean. 

Youth group outing to the beach.  Add Hamster Ball for instant teen approval.

Group photo on youth group scavenger hunt.  Duck lips voluntary.

50,000 VND for a chilled coconut.  Shells are free if you can find them.

Beach combing for shells.  And supersized lightbulbs.

The chef, Lan, rocks it once again in our kitchen. We are GRATEFUL!

Our local tailor shop, posing with a Tim figurine.

Pancake breakfast at our house with a student.

Game night with the staff of Vision Cafe.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hi friends, Janet here.

You don't have to know me for very long (longer or shorter depending on how close to September 15th we met...) to know that I love my birthday more than most people my age.  Shoot, I'd hold my birthday enthusiasm up to any kid you know and come out on top.  Your own personal holiday? What's not to love?  So although it may seem childish to want to fill you in on what I've done for my birthday this year, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

The 15th was last Tuesday, and you may remember that on Monday we posted about the tropical storm that blew through here.  Those mighty winds and torrential rains swept all the heat and stickiness out of the air, so I had the much-appreciated pleasure of not sweating on my birthday!  Tuesday was not as stormy, but we had rain on and off and a delightful breeze, so I went through the whole day not feeling hot.  I'll take that as a birthday present from God!

We had been planning to visit one of the high-end resorts around here and just see what we could find to do/eat/drink, but because of the weather, that plan is on hold.  We might get to do that tomorrow morning, and my birthday celebrating won't be officially over until we have, but on my birthday instead of relaxing on a beach, we went oven shopping!  We'd been deliberating about whether or not we would try to do without an oven while we're here, but we came into unity about it when I mentioned to Tim that we wouldn't be able to make Christmas pies without one.  He was willing to take a pass on cake and hold off on cookies; he was ready to say no to home-baked pizza, but it turns out that "pie" was the magic word.  So we went to an appliance shop and laid out 1.3 million for the largest oven we could find.  It's got a rotisserie fork I'll enjoy figuring out, and a convection setting, but it's barely large enough to hold a 9x13 pan.  That's okay, though, because I don't have a 9x13 pan!

All this talk about ovens leads me to my best birthday present of all: a chef!  I am super excited about this one.  Her name is Lan, and she recently moved back to Da Nang after living in Italy for 8 years. Her husband is Italian, and not only has Lan been trained as a chef in Italy and worked in restaurants there, she's also been trained by her Italian mother-in-law to cook homestyle Italian food.  Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought I would come to Vietnam to have a Vietnamese woman come over and fill my fridge with Italian food.  I have definitely dreamed of having a chef at work in my kitchen, but this whole thing takes on an even more dreamlike quality when you make it an Asian chef making Italian food.  I'm just tickled about the whole thing.  She'll be coming twice a week, at least for now, and she cooks for about 3 hours and makes about 3 complete meals.  I complimented her on how much she was able to get done in that amount of time, and she just laughed and said in the restaurant she would have done much more.  She's planning to open a restaurant here, so we don't know how long she'll be available to us, but for now I am just loving that we get to do this.  The fact that she started on my birthday is the cherry on top.  We got to sit down to a lovely pork roast with rosemary potatoes, asparagus bundles wrapped in ham, and a very tasty tossed salad. (I know you're all dying to know but are afraid to ask:  she charges us $10 plus ingredients.)



After oven shopping and before dining, I got to have a free haircut from an American girl who's part of a team that's passing through.  It just feels nice to have a haircut on your birthday, right?  And after lunch Michael took me out for bubble tea.  We recently discovered a place that has dophin-shaped jellies, along with hearts and butterflies, and if that doesn't sound like magical birthday food, I don't know what does.  It was pouring rain most of the time we were there, and we enjoyed watching the rain and the traffic from the second floor balcony.

The key to living your birthday to the fullest is to take every good thing that happens in the surrounding days as being a birthday present.  Using that method, our landlord gave me a hot water heater in my bathroom for my birthday!  Until now we've had showers that were whatever temperature the water happened to be at the time.  Our water is in a tank on the roof, and so when the weather is hot and sunny, the shower you take in the middle of the day is the warmest.  Not hot, but a pleasantly warm temperature.  The morning shower was cooler, but not unbearable. We were perfectly satisfied with this method at first, but as soon as the weather turned a little cooler and we didn't have the sun beating down on the water tank, our morning showers especially got a little nippy!  Now we have water heaters in each bathroom, and we can choose to take whatever temperature is coming out naturally, or add some hot to it.  My first hot shower in over a month was a happy birthday moment.  I'm sure I didn't turn it as hot as I would have in the States, but it was nice to be able to choose the temperature.

Also this week we hired a girl to help us clean once a week.  Our neighbor had just hired her, but she didn't want her every day.  She "persuaded" us to hire her for one day a week so we could keep her fully employed and happy in the neighborhood.  It was a humbling experience for me.  I mean, I love the idea of someone else doing my cleaning, but it's still a little embarrassing knowing they're seeing all your dirt--yes, there was a bit of a gasp when she swept out what was under the couch.  I don't have a high standard in the US, but I don't exactly know what the standard is here, so I don't know what she's thinking as she goes through each of our rooms.  I do know that we're supposed to be doing our floors every day, and we definitely don't.  Like all Asian countries I know about, there's an expectation here that you will remove your shoes upon entering any house.  However, unlike China, it's not the host's responsibility to provide slippers for you, so every floor is supposed to be barefoot clean at all times.  That's taking some getting used to since we do have 4 flights of stairs to keep swept!  I swallowed my pride and remembered that it's birthday week and accepted all of the cleaning as a birthday present. I really am grateful for the help.  So are the kids!

This is my neighbor, Thu.  She's a high school teacher, and would you
believe the beautiful dress she's wearing is her school uniform?

We're almost to the point where we'll measure our time here in months instead of weeks.  It's like when you have a newborn baby: at first, you know his age in hours.  Then days.  The first week seems like a lifetime (I guess it is the baby's lifetime!), but you put one feeding after another and somehow make it to week two.  You finally start to pick up some momentum as soon as you've hit the one month mark.  We're at the end of our 5th week in our house, our 6th in Vietnam, and pretty soon when people ask us how long we've been here, we'll be saying "Two months."  That feels good. Life isn't as hard; things aren't as strange; we're feeling more rested.  We definitely still feel the newness of this change we've made, but we don't feel so clumsy or like our brains are exploding.  Thank you all for your prayers and for cheering us on!

Birthday Mochi Sweets
These are the chocolate creams of Asia--delicious chewy bundles with fruity or chocolaty fillings.