Sundy and Monday- March 21 & 22, 2010

What's in the pictures - 2 pictures of the lake we spent Sunday at; Ho Chi Minh's picture and/or statue is absolutely everywhere; Yes, it is a paper mache helicopter set up at the celebration sight at the park for independence day; this is the conical hat light fixture - with red light bulbs nonetheless!!!






Hey – as you are all sleeping away it’s time here to catch up on the last couple of days.

Sunday we all went to Phu Nunh Lake. There were 8 of us and we were sure to get a larger taxi this time! It is a beautiful lake about 30 minutes by cab from the GVN House. As we were heading to the lake we came to some railroad tracks and there was a train going through. There is a person who has the job of pulling out the chain link fence that keeps people from going across the tracks during a train passing. When the train was through, he pushed open each fence – one to the right and one to the left. No automation around here!! Upon first seeing the lake it reminded me a lot of Shasta – very large – red dirt around the edges. I could just imagine it with houseboats on it.

We walked down into the lake after paying to enter – less than $2.00 US for all of us. We had a table made of stone and made ourselves at home! The lake felt WONDERFUL! The water was clean and crisp – not cold all over, just in spots. I stayed in there for about an hour. It felt soooooo good. No sweating – just refreshment!

Ms. Hanh and Grandma had packed us a nice lunch so we sat in the shade and ate that. There was quite a boisterous group down below us and Ms. Hahn and Grandpa knew a couple of the men. Later on in the day they invited us to come sit with them. There’s no saying no when they offer you something – this time it was a WARM beer. Well, that was just the best??? Gave me a whole new appreciation for refrigeration!! One gentleman in particular was pretty animated and sang a lot – he just busted out in song every once in a while! Pretty funny. They were all eating this little tiny shells that have a small hole in them – they get a pointed needle off a tree branch and poke it into the hole and pull out the tiniest little fish. Still not sure what they are but I finally tasted one – really salty – a bit like a snail – but raw of course. I’m passing next time both on that and the warm beer!!

We came home all relaxed and cooled off. A few of us went to the Home of Affection and did eye tests on the 33 children there. Out of all of them, only 4 need a vision check and 3 of those 4 already have glasses so their eyes are in pretty good shape. Now where they go to the eye checker or when is another story! I’ll keep you posted – things don’t happen here in the blink of an eye – takes a lot of communication time to go through necessary processes.

After dinner Amber, Julie and I went down to the large city park. It was the opening night of Independence Day celebrations. The park is full of ‘buildings’ built of cane branches and straw with lots of Christmas Lights on them, bridges, seating areas, the flag of Vietnam, and on top of everything, always is a picture of Ho Chi Minh. He is absolutely everyone’s idol!! He’s dead, and the country has a new president, but he is still and always will be the hero to everyone. There was of course music and dancing on the stage that had been built. There were speakers. The evening was a tribute to the youth of Quong Nam Province and each little commune was represented by students all standing in individual lines with a sign at the front of the line telling which province they were from. There were a couple of tables and chairs for dignitaries. We just meandered through the crowd. It was the first time I’ve been in one place, with perhaps 3 thousand people, and everyone had the same color of hair except me! All black and almost all of the women’s was long. And, people stared at us, smiled and spoke to us a lot. We were the only white folks there. It was a bit of a strange feeling even though the staring was done in the nicest way and for a nice reason. As I’ve said before, it’s going to be strange to look like everyone else when I get home!! The questions that are always asked of us are our name, where we are from and our age. And they usually say we look younger than our age so it’s OK by me!! We hung out there for about 1.5 hours then headed back to the house.

Randall has been so sick since Friday. Thinking it’s a parasite now as he drank some water that he shouldn’t have drank. Again, I’m still the healthy one!!! Randall went to the Dr. – ultrasound, examination, drugs, and a diagnosis - $6.00 US! He said it was really clean and professional and the Dr. spoke a little bit of English.

Taught at HOA tonight and then just a quiet evening to get ready for some celebrations tomorrow! Have a wonderful day – love all those special people in your lives and be so grateful for the life that you have!!!

More later!! Tam Biet from Vietnam!!