Lance and Kristen Baker

The other day we had Nga and her girls over again. About a week before they came Nga sent me a text message asking if she could come over. My Vietnamese language skills are still not amazing, so I couldn’t really understand why. They came in so excitedly and happy. Nga ran over to me and opened a bag. Inside was a beautiful pink scarf. I’m not really a pink person (despite what you saw in our Thanksgiving football photo), but this scarf is more than just a pink scarf. A few weeks ago I saw another scarf she made and commented on how beautiful it was and asking her about how she made it. Then, that evening she came in with one just for me. I know she worked on it hard too because she works 8 hours a day (6am – 2pm), goes to the market, cooks and cleans at her house, and cares for 3 young girls. When did she find the time to knit me a scarf? It really blessed me!

After I tried on my scarf and took a picture in it Nga began cooking dinner. She is my age, but can cook 100 times better than me. She really knows her way around the kitchen. I’m usually behind her wringing my hands wondering how I can help and trying to guess her next move to get a pot, pan or spices. I try to watch to learn how she makes the dishes (they’re always so delicious) but she’s so fast! After she did some prep work we sat down on the floor to begin the main dish. The only thing I could think of when I saw it was “Vietnamese pierogies” (she told me later they’re called “bánh bột lọc” ) We took a small piece of shrimp and tucked it in the dough and pinched in closed. For every one I made, Nga made 3. I think I can make it again, now it’s just a matter of finding the ingredients in the market…

While we were cooking Lance and the girls were making Christmas ornaments in the other room. An Thu was pretty good at it. As soon as Lance taught her to make one she had caught on and made 3-4 more within a matter of 10 minutes!

I don’t know what it is about our time with Nga and her girls but it is always really special.  Nga’s family is extremely poor but her happiness and positivity is so contagious!  It’s so weird to think that all of our time together and the special friendship we have is all because Lance and I decided to talk to the lady who cleaned and mopped the floors at our school last year.  (If you don’t remember, we first met Nga at our school last year.  She worked for the cleaning company that cleaned our school building.  She seemed friendly and both Lance and I tried to talk to her on separate occasions.  Eventually, I offered to help teach her English and she would come over to our house a few times a month with her girls to study.)  Here we are 6-months later!  Just goes to show, you never know what may come from a simple conversation or hello to someone.

This is just a quick post on food. Below are some things that we’ve been eating.

1.  Snails
Our neighbor cooks and sells snails near the beach.  On two different occasions she has brought some over for us to eat.  They actually have a really good flavor which we enjoy.  There are two ways to eat them, either suck really hard on the opening to suck the snail out or use a toothpick to pull the snail out.

2. Jack fruit and… well I’m not sure?
Our neighbor also brought this over for us one night. It seriously took me a few minutes to come to terms with the fact that there were actually big juicy bugs inside (and not by accident). Kristen and I both thought of The Lion King.

3.  Fish, Rice and Vegetables
Kristen has gone to the market a few times with our neighbor Sĩ and Sĩ offered to come over to show Kristen how to cook fish. Here, you have to buy the whole fish. Upon purchase, they gut the fish and scrape some of the scales off and its yours. Much different from going to the supermarket and buying a boneless fish fillet. This is a pretty typical meal – rice, fish, vegetables, and nước mắm (fish sauce with garlic, lemon, chilies and a bit of sugar).

So the fish doesn’t look very appetizing in the picture but it’s delicious!

Fish soup for breakfast.  I think the thing I crave most from the U.S. is a good bowl of cereal!

Renting a House

We started off the day to day by meeting with our real estate representative.  He had two houses to show us.  We did our best to follow him through traffic, he must have been pretty confident that we’d keep up because he rarely looked back and drove full force!  The first house we looked at was very nice.  It was newly built but very simple.  It was a single story, one-bedroom house with two small garden areas out the front and side.  A single story house isn’t really all that common, in Vietnam they build their houses tall so this house is actually quite small compared to other houses in the city.  Tw0, three and four story houses are commonplace.  The second house was also nice but it had three bedrooms, three floors and three bathrooms (way more than we need) and it was a little far from where we’d like to live.

Oh, I should also say a little something about the whole real estate thing.  Typically, finding a house to rent is one of the most challenging tasks here in Vietnam.  Most houses here are rented by word of mouth or by just putting a small poster on the front of the house.  So first you have to actually locate a house somehow and then you have to ask a Vietnamese friend to go with you to the house to help translate.  It is a very tedious and frustrating process.  Thankfully, some friends of ours who have been here for over 10 years told us about a real estate place in town.  We figured out where it was and paid them a visit.  To our surprise it was managed by a western man from Washington, D.C.  We sat down and told them what we were looking for.  The next day a young Vietnamese man, Loc, called us and said he had a couple of houses to show us.  So, we feel like we have one good option and hope that he’ll call us back in a day or town with a few options on the other side of the river!

Back at Our Friend’s House

This is the view from our room where we are currently staying.

When we got back to the house in the evening the three girls came up to our room to visit.  They were so cute.  The two older girls (4 and 7) sat on the bed with Kristen and practiced some English words.  Then we tossed a ball around and played for a while.  I think they are really fascinated by the foreigners who live in their house.  They were practicing some animal words in English and “monkey” and “snake” happened to be two of them.  The oldest girl pointed out the window to the mountain/forest just outside out window indicating that both monkeys and snakes lived there – reassuring.

At one point the whole family was in our room.  I think the adults were talking about our room and what it needed.  I really hope they don’t buy anything else for our room because we don’t know how much longer we will be staying here.  The nanny inspected all the rooms and asked Kristen how many times she cleaned the floor.  She approved.

Kristen helping the oldest daughter practice English.

Smiling for the camera.

The youngest!

Exploring
One of the things I love about Vietnam is the wealth of “hidden treasures.”

I spent a couple hours riding my bike around this afternoon sticking to streets that I have never gone down before. We are always trying to take inventory of where things are.

“Nguyen Chi Thanh is the street with many ice cream shops, Japanese restaurants and an beautiful ancient-looking cafe.”

“Quan Trung street sells tons of bicycles.”

“Le Duan has a good place to get Che and fried bananas.”

and so on…..

As I was riding down some smaller streets today I discovered a new market. This is one of the little hidden treasures I am talking about.

The street looked like it went nowhere special but before I knew it I was in a hustling and bustling market area. There was an alley full of fruit stands and an indoor marker full of clothes, vegetables, meat and a random assortment of things.

Back At the Market
I headed back home, told Kristen about the new market and we headed back to do some shopping. We bought a beautiful variety of plump red tomatoes, massive onions, husky cucumbers, sweet limes and bright green lettuce. Just what we have been looking for!

While picking out our vegetables, a young lady started talking to us in English. We found out that she runs a local bar in town and knows a lot of foreigners- so her English was quite good. She told us that this is the best market in town because they charge everyone the same price. (Everywhere else we go they charges us more because we are foreigners.) She said that we were getting the same price that she was.

We were elated as we rode home with our bounty of vegetables. This was exactly what we needed. The local supermarket just doesn’t have a great selection of fresh vegetables and our experiences in the other markets just haven’t been that successful.

Now, we know exactly where we can go to get fresh vegetables for a fair price (and we love supporting the market sellers over the supermarkets).

The other fun thing about the market is that once you find a seller that you like, you always return to that seller. So you sort of build a relationship with the person you buy your food from, which I find to be such a joy. Another perk is that the more you return to that seller, the more likely you are to get a better price over time.

So we feel like today has been a very successful day!

———————————

A Note About Pictures
Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of pictures of some of the places we talk about. We will try to get some pictures of the market in the future.

I love taking pictures, but I am pretty shy about pulling out my camera in public. I always feel like I am making a spectacle out of their everyday life (or I feel like a gawking tourist). I am still trying to find that tactful balance.