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.
We never really know what to expect going into the holidays. Thankfully, we had a wonderful thanksgiving with friends this past week. Our day started off with a game of football on the beach–because it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without some American football right? It was the Seahawks (we have some Washington people here) verses the Hello Pandas (I [Kristen] happened to be wearing a Hello Panda shirt). At the last minute of the game the Hello Pandas managed to score one more touchdown to win the game! 21-14!
For our Thanksgiving meal, we were invited to the Brewer’s house. There ended up being 30 of us all together! We ate some amazing turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn pudding, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, salad, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, apple cider, and probably more that I can’t even think of. To all you Americans, that sounds normal, but for us living overseas it was a small slice of heaven.
It was a restful Thanksgiving holiday. We had Thursday and Friday off of work since a majority of us are American. On Friday afternoon we were around our house all morning (usually we’re at the office) so my neighbor asked me why we weren’t at work. At the time I hadn’t learned the Vietnamese word for “holiday,” so I just said “we don’t work today” (which was already obvious since we were at home). That evening we had three of the Brewer girls over for a sleepover. We spent the evening walking along the beach and went back for more fun the next morning. Overall, it was a beautiful holiday.
The staff at Promise House informed us that some of the children were complaining that they were cold. The damp, wetness of the rainy season really makes it feel colder than it is. Orphan Voice saw this as a good opportunity to pitch in and help the children get new warm coats.
The coat store we went to was at the nearby market, about half a mile away. It would be chaos to try and take 22 children to the market at once, so we ended up transporting 3-4 children at a time. Three of the older children rode their bicycles back and fourth and I (Lance) drove the motorbike back and fourth taking one child at a time. There’s really no way to describe driving down the middle of the market street. The street is about the width of two sidewalks, crowded with people and full of mud puddles. Also, there’s really no place to park, so you just have to try and squeeze the motorbike in as close as you can to the store so it’s out of the busy street. Every time I came back to the coat shop I felt a sigh of relief, “Whew! I did it again.”
The girls helping with transportation.
Since I was a little faster on the motorbike, I (and whichever child was on the motorbike with me) would often pass the other children on their bicycles. We would smile and wave, sometimes the kids would yell something at each other as we passed by.
At the shop they had all the coats ready in a back room. The children would pick out a color, try it on and pick out a pair of gloves. They were pretty excited to be getting brand new, colorful, warm coats. Even though it was actually a bit warmer the day we bought the coats, many of the children wore their coats for most of the morning.
Afternoon Crafts
After lunch, we planned to do some crafts and origami with the children since most of them don’t go to school on Saturdays. We had a few different origami projects but of course the project that was the most popular was also the most tedious. Everyone wanted to make paper beads to make necklaces and bracelets. Kristen and I spent about 3 hours cutting little paper triangles and rolling them up to make little beads.
It was fun to see them get excited about making something. We will have to plan more craft Saturdays in the future. Which also reminds me, if you are interested in sending a small package of craft supplies, we could definitely use them. There are a lot of things that are hard to find here. Feel free to email us if you feel led to do so!
Earlier this week we went up to the girls room at Promise House to see what they were up to. We caught a glimpse of them singing and dancing but quickly stopped when they saw us and told us that we couldn’t see. After inquiring for a minute or two, they explained that we could see on Thursday (two days later).
When we came on Thursday, they invited us up to their room where they performed their song and dance for us. They ended up doing their songs 3-4 times because every time they messed up they would say, “Sorry, sorry!” and start over again. It was adorable. The best part about it was that they wanted to sing and dance for us. We felt special knowing that they thought about us and wanted to do something for us.
The other day we attended our first Vietnamese wedding! Well, we actually didn’t get to go to the actual ceremony, that was for close friends and family. However, we did get to attend the reception. There were 500-600 people there. It was so beautiful. The wedding was on a Monday, not typical for Americans, but common here in Vietnam. At first we weren’t sure we could make it. A Monday? What about work? Well, it turns out the reception was during the lunch hour, that way everyone could make it! We got there around 11:30 and got back to work right on time, 1:30pm.
There were so many courses served. This is a picture of some tasty duck (or was it chicken?) that we had with one course.
A beautiful dish of duck with heart-shaped rice and a red-pepper flower
The bride, our former co-worker at school last year, was so beautiful. There were so many people at the reception that I didn’t think we would get to see her to talk to her, but after everyone finished eating she came outside and took some pictures with us.
The newly married couple!
Dung and the girls
I miss our VATC friends. Here are some of the girls we got to see again.
Me and some of the VATC girls-- I miss them!
Alice, another good friend. She was recently married this past summer.
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