4th of July cocktail hour

As I sit here on the 4th of July under a thatched roof pavillion sipping my lime margarita listening to the tropical thunderstorms about to roll in, it occurs to me that this is water with fake lime margarita powder mix.  And I don't have my raincoat.  And apparently no one is interested in celebrating America's independence here.  Strange.  I've been overseas for US holidays before, and though it's always a little sad to be away from home, it's always pretty great when anyone acknowledges a US holiday abroad.  I remember being very sad on Thanksgiving in Australia when Colleen and I couldn't find turkey anywhere, so we had to settle on duck and 4 bottles of wine (and a "Happy Thanksgiving!" from a random Aussie on the street).  In France our study abroad group had to specially pre-order turkey from a restaurant there and even then it just didn't quite do the trick...but it was a very nice gesture.

So yesterday I was chatting with the other 3 Americans I'm working with here (Aly, Haley & Ryan) about how nice it would be to grill out and have hot dogs and hamburgers and some Sam Adams Summer Ale....and then explaining to our Vietnamese friends here what those things are.  And then today, at lunch, wouldn't you know- they got us special "hot dogs" (vietnamese style) wrapped in pastries just for the occasion.  And then as a surprise they sang Happy Birthday to America, to us.  And then we took a "train ride" around the camp which we deemed our own personal 4th of July parade.  This is one of the nicest 4th of July's ever!

So what else happened this week....  Well, I survived my first crazy tropical thunderstorm this week - trees blowing everywhere, lightning every 3 seconds, torrential downpour - and me and all my worldly possessions inside a tent.  I feel like I was justified in running around in a frenzy putting everything into waterproof bags and ordering people to prepare for the apocalypse.  Amazingly, my tent stayed dry through the whole night.  And I am confident that I did not overreact.

I am getting used to living in a tent with lizards and mosquitos and avoiding stepping on giant snails on my way to the bathroom.  I've become pretty speedy in terms of getting ready and making the most efficient use of my time (e.g. showering & washing my clothes at the same time, going to sleep in my clothes for the next day to bed so I can wake up ready to go at 6am).  It's kind of nice that the way I wake up is as good as it's going to get for me for the rest of the day- due to subsequent sweating and bug spray/sunscreen coatings- I think maybe I haven't seen a mirror in at least a week.  I'm trusting that these guys would tell me if I was walking around looking like a jerk though, so I think it's working out.

A few other things about Vietnam worth noting:

The French influence is still pretty evident here.  We have the option to eat fried eggs and a baguette for breakfast at camp.  I take them up on that option everyday, guilt free!  It is nice to have one meal a day that isn't all veggies/fish/unidentified meat and rice.  They tell me that we're weird for eating eggs and cheese and bacon as a typical American breakfast.  I tell them that we're rubber and they're glue.

The other day in Ho Chi Minh City I kept hearing the tune to Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  Naturally, I immediately went to find out where the glorious music was coming from.  It was a truck reversing down a street!  I sat down and just enjoyed the melody.  When I have a car one day, I definitely plan on installing that feature.

We get fruit with every meal here, and it's served with salt and pepper.  I guess it enhances the taste of the fruit.  This picture of our Camp Director Khanh shows an example of said fruit (this particular fruit looks like a koosh ball!).  I can appreciate the creativity of seasoning the fruit, but I can't say that I'm on board.

There are these amazing things called "crackets" that look like tennis rackets but have a button so you can fry mosquitos as you hit them.  I've become a bit "cracket-manic" and spend a good 15 minutes mosquito-hunting every night in my tent before bed (though it's kind of scary to see how many there are that I didn't know were there until I fry them).   But, overall, it IS kind of amazing to walk around smacking the air and seeing lots of crackles and sparks as you nail the mosquitos at night.  I think that tonight that will have to be our substitute for a "traditional" July 4th fireworks display.

Some new words I've learned, among many:

bless you = hut-see

hello = sin-chow

one, two, three = moh, hai, bow 

goodnight = no'n-gown

I have some more, but I don't know how to write/say them officially yet because it's hard for my new vietnamese friends to correct me when they are laughing at me for mispronouncing everything.  I should say, though, that the laughing situation here is pretty great - I feel like we spend most of our time laughing at each other, in the best possible way.  We have translators and sometimes there is a slight, hilarious disconnect in the translations.  For example, we were all sitting in a circle on the ground and all of a sudden this guy named Duc jumped up and started exclaiming something and looking around....I was like "what happened?!" and our lovely translator Nguyen turned to me and said very seriously, "A bird sent a message to Duc."  I am not sure the last time I laughed so hard, and I plan to use that exact wording for this situation moving forward.

Here is a picture of the Vietnamese camp staff I’m working with.  We finished our training today that we’ve been doing for the last 2 weeks straight....it's been so much work and I've been passing out from exhaustion every night, but it's the best kind of exhaustion.  And the kids will finally arrive tomorrow!  I am so happy to be in Vietnam at camp with such wonderful people.  I still can’t believe I’m actually here.

Happy 4th of July  - we just finished our staff dinner where I was in charge of the music – Frank Sinatra all night - I can’t express how lovely it was.  Please eat a hamburger and drink a Sam Summer for me!!