Geckos and Goats

Life in Can Tho (pronounced Can Tuh) has been going pretty well. It’s a city of about one million people in the Mekong Delta. I understand that there are up to 100 foreigners who live here, but I have yet to see any others besides Alice (another volunteer with Heifer) and myself. People are very friendly, though. Perhaps it is because, as I have now been informed on several different occasions, I look somewhat Vietnamese. I do have to say my 5’1.5” self(Yes, it’s true! As of my last doctor’s appointment, I have apparently shrunk ¼ of an inch…so sad!) is quite enjoying being of average height for once. I sometimes even find that I am the tallest one in a group! Nonetheless, I do get stared at, and people randomly shouting “HUHL-loooo!” as I walk down the street. The other day, I had this guy come right up to me and just stare. Vietnamese and Americans have different definitions of the term “personal space.”

I have been staying with Alice. She is lots of fun. She also happens to be from Bordeaux, so I am brushing up on my French. Alice and I also live with assorted bugs and some friendly geckos who eat the mosquitoes for us. The mosquitoes really aren’t as bad as I expected. I do, however, spend an awful lot of time at home and at the office killing ants. You can’t leave anything sitting out for even 2 minutes! There are several neighborhood kids who are really cute. The street is lively at night because many of them play out in the street until pretty late, which I suppose is because it’s relatively cool at that time.

For the most part, however, it’s so warm and air conditioning is so scarce that most doors remain open during the day (the doors generally slide open so that there is essentially no front wall to speak of during the day). Consequently, you can see straight into most of the homes. Many restaurants are located in front of people’s homes, so when you are sitting on your little plastic stool enjoying your meal, you are entertained by kids playing and assorted relatives are watching TV.

Alice’s flat is downtown near internet cafes and a shop where I buy my bottled water. I am becoming great friends with the family who runs the store. They tolerate me trying to practice a few of my Vietnamese phrases on them that I learned from my fabulous (insert sarcasm here) audio tapes (example to a lesson introduction from the language tapes: “You are an older American gentleman meeting a younger Vietnamese woman at a hotel bar in Hanoi…”). I do not ask them for “Two glasses of beer, please” as my language tapes suggest, but I can verify the price of items and say some basic greetings. They laugh, but I’m sure they’re laughing with me and not at me…really. :-)

Even if they are laughing at me it, doesn’t bother me because they have discovered that I have a sweet tooth. They now give me free samples from the glass jars containing cookies and candy. When I actually try to buy some of the sweets they won’t let me pay.

On Friday one of the daughters mustered the courage to practice her English with me. Her English skills are about on par with my Vietnamese capabilities, but after about 5 minutes we had established what our respective names are and that I am from the United States. When she didn’t have the vocabulary for her next question, she put me on her cell phone with a friend who speaks English more fluently. They wanted to know my address. I could not convey that I was only staying with a friend for the time being and would soon be moving, so I finally just took her next door and pointed to Alice’s flat. She then asked if she could come over to practice English sometime. Even though it’s not even my apartment, I really couldn’t turn her down. Her family gives me free cookies and candy after all. We decided she would come over on Sunday at 7.

She showed up promptly at 7 with 2 of her friends in tow. Here’s how it went:

1) One of the girls would pose a question.
2) I would respond at rate of speed so slow of which no one at home would have ever believed me capable.
3) The girls would whisper and giggle back and forth amongst themselves for approximately 1-2 minutes trying to choose and develop their next question.
4) The sequence would repeat.

This lasted for approximately one hour. It was amusing, though, and I appreciated their interest in practicing their English. We are getting coffee sometime next week.

I am also making some friends at work and learning to love the motorbike as they have given me many frees rides. It is great fun riding on the back. Even though you can still feel the sun baking your skin, the breeze provides a temporary respite from the heat. Although it does drive me insane when they try to talk to me while riding, because it's a little difficult to understand given the noise from the traffic and that the broken English with the Vietnamese accent that is muffled through the mask. What can you do, though?

The traffic here isn’t as bad as Saigon, but there are still plenty of interesting sights to be seen on the road. One of my favorite combos is the women riding their motorbikes in full sun protection gear with high heels, talking on the cell phone with their little dog sitting up front in their purse. There are also whole families who ride on a single moped together. I even saw one family of 4 who also had their goat riding on the back in a basket. I love it! I love it! I love it!

As much as I do enjoy the motorbike rides, I decided to buy a bicycle of my own so that I would not have to continually bum rides off of others. My bike comes complete with a bell and a great big basket on the front perfect for market purchases.

On Monday Alice and I began biking to work, and I felt oh-so-Vietnamese. Unfortunately, I discovered that my habit of acquiring flat tires is not unique to the Volvo in the States. Thanks to a friendly pho vendor, after much pointing and gesturing, we were able to locate an old gentleman on the side of the street who pulled some rubber out of his bag of tools and promptly changed my tire. He charged me 4000 VND which is the equivalent of about 25 cents. I’m still amazed by how comparatively cheap everything here is! It was a low price, high quality job, though, as I made it to the office shortly thereafter.

I am still getting oriented and establishing my exact role at work, so I’ll hopefully write more about that later. I am tired of typing and, if anyone has actually read this far, I’m sure you are tired of reading.

Much love, happiness and sunshine to whoever is reading!

Photos at the top:

1) Roommate [not Alice :-)]

2) and 3) Neighborhood kids