First night in HCMC home stay + Mekong Delta Continued

It is now about 8:30 PM and I am lying down in my mosquito tent on the wood platform that is my bed in my HCMC home stay. This morning we had three hours of Vietnamese language class and a two hour seminar on the economic transition in Vietnam. We had the opportunity to have lunch with a Fulbright scholar from UGA studying Anthropology (and who did her research over the last year about food insecurity in the Mekong Delta). We also met her husband who did an SIT program studying abroad in Samoa during his college career four years ago. This opportunity to hear about this woman's research, but most importantly her experience living in Vietnam, being challenged by the lifestyle here (as we all are as well), and the advice she was able to provide to ease this process for us were all such valuable things for me. Both she and her husband kept reiterating how amidst the challenges associated with living in this country, it is most important to find those moments where you feel inspired or those "gems" of experiences as he called them…learning how to do this is the most important part of living in a country so outside your comfort zone. They also emphasized how we have such a unique opportunity because of the nature of the SIT program to really step back from the tourist version of Vietnam and see, learn, and understand the reasons why ordinary people act and live the way they do here.

I can tell this blog could become a novel if I don't start focusing my ideas! My home stay move in went pretty well, although I think that is only because of my attitude towards it, rather than the actual situation. My home stay mom arrived on her moped to the guesthouse we have been staying at in HCMC decked out in her pink moped helmet, heels, and suit from work. It is clear that she is a very busy working woman, running around from work to picking up her two girls at school each day (in addition to all the other tasks associate with being a woman in a household in this country). Even though she was about half an hour late picking me up, I didn't really mind. Again, my whole 'go-with-the-flow and embrace all challenges' mindset really has begun to pay off. I've already noticed my greater confidence level in both myself and my ability to get by and be happy in this country. After a quick hug she informed me that she had to go pick up her girls from school, so I would take a taxi by myself to her apartment. I was pretty concerned about handling my two large suitcases and two backpacks by myself, but I somehow managed. Picture this, because it may be worth your laugh now that it has already happened and turned out okay.

I arrived at the infamous alleyway where they live, but the taxi dropped me off on the opposite side and around the corner from last time when I visited, so I was completely turned around. Wheeling two huge suitcases with a backpacking backpack on my back and my school backpack on my front, I wandered down this long, dark alley looking for the address number 100/22. In HCMC, if your address has a slash in it, it means it is located in one of these alleys. I really couldn't find the address so I managed to pull off to the side of the narrow alley as multiple mopeds whisked passed me eyeing me down. I asked a woman where the address was, showing her the written address to avoid speaking in a terrible English accent. She pointed me down one way and around the corner, and after about 5 minutes (and breaking a significant sweat), I arrived at the door of the apartment. Mr. and Mrs. Zoom were waiting for me and helped me carry all of my luggage up the three flights of concrete stairs to my room. Even though this family may not be the most wealthy or well off, they are such nice, hospitable, friendly, and caring people. I am really looking forward to these next two weeks so I can have some more time to myself and a little more down time with the family too. We have class everyday until 3:30 and I have dinner with my family at 5:30 PM (this early because Mr. Zoom teaches night classes and one daughter has an extra English class every night). This will allow me to explore this area of HCMC more as well. It is the edge of the backpacking district, so there are actually a lot of foreigners once you get out of the labyrinth of alleyways! Lots of coffee shops, stores, restaurants etc. Mrs. Zoom says there are lots of internet cafes nearby, so hopefully I will get some internet as well. After dinner, which was …let's just say much more typical northern VN food (Mrs. Zoom's mother cooked dinner and they are all from Hanoi). Less flavor, less spices. We had white rice, shrimp, green beans, small balls of chicken meat, a marble-y pork substance (which I ate because they said they made it especially for me…I can't even imagine what part of the pig this came from, nor do I want to know!), and a soup with pork stuffed pumpkin flowers. For dessert we had dragon fruit, which is the neon pink fruit with tentacle-like pieces on the outside and black and white soft, juicy fruit inside, and small segments of tangerines. After dinner, Mrs. Zoom and I sat down with a gigantic map of HCMC and all the districts and mapped out how I will walk to school tomorrow morning. I am also going to try out running in the nearby park, so we will see how it goes! In general though, I'm really happy so far. My family seems to be very busy and living very hectic lives, so I'm excited to have some more time to just hang out rather than be the center of attention of the home stay family, as I was in my other two home stays. To be honest, being hot all the time, never having hot water, sleeping in a mosquito net, eating mysterious meats for dinner, engaging in often awkward dinner table translated conversations, seeing people clean their toe nails with tooth picks on the side of the road, having cockroaches or gecko lizards in my room (or in your suitcase….this has happened too with multiple cockroaches) and having people stare at you all the time are all things that barely phase me anymore. I have learned to be much more calm inside so I can better deal with the often hectic, crazy, or unexpected things that happen outside. It may take me a little bit to get used to sleeping on a piece of wood or hearing everything from apartments across and beside this house (the apartments are so close together and the windows are large glass panes always open, so I can literally hear when someone across the alley sneezes or coughs), but these are all small, insignificant things in the long run. I really am optimistic about these next two weeks of getting to know my family and another district of this city. I am sad that right now in America my family is celebrating the first day of Rosh Hashanah and I am alone in a mosquito net with my laptop, but I have learned that it is all in the way you think about things. I may be alone, sweating like crazy, and contained in a mosquito net while my family celebrates one of my favorite holidays, but I am also in Vietnam… living, experiencing, and engaging in the most exciting period of my life so far…literally every day here has at the very least one significant memory that I will be able to recall my entire life, which is more consecutive memories like these than I have ever had in my life. So for all of this I am thankful, optimistic, and energized. I would write more, which I will do soon, but last night I bought all seven seasons of Sex and the City for 10 bucks (and it works perfectly), so I think I am going to treat myself to that tonight! Last night we also tried shopping at this cute clothing shop, but literally none of us (mind you, six petite American girls) could fit into any of the miniscule clothing items. I felt like I was shopping at Gap Kids or some other children's clothing store. We laughed our entire way home for sure. Good night world!