My Hostess is worried about me not seeing enough temples for my independent project so this morning we left early to visit a local temple. Which was closed. So instead I arrived at school early and got to listen to Deanna's story of woe. She rarely complains about anything so if she is upset by something, there is definite good reason for it. Last week her host student copped out the night before we were supposed to stay with our families. She ended up staying at Sally's house for the first two nights and slept over with Alessa last night. With good reason. Sally has five cats and no litter boxes so they go to the bathroom everywhere and everyone sleeps on the floor and the house is very small so they sleep close together. Except the little sister who kept trying to sleep on Deanna. Everyone at the house was rude to her and she was too upset to go back to Sally's house on Sunday so she went home with her original host sister and hopefully I will not see Sally anytime soon or else I will be very cross with her.
Some of the students from the college gave us a presentation on Agent Orange. In a nut shell, this was the US trying to destroy the forests of Vietnam using dioxin which causes cancer and birth defects. There are a few places around Vietnam that are set up to deal with the children born to parents who have been infected with dioxin but the government doesn't provide enough funding and the US refuses to acknowledge they are responsible for this so they don't have to pay. One of the things I am noticing in most of the classes we visit is that only one or two of the students respond when we ask questions but the rest of the class is talking to each other.
In the elevator today Lilith, Deanna, Donna and I were about to ride up to the room. Then mischievousness struck.When you get out of an elevator it is a common prank to push all the other buttons. Instead, I pushed all the buttons on the way up to our floor. Deanna and Donna took it as a joke but you could feel the loathing rolling off Lilith in waves so much it scared the others. I am not sad to say it made me happy to make her angry. I am a terrible person, but she is worse. One story the host students keep talking about often is how when Lilith showed up at her host's house she asked for potato chips. When none were given she asked to be taken to the bar. Now that she has gone back to the hotel today the girl said her parents are much happier and she is telling everyone she survived. I wish I could meet that host and shake her hand for how well she handled Lilith.
During class our teacher taught us some songs (instead of teaching us Vietnamese). Drexler is firm that we all perform together.Problem is I'm already in two acts and possibly a third. He won't listen to me so I feel some spontaneous interpretive dancing while be done during the song.
After school my host student gave ma a lesson on riding her moped around (I was wearing a helmet the whole time)!! It was so difficult and nerve wracking. Then she climbed on the back so I had to balance with two people driving around in a not deserted area while trying not to kill her engine. I lasted about ten minutes. She says that I am good but not a genius at it. As a reward she bought me strawberry jam and bread. We're giving it another shot in a few days. We also visiting a temple where there was a statue of a woman everywhere. Hostess couldn't explain it so she looked it up for me when we returned to her house. The temple is devoted to one of the most famous woman followers of Buddhism who was made into a god after her last life. Vietnamese people would know who I am talking about. You could tell that even though it was a small temple it was rich because of the ponds and the plants everywhere. The nuns there wanted to be helpful as well.
On the way back home we passed an old woman sitting by the road and because Hostess is so sweet she turned around and bought all the fruit the woman was selling. You should be wearing jeans to eat this because you rub it against jeans very lightly to get rid of the bumps on the outside. It's very sour so Vietnamese people put salt on it to make it sweeter. Strange thing is it actually works.
The water is still turned off so cooking and washing dishes has become harder than before. Plus, the brother showed his real colors today and they are not pretty. I'm thankful my Hostess is so nice. We ate duck for dinner and the mom gave me my own separate bowl of vegetables. It's strange to be mothered again. Really sure I don't like it. Don't get me wrong, she is very nice, even tried to help me with some Vietnamese homework (She doesn't speak much English but she made it make more sense than the teacher does). The dog is used to me as well so I can be out in the yard when he is out. He is such a sweet heart .I had to run downstairs a little bit ago for some water and when I closed the refridgerator I noticed the largest spider I have ever seen outside a zoo, about as big as my hand. Had to stop myself from running up the stairs and into my room it freaked me out so much.
I have been recieving a lot of spam from Anonymous comments lately so I've been forced to remove that option but thank you for 100+ pageviews today!!
Picture Count: 45
Lizard Count: 24 Saw one on the wall of a temple. First sighting in Vietnam.
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