Shopping in flooded Hanoi

This morning I needed some groceries for a dinner I am preparing tonight. Some friends from the Australian Embassy are coming over and it's just not like America when you plan a menu. I have to make several contingency plans depending on what I can find at the store. Things happen to be worse right now because the outlying areas of Hanoi are completely flooded! So, nothing fresh from the countryside is coming in. I noticed this on Saturday morning as the selection in the alley market next to our house was really picked over. I extra-bleached everything when I came home : )

So, I just drove for 2 hours through flooded streets trying to get to the "Costco-type" stores of Hanoi. There are two. I went to "Metro" first only to find the parking lot was a lake, literally. There were about 5 people wading through the water that was up to the top of their legs. Crazy!

So I headed off to "Big C" only to find that my one-way road was flooded and there was only one way to get through...drive. Today I am very grateful that we have a SUV. I got to Big C only to find that their parking lot was a lake too, and the road that leads back to my house was totally closed off. I finally found another street to take me home, which was fine except for one part had the deepest water I've ever driven through. I pulled over to watch other brave SUVs drive through it. I also saw many turn around to find an alternate route. After watching a truck stall in the middle of the water, I made sure a few more SUVs made it through before going myself.

I am happy to say that I'm home, I'm dry and I was able to go to 2 small grocery stores and our local alley way to get enough ingredients to pull a somewhat okay dinner together for tonight. Want to come? We're having carrot soup, homemade pasta with creamy tomato sauce, and steamed zuccini for our veggie. The zuccini was plan D, but it looked fresh, so I guess we can be glad for that. Random thought, but let me say that the first thing I am buying when I get back to America is a bag of frozen chicken breasts at Costco! Oh the joy of that!

Rain is falling all around...

We are recovering from a typhoon that has been hitting Hanoi since Thursday night last week. Friday was unbelievable! I sat through my language class and could hardly believe gigantic black clouds that rolled in and made the sky even darker. This was seriously "curl up in pajamas and drink hot chocolate" weather. I love a good storm and this was fun to watch and made me really grateful to be dry in my home. I'm glad we weren't having to be tourists during this storm! Here are some cool photos Christian downloaded over the weekend... The worst-hit area was right in front of the embassy. The papers called it "the river of Lang Ha." They ended up shutting down the embassy at 3:30 and sending everyone home last Friday.


Our balcony has been leaking water in the middle of our living room through the fire alarm. Crazy huh! This has been happening for months whenever we get a good rainstorm. Well, last week they removed all the tiles and have begun the month-long process of re-tiling the balcony. With the lack of tiles and the abundance of rain, we've had our very own private waterfall inside our house: ) We're choosing to laugh about it rather than cry. We've upgraded from buckets to our American-sized trash can which seems to catch all the drips for a few hours.

One more thing...we have five de-humidifiers in our home. I've been meaning to blog about this fora while because it is so baffling to me, but I empty them every morning and night, which means we remove about 10 gallons of water out of our household air per day.

Deodorant

While sitting at the kitchen table working with Emma on her reading words, we realized that Xander was all too quiet. We went on a search and found him in the bathroom putting on deodorant! He's a little too young for it, but just copying what he sees mom and dad do.

Driving

We've been driving our car in Hanoi. The first time we drove to church, Christian asked: "doesn't it feel like we're going fast?" I answered: "Yes, it really does, how fast are we going?" Answer: 20 miles per hour!

It's just that crazy here : ) It's like driving amidst a swarm of bees. People weaving in and out of both lanes and driving all over the road. Nobody drives in a straight line. At a stoplight, (especially during rush hour) people cram into every available inch of space in order to make it through the light when it turns green. When we were driving home from parent teacher conferences last night I felt closter phobic in my own car!

It's actually polite to honk here as a courtesy to other drivers on the road - people just DON'T look around them when they drive, even when merging or turning. I rarely pass a motorbike without honking. Somehow I feel that if I honk 2-3 brief times it is more polite. I remember in the States, if someone would honk at me, I'd often get tears in my eyes because it was so offensive to me: "What? Are you saying I've done something wrong???"

These are some funny things I have seen in the past few days. A motorbike loaded up with mannequin parts. Bodices, heads, arms, etc. were strapped all over his bike, but the thing that was hilarious was that he had the long legs sticking out over his handle bars with the hips resting against his own stomach. From a side view it looked like he was driving his scooter with his own legs sticking over the handle bars. I wished I had the camera!

Today I saw the biggest "banana boat" of a scooter in my life. Imagine a skinny scooter with two ladies perched on it with huge three-foot round, four-foot tall baskets loaded FULL of green bananas on each side, and one strapped on the back. This time I did have the camera, but even going 20 mph it is dangerous to attempt to take a photo while driving.

Here are a couple photos from a blog Christian likes called HanoiJake. We love Vietnam.

Playing Cards & Goldfish

Tonight as we were brushing teeth, Emma said: "Mom, Satan is bad and Jesus and Heavenly Father are good. When they play cards, Jesus and Heavenly Father always win because they are stronger." My response with a straight face: "...humm, I bet you're right."

I love my kids and I must apologize for not keeping up with our blog. My intention was to post a little something every day, but obviously I haven't met that goal lately. I'll do better.

On the way to church last Sunday we passed a bike peddler selling pet fish. I was able to snap this photo of him. He looked at me as if he had no clue as to why I found him so interesting. I smiled and waved a thank you to him.

Visit to Special Needs School in Danang

During Christian's recent trip to Danang, the main highlight of his trip easily was his visit to a special needs school for mentally and physically handicapped children run by the Catholic Church. The school cares for children with all types of disabilities, caring for kids with disabilities from cerebral palsy to being hearing impaired. These children are largely at the margins of society and are neglected and ignored. They are prohibited from attending "normal" school.

It was truly touching to see the love that the nuns give to the 150+ children that attend the school. Some of the children live far outside the city and only go home one or two weekends a month. Christian was lucky to meet each of the children individually in their classrooms and to interact with them. Above are pictures of some of the students. On the left are some students practicing writing. Above right, Christian is interacting with some deaf high school students. They were very sharp and loved asking Christian questions about the United States. The school is really lacking in financial support since it is completely self-funded. The Embassy this year gave a small grant to assist the school but it really functions on a shoe string budget.

Christian's Travels

Sorry for not updating the blog more recently, Christian has been traveling for the last couple of weeks and life has been a bit hectic. A little over 2 weeks ago, Christian went to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) for work meetings. He loved the vibrancy and beauty of the city and looks forward to going back sometime soon. Above is an example of some of the magnificent French architecture that still stands in Saigon (above left). His travels also took him to Danang where he met with local officials and religious leaders. Since the war, Danang has really thrived and is a large and growing city (above right). During his meetings, Christian had the opportunity to tell city officials of Grandpa Bitter's history of being stationed in the area. All in all, it was a fun trip for Christian. He is packing his bags again as we speak and will spend a couple of days this week in the Central Highlands in Pleiku meeting with local officials and more religious leaders. He hopes that his travel schedule calms down a bit after this next trip.