'Nam my usual cup of tea

We are settling nicely into our Vietnamese small-town groove. Tamar continues to go out on adventures while I potter about within a 1-km radius, so she has more excitement to write about. Meanwhile, I get to discover very small yet satisfying aspects of life here, usually with Tova and/or Zadie on half-hour outings. Here are a few little things from the last two days. 

This morning, while Zadie and Tova shared a hideously sweetened milk beverage, they saw a large rat scurrying into a house across the street. Zadie wanted to hurry over and make friends with it. Tova wanted to get a cat to eat it. I said “you know, a cat that’s good at catching mice is called a mouser.” Tova answered, “they should call it a cancer. That’s like cat and mouse together!”

Then we walked 1km to the market alley to buy rambutan. On the way I heard a wet hissing noise. In the back of a bodega shop, a thin man sat at an industrial bandsaw with a block of ice the size of a large brick. He smiled at the girls while his hands continued to work around the lethal blade. Within seconds, he’d diced the ice block into perfect cubes, and we went on our way 

The front stoop of our house has a lineup of coconut husks. It’s been hot lately, and just down the street is a woman with a machete and a huge pile of coconuts. The girls stagger home under its weight, trying to drink while they walk. 

We all went for a walk down the beach, which is a far cry from Australia. Erosion has gutted the beach, so two rows of sandbags three feet high now stretch down the shoreline. The girls were of course thrilled, and Tova turned beet-red from running and jumping on the walls. A Ukrainian friend of mine in Canberra’s farewell gift was a book of lateral thinking puzzles, and Aurora and Tamar had a good time trying to guess the answers. 

Then, yesterday afternoon, an ancient raisin of a man came tottering towards Tova. “Bong jour?” he asked. When I answered in French his face burst into a smile of pure delight. We chatted quite comfortably for a few minutes, even Tova reluctantly answering a few questions in her kindergarten French. My first conversation with a local! Yay for colonialism, I guess. 

Last night Aurora was totally wired from a carb-heavy dinner and leftover cake. She read aloud from a Louis Sachar book doing great voices, and generally filled the house with energy. Then the girls got hysterical during Dungeons and Dragons: they awoke the pyramid’s guardian, a Skeleton King, by rolling a very unfortunate 1. Sophia tried to hug it and got clobbered on the head with its sceptre, at which point she burst into tears. Aurora tried to stick her sword into its hip joint and pop its leg off using leverage, which was pretty creative. Finally Tova threw a sleeping potion at it, which has slowed it down.

Tamar and the older girls are in town now, trying a silent tea house run by deaf staff, then doing a murder mystery around town, run by two eleven year old girls. Zadie and Tova have been suspiciously quiet, so I’d better go see what they’re up to. 

Scrambling on the beachhead

She's going to have deep smile lines if this keeps going

Tova's starting to try chapter books