Kristi and Jeff are 2 American volunteers who teach English to our partners in the delta: province and district cadres, English teachers...
We live in a house on "Main Street", directly across the street from
the VN Plus office. Our landlady comes over every evening and sets up
a little street stall out front. She serves fertilized duck eggs and
homemade rice wine, plus a variety of dried fish. Her name is Sau
(6), she's sixty years old, and doesn't speak a word of English except "ok", "no", and "I don't know". She has an infectious smile and
laugh, is bossy and caring, and one of the most delightful people I've
ever met.
Every day she asks if I've eaten rice yet, then invites me to go
walking with her after she closes up shop. We're frequently joined by
her daughter and five year old grandson, a friend with a 13 year old
daughter, and sometimes Jeff. It's not much as far as exercise goes
(unless I let little Phuc Nguyen chase me), but we're out and moving
in the cool of the evening. We joke about Jeff and all his "girlfriends", about me and my new "boyfriend" (her grandson), and
just about everything else you can imagine. There's a lot of
gesturing and poking and arm grabbing, and we manage to have a great
time without a common language. Our little group spans the
generations, with people 5, 13, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years old.
Last month she pointed at the full moon and asked if we had this in my
country. She's full of questions. Some of them are the same every
day. "When do you go to sleep?" "When do you get up?" The answers to
these never fail to amuse her. She can't fathom sleeping past 5 or
6am. Most of her questions stem from curiosity about our personal
habits. The way I dress is always a topic of discussion. I don't
wear my clothes tight enough. Loose clothes are not "dep"
(beautiful), loose hair is not "dep", how much do I weigh, I'm very
fat. At least they think I look younger than I am, so that makes me "dep" for my age. Jeff looks older than he is, because only old men
have beards. He is "dep", his beard is not (making a cutting motion
with her hands).
She wants to know about so many things, and I don't know how to answer
all of her questions. They tease me because I say "co le" (maybe) so
often. They taught little Phuc Nguyen to say "I love you Kristi",
and he adds his own "co le, co le" to it. She has us over to her
place almost every Sunday at 11 for a home cooked lunch, and there's
always a special pitcher of homemade wine for Jeff and some fruit for
me. Her place is down a quiet little lane with views of a pond, a
reminder that this town is quite small and we're only a few blocks
away from the country.
Even though we rent from her, it's still her house. She walks right
in, opens the refrigerator, looks through our things and asks about
them. No room is exempt. It's just curiosity, she'd never steal a
thing.
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Sau enjoys taking care of us, and runs interference when the
motorcycle taxi driver who's confessed true love for me shows up. She
spent a full day preparing curry for Jeff's birthday party, but
wouldn't leave the kitchen.
After work we often sit in front of our house with her and relax while
neighbors and staff from VN Plus stop by and eat eggs, and there's a
little snack party right outside our door. We have a great time
talking with people and making friends because of Sau and her
neighborhood shop. It's hard to remember that when we first arrived,
she wouldn't even consider renting to foreigners.
Kristi Smith, 26th April 2007 |
