Some Gentle Readers have been posting comments and sending emails that seem to indicate we are having way too much fun over here. (Or, should that be Hue too much fun?)
It was time to read my own writing – and when I did, I realized I’ve painted a rosy picture. Let me balance things out a bit.
The weather has been much, much colder than I expected. Oh, I know – to you folks in Minnie-snow-tah and Oh Hi! Oh, 59 degrees does not seem cold. But when you only have a light flannel shirt and a windbreaker for warm clothing, and the humidity hovers around 95 percent, it gets very cold indeed. There is no heat in our room, nor anywhere else, for that matter. I had no idea it got cold in Central Viet Nam. I had been in Da Nang two years ago, and there was a chilly morning or two – but nothing like day after day of dreary mist and chill. I spent two winters here “a long time ago”, but those were spent in the south where the weather variations are “hot” and “hotter.” Dennis – you were in Phu Bai. You should have warned me.
The cold weather had its consequences too. We both got sick, though at different times. Sore throat, general malaise, and I (at least) had the trots. Yep – it was Cipro time again.
Strangely, some things have not bothered me. We have no television, and I can’t say I miss it terribly, but I must also say I would like to have satellite TV so I could get English language news. I keep in contact by reading news online, but would like to get the BBC out of Hong Kong. We don’t miss having a cell phone either - - nor do we miss having a car.
One thing I miss – and I mean really miss. I miss my evening cigar.
Yes, I can hear half of the Gentle Readers saying “Well, its better for you. You don’t need that nasty thing anyway.” But I do – my evening cigar was my mental cue that the day was over. Cigar time was a time for quiet reflection, reading a good book, writing, or just pondering life happenings. The cigar was usually accompanied by a cup of tea, or soft drink – but at the end of the day, it was just my cigar and me.
Our “bed” is something else. All our married life we’ve had a king size bed. We both like our sleeping space. Well, our “bed” here is just a bit smaller than double size. Funny – we got used to that fairly quickly. What has taken longer is to get used to sleeping on hard wooden slats covered by two thin foam mattresses. This old body didn’t adjust well – I would wake up three-four times a night with some part of my hips or back hurting. But - - I lately found that if I brought my knees up to my chest into a fetal position, I had no more pain. Dr. B – any idea why that works?
As I have said on previous postings – even back in 2003 – Viet Nam is a very noisy country. Hue is actually not as noisy as either Ha Noi or Saigon, but where we live is very noisy indeed. You see, we live right on campus. That means college kids.
But, let me tell you about the buildings here. They are nothing but concrete and ceramic tile. There is not one iota of sound deadening material. There are no carpets on the floors – no drapes on the windows – no soft cushy furniture. When someone burps next door, you hear it. Since the high humidity rusts everything, all door hinges squeak loudly.
There are two kinds of noise that help prevent sleep. The first is the scraping sound made by chairs and tables. The ceramic tile guarantees there will be a loud scraping sound. The lack of any sound deadening means the sound is magnified. When the classroom cleaning lady moves desks at 3 AM in the building next door, it blows you wide awake! The second sound is shrieking young girls. Classes start at 7 AM here, and as these sweet young things pass under our window at 6:50 AM (or at 10 PM) and exchange comments about their boy friends, they shriek – ear piercing, head ringing screams of girlish excitement. Think of the sound level at a boy’s band concert.
So far, we have been spared the culture shock of food (its good stuff, folks), and students (they’re great!) and not knowing the language (but we’re starting soon.) There is just one thing we know we will have to overcome – that is our desire for planning and organization.
Yeah – we know. We were told about this, and we expected it, but it’s also true that it’s hard to toss away forty some-odd years of professional lives that epitomized planning and organization. For both of us, our first jobs were in the military, and that is a culture that is defined by planning and organization. The past few years I have prided myself on passing along organizational skills to 20-somethings who were at the beginning of their careers. C was a nurse-manager. If proper planning was not done, people died. But this is a culture that values relationships over efficiency. Anything longer than fifteen minutes is long term planning. Communication is almost non-existent.
Paul wrote that we should be thankful in all circumstances. Of course we do not know the true big picture of our work here – that’s a bit beyond our pay grade. But we know to trust – we know we have lots to learn. We also know that we were spared in this very same country a long time ago. We were spared because there was work for us to do here.
I began this by saying I would “balance things a bit.” I failed. The scales are still tipped way to the positive side.
He knew they would be.
Our bods are real old,
Affluently spoiled for years
And now they suffer. :-)
Cigar and good bed
Is what he really longs for
And will have again.
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