Under My Um-ba-rella, Eh Eh Eh

We've been singing Rihanna's new hit, "Umbrella," for nigh 3 weeks now. Her single, a fascinating juxtaposition of lifelong love and promiscuity bordering on pornography, is not what I'll talk about here. Rather, I'm going to stay surface-level with yall: it rains in Viet Nam ALL THE TIME.

I used to say that the things I say most in Vietnamese are as follows:

Khong, cam on, anh. (No, thanks, man--I don't want a motorbike ride.)
Em la nguoi My. (I'm from America.)
Lam on noi cham. (Pleeeeeeease talk slowly!)
Xin loi, cho toi mot ca phe sua da. ('Scuse me, I'd like one iced sweet coffee, please.)

Now, in Ben Tre province, that's all changed. Here I mostly say "Mua nhieu!!! (Rains a lot!!!) and "Chao ba" (Hello grandma). This place is the mecca of adorable old women--they are everywhere, with their shuffling little walk, their matching polka-dot pajama attire, straggling white wisps coming from under their rice-hats, and raisin-y brown faces that light up in a smile when I say hello respectfully. (Flippancy or mispronunciation will get you a severe frown or look of perplexity, the most common being the former.)

We arrived in Ben Tre with the abundant grandmas just last night, coming from a 2-3 hour bus ride and two ferry boats down to the Mekong Delta area. We're staying in a MAJORLY SKETCH hotel. The hotel boasts rare amenities such as a Western-style toilet (like a pot of gold), air conditioning (like the breath of heaven), comfy beds (cloud nine), even a TV per room (it doesn't really work, but it's still nice to have around). However, the sketchiness comes with the extra amenities. Like the portaits of naked women in some people's rooms. And the strategically placed mirrors in bathrooms and bedrooms. And the condom wrappers in some trashcans.

Yep, we're staying a in multipurpose hotel. Suitable for do-gooders like the Green Summer students/Robertsons, and also functional in the off-season for nighttime workers. Awkward. Thankfully mine's a bit more low key--no condoms, no nude prints.

Anyhow, this morning we blinked our eyes open to a 6am breakfast of pho, bread, eggs, nhan(longan fruit), yoghurt and seriously caffeinated instant coffee. We ate in the hotel's garage-turned-dining area.

We split into two groups: the social activities group, which will go to do short-term chores for public areas in the community, and the building group, which will construct a home for a family. I've chosen to be in the building group.

We biked for maybe 20-25 minutes through a forest rife with banana and coconut trees (I saw ripe oranges too!), as well as deeply-dug canals with muddy water. Our bikes are mostly decent-quality, but the windy, thin path dominates us every time. Plus there are teeny little bridges over rapid creeks everywhere. I've only lost my balance three times, no falling yet. Can't say the same for all of us.

The family has been living in a bamboo-and-thatch thing for a while. Their floor is dirt, they have a couple stools and a bamboo bed and a table, and they have a tall bamboo TV antennae.

That's the odd thing about most of these homes; we ride by and all we see is a flat-screen on the wall entertaining an emaciated boy sitting on the floor in dirty clothes. No chairs, little food, little furniture, and majorly malnourished people, but MTV and HBO and HTV (Ho Chi Minh channel) are going strong. Not sure where these priorities are from.

Anyhow, we destroyed the walls of the family's home. Have to destroy it to save it, we say. We're going to build the new house on the same site, so they will live a few feet away in a makeshift tent. We took down the thatch-walls by unwrapping the sharp wire from the bamboo stakes, then stacking the walls elsewhere. We moved the furniture (unearthing a hissing, giant mama gecko in the process--promise, I nearly died), played with the kids while it rained, and waited for the supplies to come.

And waited. And waited.

Finally a riverboat came up to the shore nearby with a boatload of gravel. Just sitting in a pile on the boat. We came up with an assemblyline formation and started passing along the bags of gravel. I was on the boat shoveling and dumping the gravel into the bags, then tossing them to the front of the boat where Kevin handed them to shore. Great back-and-ab workout, by the way. We sang songs the entire time, everything from "I've Been Working on the Railroad" to "I'm a Survivor" to "Ol' Man River" to whatever that song is that says "...give me the beat boys, and free my soul...I wanna get lost in your rock n' roll..." Etc. The accompanying journalists from the Labor newspaper and Tuoi Tre lapped it up.

Lunch was with the social activities group at the home of Ma Bay (Mom #7), the nickname for the sweet woman who will cook us lunch each day. Tom, Hieu and I washed all the dishes afterwards.

We had a quick coffee-break (3.000 dong for ca phe sua da, around 20 cents), then went to the middle and primary schools.

Because of a miscommunication, some kids didn't show today. Tom, Hieu and I prepared for 20+ students and today taught 8 angelic little girls and 1 angelic little boy.

After basic introductions (Hello, my name is Susie. What's your name? My name is Ngoc. My name is Danh. My name is Quyen. My name is Nguyen. Etc.), we taught them the colors. We used flashcards, a catchy song Tom knows about rainbows, and rainbow coloring sheets. We then played Red Light, Green Light--a huge hit. We pretended to be xe may (motorbikes) and xe buyt (buses), by either asking the kids to pantomime riding a bike or putting their hands on one another's shoulders in long chains.

We then played Duck, Duck, Goose--they already knew this, only it's Meo, Meo, Chuit (Cat Cat Rat). We added a few cho (dog), trau (buffalo), ca (fish), and ga (chicken), in there. AWESOME.

Afterwards we had a quick coffee break (I know, I know--I promise I'll brush my teeth hard to avoid coffee stains) and debriefed.

Dinner and karaoke in honor of Rob's birthday are tonight.

Talk to yall later--much love and many apologies for no photos--can't get my laptop to connect to wireless, and the Internet cafe won't let me upload camera photos.

Take care and God bless! Unbelievable--it's starting to rain again.

"When the sun shines we'll shine together, you know I'll be here forever, you can stand under my um-ba-rella..."