Sai Gon, May 20, 2001.

After going to bed at 3 a.m., I was awakened at 8:30 this morning to a phone call. Three more phone calls for the household followed mine. Wanting to roll over and steal a few more minutes of rest, I then encountered a knock at my door just minutes later. The curtain people were here, and they needed to measure my bay window for my new curtains. Defeated, I got out of bed, and snuck away into Ba Ngoai’s room (grammy) and then joined her at the breakfast table and watched her eat heartily away. It’s nice to know that Ngoai has such a good appetite, and that she can still be such a picky eater at 93 (tastebuds still work!). If I had my choice, I’d say take the eyes and ears, just let me taste my food. It’s a good thing.

I’m looking forward to getting my plane ticket home confirmed. It’s been over a week since I left it with the “agency” that’s supposed to change my ticket for me. Inefficiency and incompetence are commonly practiced in business here and everyone tells me to just “get used to it.” I won’t get used to it, but I’ll just have to deal with it while I’m here. What else can I do, right? I just smile and say “thank you” and “please” a lot like I was taught to do in the U.S. and hope that people show a little grace.

I don’t want to get used to things that I don’t like. For example, littering. I think littering is a criminal offense, anywhere. Vietnamese people act as if it’s a national pasttime. Particularly on travel. Eat your meals on board your vehicle and empty your trash in your beautiful homeland. Plastic bags especially. Vietnamese people are fond of plastic bags. You get a plastic bag for everything you buy. Cards? Wrap ‘em in plastic first. Clothes? Fit neatly into plastic sleeves before being placed into plastic shopping bags. Food? Each portion of each morsel comes in plastic bags. Soup and sauces come in their separate bags. Drinks even come in plastic bags and so do jellied desserts. Our highway is littered with them, our fields, and our streets. It’s disgusting. It makes what is beautiful ugly. I mean, defecating and urinating are also commonly seen on the streets – thought not sanitary, it’s nature! I don’t have a problem with that. But the trash thing I can’t stand. And the most pathetic excuse is “well, everybody does it.” I think my blood pressure goes up 30% when I hear that. And I try to nicely explain that just because a lot of people do something does not make it okay, and most of all, if nobody did it, imagine how beautiful your country could be. And what a beautiful country you have, I say. But I am preaching to deaf ears, because there is no respect for the environment. They take what they can from the earth, because they are POOR and it is what they’ve been forced to do. And ingrained in that way of thinking, is that people come first, and the environment second. Survival is more important than natural resource, historical treasure, or preservation of any kind. And so, littering is as common and as eventful to the Vietnamese as brushing your teeth. Nothing to it.

Today the wind howled and blew and the knocking of bamboo reeds on Di 10’s balcony echoed in the wind. I ran over to the window to watch the effects on the SaiGon River, palm trees and tall bamboo swaying overhead. A cool sight to see, although it vanished nearly as quickly as it came. The sky is a bit temperamental of late. Rainy season is on it’s start. Every day for the last week and a half we’ve had thunderstorms in the middle of the day. A couple of days were actually grey all day entirely, which is not yet so common. Generally you get a storm, then some sunshine, and then a shower, and it checks and passes like that. There are two seasons in Vietnam – rainy season and sunny season. All year round it’s hot in the south. In the northern mountains, you get “VERY cold” weather – as low as about 40F in the winter months. Temperatures do drop a bit when it rains, which makes for many pleasant outings in the city.

Auntie is out now, and it’s Sunday evening so the other aunts and uncles will be coming over for dinner with Ngoai. Banh xeo – delicious hot mung bean “sizzle” cakes, made on a hot griddle and sprinkled with bean sprouts, veggies, and whole shrimps, and dipped in nuoc mam (if you’re southern) or peanut sauce (if you’re northern). It’s sooo good.