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Published: August 3rd 2011
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Our last day in Vietnam was nice. Matthew and I woke up early after a fitful sleep (partially, I think, because I had seen a gigantic spider before bed and knew the room was open to bugs), and a while later Thu and Micah joined us. We had excellent ramen for breakfast (with shrimp and scallions!) and a good cup of coffee.
During the day a bunch of little things happened. I got to pet my favorite dog a lot. He doesn’t really have a name – they called him “black” because of his color – so I asked him what he wanted to be called and he liked the name Frank. I think it was appropriate to name him after Sinatra because this dog has beautiful blue eyes. And he’s so friendly! I really wish I could’ve taken him home – especially since we found out that sometimes people kidnap the dogs off Ba Noi’s property and sell them as dog meat. A 40lb terrier can fetch about $50. Horrible! Ba Noi loves dogs and any strays that she finds she starts to feed and they become part of the pack, so she is very saddened whenever a dog
goes missing because she knows what that means. Unfortunately, the property is massive and there’s no way to protect it to such an extent that it keeps the dog poachers out. My hope is that because most of Ba Noi’s current dogs are small (under 20 pounds – even Frank) and they like to stick close to the house that they will avoid being taken.
Petting dogs and watching the cute kittens was not the only thing that we – I – did. The aunts were crushing cassava to dry it as chicken feed. This is a lot of work. One of the aunts started the process around 6AM, and at 10AM she was still working on it with no end in sight, so we all decided to pitch in and lend a hand. It was fun but a lot of work (another reason why they’re so fit!) and I can’t imagine having to do this job every 10-14 days. Ba Noi joked that she’ll have to plant several more fields of cassava and put us to work when we return (probably Christmas 2013), and I told Thu that if Matthew has enough time to plan he’d probably think
of some sort of mechanized crusher that he could build for cassava. We shall see what happens for our next visit. I wouldn’t mind pitching in and doing a bit of work to help. They so rarely let us lift a finger that it’s really nice when we’re finally allowed to help.
I ended up feeling very sick for part of the day and had to break out the big guns: prescription meds. I’m wondering if it has something to do with eating seafood over here? I love it and it tastes good, but at least on this trip it makes me feel nauseous right after eating. Today was especially bad, but after a few hours of resting and some medicine, including ginger tea and lots of water, I felt better. Not better enough to eat the last meal before heading to the airport, but at least better enough to walk around and be productive. While I was ill, Micah worked on teaching some self defense moves to the cousins, arm wrestling with them, and generally being the center of attention. I think that they also played card games, but I’m not quite sure about that since I was dozing at the time. (Let me tell you, having a hammock is a wonderful thing. I think I need one for my back patio.)
Ba Noi is always sad to see Thu go, but at least this time she knows that it’s only three years between visits. The taxi arrived to take us to the airport and several of the cousins and Bac Phuc and his wife accompanied us to the airport. Here we did not have upgrades – and we do have a 12-hour layover in Korea (which is standard) – but we’re on our way home, finally. It will be nice to see everyone. And my furry babies! I miss them so much!
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