Haircut experience and a cook!

The new experiences keep coming.  One of my friends asked if I was homesick yet and guessed that I was still feeling like it was a vacation.  Yes, kind of.  We start teaching next week then reality may hit differently.  Anyway...on Monday Oct. 10 Bob decided he should think about a haircut, a little early.  He found a place with pictures of men on the outside of the shop and went in to ask about a haircut.  It's nice and short :) so now he can maybe wait past his typical 3 weeks.  He enjoyed the experience because the haircut came with a nail clipping (fingers and toes) and only cost $5.83 US!

The haircut

Toenail clipping!  LUXURY, he says.

The final look.

So now I must tell you about Minh.  The day we moved in to our new apartment, last Friday, I was coming up the elevator with a bag of bedding from the supermarket around the corner so it was pretty obvious I was moving in (besides being tall and Caucasian :) ).  A Vietnamese woman began to talk to me in good English whether we needed a housekeeper or cook, and she told me she did such tasks for other people who were teachers at some of the local international schools.  I told her we were just moving in and getting settled and not ready to make any decisions.  She told me her name, Minh, and insisted on writing her phone number for me.  Well, Mrs. Persistent Minh stopped at our apartment later that evening with a business card for me to email for a reference from "Miss Deborah" who teaches Science at the Vietnam Australia International School, and with details about other teachers she cooks and cleans for.  Bob asked her to come this week for a trial, and she arranged to shop with me earlier in the week for ingredients and then today she came to cook us some chicken curry (the dish "Miss Deborah" recommended as excellent) and clean our apartment, and she had some time left so she even did some ironing. !!!!!!!!!  Miss Deborah had given her glowing recommendations about her work ethic and trustworthiness, and today she showed up with a packet of recommendations including 2 letters from the 1970's working as a secretary in the US Navy supply depot here in Vietnam!!  When I shopped with her this week she was invaluable in interpreting the strange (to me) greens in the produce department:  what I can eat raw and what must be cooked.  And when I told her I couldn't find basil or Italian seasoning, she went to a local market and bought small quantities of spices to use in cooking, including both basil and oregano, not available at my local Lotte Mart.  She knows where to find the best price; when Bob and I try to navigate the local outdoor markets we're pretty sure we don't get the best price.  So she is our Thursday dinner cook from here on out, and she cleans and irons too, for 5 hours!  I feel so spoiled.  She obviously knows how to use all these weird packets of seasonings I can't understand.  Tonight's curry had a side dish of vegetables with cumin in it, so delicious and understated in the seasoning.  Curry you might think of as a spicy dish, but it was not spicy at all in a "hot" spicy way.  AND if all this isn't making Minh sound wonderful enough, she was telling us about her family and her youngest son is having a wedding the end of the month and she told us she would "like to invite us" so we can see the Vietnamese tradition. !!!!!!  Would we Americans typically be so generous as to invite a stranger from another country to our relative's wedding?!  I think I'm beginning to see why a friend from church who had several global experiences told me the week before we left:  "Coming back to America is the hardest."  I didn't understand that at the time (2 weeks ago!) but as I read more about global experiences and experience more of this crazy life of generosity we keep experiencing, I am beginning to get an inkling.  It's so easy for us (speaking for myself) to be close-minded and judgmental of other cultures and think we have it so great in America.

The recipe Minh followed, lol.  "It's
all Greek to me!"  If you see the word "ga"
that means chicken; it was chicken curry.

The finished dinner.  Chicken curry, vegetables, rice in a steamer, finished perfectly.

Minh, age 65, and me.  (not 65, yet.)

15 bags of spices bought by Minh, for $8.20 US.  She left
the name of the stall (Ba Tam) in the market (Ben Thanh) if I
want to try to find if myself later.  Right!!  I told her we buy such spices
in plastic containers at our local groceries.






Well, I will get off my soapbox and get ready for bedtime; it's 9:15 pm here.  Today we started reviewing our lecture notes so our life isn't all fun and games (although I feel so very blessed that Minh "found" us).  It is scary how much of the didactic learning I've forgotten and must review over the next few days.  Thank you again, all, for sharing in our adventures in Vietnam!  Come visit if it is at all possible!!