HJS

Last night I dreamt that Obama died of some freak natural cause, and I woke up and asked Angie if it was true. She shook her head and confirmed that it was: “Michelle cried for 25 hours straight.” I opened my eyes a second time, strangely relieved that my sister is in Sacramento, not Saigon: The dream-within-a dream was only that.

Joel’s 33rd birthday will forever fuse with the best TV moment of my memory. We didn’t have a crowd-around-the-TV party with friends, the way we would in a different time zone. The polls were opening when we went to bed, and we woke up at six and spent Joel’s birthday morning with CNN. By noon, the banner flashed. We didn’t scream. We didn’t hug each other. We sat quietly in our chairs and cried with Oprah, in awe of a moment we hadn’t quite expected. Our cynicism crushed by something better. The hope of a new America.

It’s still just hitting us: In our lifetime, in our relative youth, we will have a leader who reflects our dreams and values. We’re overjoyed. Beyond it. Hence that crazy nightmare.

So. We moved to a wonderful new apartment in the posh Phu My Hung neighborhood near the university. Vietnamese noveau riche, with whom we share an economic class, don’t believe in climbing stairs. Which is why we landed a sunlit three-bedroom penthouse loft, complete with 30-square-meter balcony terrace, for $650, in a neighborhood where that usually buys a studio. It’s a fifth-floor walkup with no lift, so we earn the deal every day. Our legs have never looked better.

We’ve just finished another 10-week session and are enjoying a down week, which we’ll probably spend fitting out our new apartment and savoring cheap spa treatments. We might take the hydrofoil (boat) to the closest beach, but we’re not sure. Our terrace might actually be preferable.

Summer is coming up. The wet season’s all but over. It’s a great time to visit, if anyone’s up for a flight!

(Oh, and don’t worry about the storms on the news. They’re all in the north–as far from us as Sacramento is to Las Vegas). We’re living in what’s practically a western enclave now: If a storm did hit, our infrastructure here makes this the most safe, solid place to be in the country. So if you’re worried, don’t!)

We hope you’re all doing well. My international friends here send their congratulations to you and all Americans. The French magazines here proclaim: Le President Historique! Formerly-caustic British friends tell me they cried with Oprah, too. And all the North Americans at my office, save Sara (a good sport), are beside themselves with glee. I hope Lodi is feeling the love, too!

Late last Friday, we soothed our grammar-weary minds with margaritas and the company of a few fellow teachers. 

We realized all five of us were American–an anomaly in this profession–and soon, inevitably, our talk turned to the election.

It’s tough to vote here. Confusing. How do you get your ballot? How do you send it? We got ours from our Florida mailbox and eventually sent it free through FedEx, but between those two steps, we suffered hours of trekking–to the American Consulate, to the FedEx office, no: that’s the wrong office, go around the corner–before finally spotting that familiar logo and sending our votes across the ocean.

We griped about misinformation and deadlines and the cab rides into the city to do our civic duty, and then–of course–about the reason we endured it. The hope. The thrill we’ll feel if things go our way. President Obama. Imagine.

But I didn’t speak for everyone at the table. As I sipped and formed wistful sentences, I heard my friend Sara whispering a confession.

“McCain,” she answered someone quickly. “Don’t tell Heather.”

Don’t tell Heather.

Suddenly I was in college again, when I’d been the conservative in the mass of hip liberals. Had I persecuted this poor girl? Made her feel outcast? Had my Obamamania marginalized the Republicans in our office? 

I told Sara I’d heard her whisper, and promised I loved her anyway. I told her my college story–I’d been in her shoes. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I respect your choice.”

And I do. 

Not because I think it’s a good choice. I think it’s a terrible mistake–one that, if enough people make it–will send this country into perpetual war, ensure a Greater Depression, and sacrifice any remaining credibility we might have had with the outside world. 

But democracy gives her a right to choose, and besides: we’re friends. Friendship should trump politics. Family should trump politics. Even if each of us is instigating the other’s version of doom.

When I’m chatting with other Obama fans, handwringing over McCain’s latest mudsling or undressing the easily undressable Sarah Palin, sometimes a face of a loved one flashes before me, and I remember that people I love love these people. 

That they love them doesn’t make me love them, just as me loving Obama probably won’t sway the readers of our little blog. 

But if you’re on the fence, if you’re still not sure which circle you’ll ink next week, please know that our light postings of late don’t mean we’ve cooled to Obama. Our silence hasn’t been due to apathy, but respect. The respect I should have shown to Sara; the respect I didn’t always give you, in conversations before we left.

Since we came out as Obama fans last year, we’ve received some interesting e-mails. Some people found it necessary to “inform” us of “news” that hasn’t been picked up by the real media–that Obama is either: 1. A terrorist, 2. A socialist, 3. A covert Islamic extremist, or 4. A really bad guy. (Read his website to meet the real him.)

Others shared thoughts ranging from the reasoned to the inane (“Life on Earth must get worse pre-Rapture, so it’s heresy to try to improve things”; “The only foreign country we should care about is Israel–Obama’s too diplomatic”; and–truly nauseating–”Sarah Palin scares liberal feminists because she beats them at their own game.” (No, we’re scared of her because she’s a corrupt, unqualified whack job.)

Sorry. See how hard it is for me to be respectful?

In a few days, it’ll all be over, and some of us will be licking our wounds. No matter what, I look forward to talking to you about other things again. I’ll tell you about our new apartment, you can tell me about the cute things little children did, and we can all breathe deeply and take a break from politics. 

In five days, that’ll happen. For now, I’m focused. We’ve made three more donations since arriving in Vietnam, joined Obama’s e-mail campaign and made ourselves sick with anticipation. In five days, we’ll have an answer! 

We love and respect you regardless of your political affiliation. Have a great week!

Heather

IMG_4833.JPG

Originally uploaded by Angie Wieland.

It’s hard being away from our sweet little nieces, but photos like this sure make us happy. Here’s my (Heather’s) dad and our little niece Freddie, with the same expression on their travel-weary faces. They’re in Disney World right now with Angie, Guinness, and Guinness’s mom, Sharon.

Proof that we’re okay

Originally uploaded by heatherandjoel.

Not much new since the last post. We’re working the late shift now (we asked for it, strange as that may seem), so we head in around 1 and finish at 8. We barely make it up the elevator each night, we’re so tired!

But there’s good news! You won’t believe it! There’s a couple here from San Francisco who taught their maid how to make gorgeous bread and tortillas; they’ve turned it into a little delivery business, so now we can eat burritos EVERY night! Almost makes the crazy bus rides worth it…

Hope you’re all doing well. Just seven and a half weeks ’til the next down week!

Love you all–H&J

It’s been our “down week”–an unpaid vacation between the university’s 10-week sessions, and since the rainy season’s still spoiling Saigon and making air travel too adventurous for our taste, we went to our favorite spot in the whole country: Mui Ne.

The hotel we’d loved before gave us a nice deal ($33 a night, breakfast included) and we got lucky: the only room available at our little garden oasis was the same one we’d stayed in two and a half months earlier. The same bed I hadn’t wanted to leave that last morning! The same deck chairs overlooking lush moss and blue seas! The same desk we’d taken turns sitting at during the phone interview for the Shanghai uni job (which we ultimately turned down, but proved tempting)!

We settled in and felt instantly relaxed, the way we do at the cabin when we’ve finally put all the groceries away. For four days we enjoyed warm sand, gentle waves and spectacular, blue-sky days (Mui Ne’s sand dunes create a microclimate that magically reduces downpours to occasional–nonexistent this trip–sprinkles.) It’s the kind of place you wish you could hang around forever, and we enjoyed it with the relish of people who know we might not get back more than once before we leave Vietnam, now that the rainy season’s nearly over and we have other sight-boxes to tick.

We went on a wild jeep tour ($11 each–just us and our Vietnamese driver) of all Mui Ne’s sights. Saw the magic sand dunes, the white ones and the red ones. One minute it’s palm trees and ocean breezes, the next you’re in the desert. The red-rock canyon has the reddest dirt I’ve ever seen, and I showed Joel the trick my Dad taught me when he took Angie and I on a hike when we were kids (and had to kill a rattlesnake–but that’s another story). You take a handful of dirt, grind it up in your fist until it’s fine, add a little spit to make a paste, and spread it in two lines on each cheek. The pictures will be up on Flickr soon. The driver and Joel were impressed.

The trip was wonderful–just what we needed–and it would have been even better if we’d been able to stop checking Google News. I’d innocently checked e-mail the first evening and encountered–mispronouncing it at first read–the name “Sarah Palin.” For 30 long seconds I was dumbfounded. Then I was flattened. Most people reading this blog are Republicans whom I love, so I’ll resist that nasty temptation to expect everyone’s notion of “common sense” to match my own current version. But if you’re on the fence and wondering what Heather thinks, wonder no more. Heather thinks that this is a sad, mocking, unfunny joke, with American women as the butt. McCain never had a chance at my vote this time, but I didn’t fear his election until this happened. I fear it now.

But that’s not a happy way to end a post. Let’s see. The cutest little geckos share our apartment. They haunt the walls and protect us from bugs, and serve well as faux-pet love objects. We named them all “Pancake,” in honor of their pioneer ancestor, who liked to scamper underfoot (he never earned the name, just flirted with it). Baby pancakes are the most delicate, angelic little things. When they see you their hearts beat fast; who knows what they think we are.

School starts again Monday. Another round. Another 10 weeks until vacation. Next time we’re going to Thailand. And by then, mercifully, there won’t be a U.S. election to distract us.

Hope you’re all great!

Heather

My brother’s 23! Hope your day was great; hope your year’s even better!

So the man finally came. Three hours late, as I was heading out the door for work–having avoided bathroom breaks out of fear that I’d miss him–our insipid magical-wonderland doorbell chimed. The man darted in without making eye contact, grabbed a dining room chair and climbed up to poke a screwdriver into a panel near the ceiling. After a near hour of tapping and cell-phone consulting and disappearing into the hallway for what I can only guess were smoke breaks, he was finally reading to pound on my precious Mac until the right set of buttons fulfilled the cyber spell.

And I thanked him, in my way. He’d already proven deaf to English curse words.

But the good news is: We “have” the Internet. I’m typing on our kitchen table, looking at red-tiled rooftops and a huge summer sky. We are ready to respond to an onslaught of e-mail. Send away!

Of course, the DSL only works as long as the electricity does, so we’re hoping that the trip I’m about to take to the bank ensures no repetition of last night.

I arrived home to find our three maids (Yep. $50 a month for twice a week!) scrubbing in the flickering glow of citronella candles. The power had gone out that morning before I left, but it tends to do that every few weeks in HCMC–they “turn off” sections of the city occasionally to maintain the supply. It usually switches back on within hours, so I hadn’t expected this day-long outage.

Well. It wasn’t long before Joel was suspicious; as I hung out, uncomfortably, with the maids, he strolled the floors of the building and discovered that we were alone in this crisis. Luckily, one of the maids is bilingual, and she helped us through the hours-long process of opening our mailbox, finding what turned out to be a late notice (from the previous tenant–our friend/landlord hadn’t paid it), bribing (ooh–three whole dollars) the building manager to switch it back for the night and engaging the whole floor of curious onlookers in the process of examining our bill, chastising us for not paying it, laughing about our innocence, calling our landlord on our cell phone and finally establishing that I could go to the bank downstairs with the paper and give them money to deposit in the account listed.

We’ll see.

It’s funny how this routine thing is such a trama/adventure for us here. Stuff like this happens all the time in the States; we went for weeks without a working furnace in our San Diego apartment. The difference, of course, is that I can read bills in the States. Here it’s just shapes on a page.

Anyway, it’s all okay, just irritating, and it’s making us wonder if we should move to the foreigner’s compound, where they have helpers who take you by the hand and guide you through this stuff. But we love this apartment, and our maids are great hand-holders. When they left last night they told us how much they enjoyed helping us out with this problem–it was great English practice, they said! Sweethearts.

In other news, the job is going well and we are about to enjoy one of the perks of university-teaching: Frequent breaks! Next week is a “down week,” and we are heading to our favorite place in the whole country: Mui Ne! I can’t wait to sit in that lush garden and look at the sea and think about something other than grammar!

Hope you’re all well. Cherish your electricity!

Hug everyone for us at once,

Heather (and Joel!)

And we still don’t have Internet access.

Ah, Vietnam. The honeymoon phase might be over. Of course, whenever I think things like that, I look out our 11th story picture window and gape at the lush fields and yellow morning light and wonder if I’ll ever be able to leave.

(Don’t worry, Mom: I will!)

It’s the oddest juxtaposition of “roughing it” and luxury. We live in a fancy condo, take morning swims in a perfect pool, get massages and multi-course meals on a whim, and hike through muddy water in our business clothes to catch the bus to work with the catfish farmers.

But the job is going well. It’s much more work than we’d hoped it would be, given the setup of the courses here. We each have two classes: one that we teach on Mondays and Tuesdays, and one that meets Wednesday/Thursday/Friday. Each class meets for four hours at a time, and there’s little to no repetition of material, so we’re creating four hours of new lessons each day. (In contrast, our jobs in Korea had us teaching the same one-hour class six times a day. Tough the first time, maybe, but easy as pie by the fifth!)

Perfectionists that we are, we probably took it all a bit too seriously at the beginning. We had our first teaching observations this week and earned very nice, don’t-worry-you’re-super reviews, so we’re readjusting our outlook and trying not to be so obsessive. Gotta find time to enjoy that gorgeous pool!

Everything else is okay, but we dearly miss Internet access. I’m typing this downstairs at the cafe again, and between the Chinese movie on TV (dubbed imperfectly in Vietnamese, so both languages are yapping at me, one after the other) and the cigarette-sucking patrons and the lack of air conditioning, I am very, very eager for the man who comes once a month to flip the Internet switch to finally make his visit–supposedly this coming week!

When that happens, after it happens, nothing is quite the same. (That sentence is for Angie!) We’ll be able to use our cool video chat system again and finally talk to you guys in person! Get your webcams ready!

Hope you’re all doing great. Here’s wishing a belated happy birthday to our sister Joy–and, come to think of it, to Grandpa Underhill (don’t think we said that on here yet, though we thought it many times!)

Maybe by the NEXT birthday–my Dad’s on the 17th–our birthday song warblings will be heard live in Lodi!

Talk to you all very soon!

XOXO–Heather (and Joel)

Hey all,

Our first month at RMIT went well, and we’re adjusting to life in Vietnam. Our apartment is great, but we still don’t have Internet access, so we’re downstairs in the cafe right now, sputtering along with crappy wifi.

We just read an editorial on the New York Times site that ruined our day. We hope it ruins yours, too. (Well, maybe not RUIN–but impact, let’s say. It’s sobering stuff.) Here’s the link.

We read “The Jungle” a few years ago, and regretted not reading it sooner. Have a go, if you feel like it. It’s an important read for anyone interested in our nation’s history.

We love you and hope you’re all doing well!

–Heather and Joel

Just a quick note to say we’re okay! We haven’t been able to log on to our e-mail for the past few days, partly because we don’t have Internet access at our apartment yet, and partly because Mac Mail “improvements” have made it impossible for us to access e-mail from the PC’s at work. So if you’ve e-mailed and haven’t heard back: Sorry!�We’re okay–doing great, actually! More later…