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
