Dose of positivity

People whom I absolutely adore in Ha Tinh:

• Mr. Duc (this almost goes without saying)
• Chi Hang (as does this)
• My students (well, usually, at least, but in this case, especially the ones into whom the message is FINALLY sinking that I am happy to have them over to visit, as long as they call or text first)
• Hoa, the woman who owns my favorite pho restaurant. Her personality/behavior is the perfect balance of "Allison! Teach me all the English you can!" and "I have a restaurant to run, and I am too busy to talk," leaving our relationship at the perfect equilibrium of me not being bothered by her constant broken English, and her not being bothered by my constant questions.
• The man in the motorbike repair shop who reinflated my motorbike tire who now waves to me and calls "Good morning!" whenever I see him
• The three gate guards at my school, who do not speak a word of English (nor I, Vietnamese, in reality), but we always smile and nod at each other when I ride through the gates on my bike
• The smiling woman who runs the cu do shop
• The brother and sister who run the banh mi stand where I buy sandwiches every day, who explain to their other (often confused) patrons with what seems like an air of pride, that I am a teacher from America and that I eat at their shop often
• The old woman with the black lacquered teeth (a beautification ritual in Vietnam from long ago) who owns the the banh xeo restaurant that I frequent, who simply sits quietly with me while I eat my meal, and sometimes even busies her hands by separating the sticky and stubbornly-clinging sheets of rice paper from one another for me

I am sensing a pattern here that the people whom I love the most are the ones who keep me fed and safe. Perhaps I have found a community of surrogate parents without realizing they were filling that role?

In other news, the weather was lovely again today, so I went for a walk to the cathedral that Sasha and I visited once. It was almost a two-hour walk, but it felt amazing to stretch my legs in the open air and to get some probably much-needed Vitamin D. I met some sweet grazing cows in the graveyard that I walk through, as well as a woman who was bathing a very sick three-day-old puppy.

The puppy was covered in infectious spots (fleas? The woman explained to me why it was so sick and mangy looking, but naturally I don't know any of the Vietnamese words for various veterinary ailments) and was a tiny ball of bald trembling sweetness. I admit that I allowed myself to pet it and to try to get it to stop trembling. [For my readers, I will explain to you that my biggest fear when handling animals in other countries is rabies. I've handled sick and infected dogs before when I worked at Friends of Falmouth Dogs, so I am not afraid of touching mangy, dirty creatures. I just need to wash my hands immediately after. Typically, if I see other Vietnamese people handling an animal, then I assume that they know it is not rabid and that it is safe to touch, at least safe from biting me, Atticus, or any of the Finch children] In any case, I'm still here to tell the tale, and the puppy is hopefully still alive and in better shape than it was this afternoon.

Here are some pictures from my walk:

Not entirely sure if this is what this ancestor's relatives had in mind when they erected the grave-site

But all the cows were doing it!

Sure, it's not Notre Dame of Paris, but it's pretty beautiful nonetheless

The cows migrated from the graveyard into a more respectful location of the rice paddy

Oh, and lest we forget my visit to the beach yesterday........

Here's the puppy that lives in the restaurant that I eat at and where I park my motorbike

Cold, cloudy, and foggy, but so beautiful

Kind of looks like Shadow with its curly tail

Completely empty beach

And no trip to Thien Cam Beach is complete without a feast of seafood.

 I wholly admit that I have been in the grumpy doldrums lately, and that my blog posts have probably been less than pleasurable to read. Nobody wants to listen to somebody else complain all the time. I recognize this. I think over the past few weeks, I've felt cooped up in Ha Tinh, and the stress added by the visa/work permit situation has only made the feelings of isolation and boredom morph into complete anger. My apologies to all of you.

I think my beach adventure and church adventure of today (compounded with nice weather), as well as some good quality animal voyeurism, has lifted my spirits and put me back into an emotional place that I am more comfortable inhabiting for the long-term. I'm also making an effort to spend more time with my students at night-time, which I think is renewing my sense of purpose and giving me some semblance of a previously non-existant social life.

All in all, things are good.