Collection of stories..

It's about 100 degrees right now, hot and humid, and I'm pretty sure that my clothes have melted into my skin. Urgh gross. When I was on the xe om headed home from school, I touched my eyes because the light was so bright, I thought maybe the lenses had fallen off of my sunglasses...no joke, it was that bright with tinted lenses. Blinding sun.

So I'll use this lazy time in front of the fan as story time:

**
I went again to the Co-op Supermarket (cool, has a website!) to pick up some necessities:

2 razors = 6,700 D
package of 20 wet tissues = 8,000 D
- They are individually wrapped and are commonly served at restaurants in lieu of the dry napkins we are used to. Someone told me to bring wetnaps, but in the US it's hard to find individually wrapped ones, and I don't want to lug around a whole box...In this heat, they are lifesavers!

Vaseline aloe lotion, 250 ml = 41,500 D
Dove body wash, 200 g = 31,000 D
Total = 87,2000 D

- The packaging is the same as in the US. I bought the US name brand items which were probably twice as expensive as other brands, because they were completely labeled in English and I could read the description. And they were the right sizes, I didn't want to buy extra large containers. Some of the other body wash products had a partial description in English, where I could read "Moisturizer and Whitener" - having light skin is desired in VN and they have these products, as well as spa services, that claim to lighten the skin. So I stayed away from them and any product I couldn't read because I didn't want to buy something with those chemicals...
**

Last week, I was chatting with a friend from UChicago about his travels and he mentioned that he knew someone that was living in Vietnam (They had worked together for over a year in the Peace Corps) - and it turns out that she lives in Ho Chi Minh City. Yesterday I had lunch with her, and it was striking what a small world it was - Chi Linh is actually from Chicago and went to undergrad at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, worked in the corporate world for awhile, then went to China with the Peace Corps, and then moved out to Vietnam where she worked with several organizations to teach English. It was so weird to speak to someone that didn't have an accent! She told me about the expat community here, teaching English, and a story about getting into a small xe om accident (that included a baby not wearing a helmet. Come on government of Vietnam, protect your youngest citizens!!!!). It was really a fascinating glimpse into what I was thinking about yesterday, and I realized that having a xe om driver really makes a difference, because I do not have to pay attention to anything while driving. But when on xe may, you have to be on hyperalert to make sure you don't get side-swiped by another bike or car...or bus.

Shudder. That almost happened today because Anh Ni, my driver, only looked one way while crossing a 2 lane road. And it was a construction truck. Brakes are your friend here.

**


I ate the Sweet Sop (Mãng Cầu Ta) today, one for breakfast and one for lunch. It's really easy to eat - you kind of pick the peel off of the fruit, easier than an orange but more work than a banana, since the peel is textured and each "polyp" needs to be picked. It's hard to explain, haha, but you can see the in picture that the peel comes off very small. When you bite into it, it's really sweet and has many "buds" - for lack of a better word - like biting into a bunch of grapes, you can feel each grape. I like the fruit but the kicker is that each of the small "buds" has a large seed, black and larger than watermelon seeds. They are quite big and make eating the fruit more work since there are so many "buds" contained in the fruit itself...



Sorry, my camera couldn't really focus so close, but maybe you can see what I am trying to describe...haha! It was good though but that's why I could only eat one small fruit for each meal because it was a lot of work and rather messy.
**
I also busied myself by reading Vietnamese news and found some interesting articles about public health:

Cholera, bird flu present, but VN still A/H1N1-free

More than $38 million earmarked for HIV/AIDS prevention

Number of acute diarrhea cases soars in Hanoi

Doctors point traces of air and noise pollution


Okay I'm off to Cantina Central, located in the downtown District 1 area, for an NGO Happy Hour. Yay facebook contacts and events! It'll be interesting to see what the Vietnamese version of Mexican food is like...