After 3 months of packing and sorting and worrying and
buying we made it safely to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Viet Nam. We arrived mid July 2013 celebrating Jett’s 5th
birthday with a lovely, expensive, Betty Crocker box cake. Mixed up by our prearranged house helper
(cook too) Mrs. Huong. We were so lucky
to have Huong to help us communicate with locals, ease me into the shopping,
cooking etc, watch the kids so I could find my way around town and be a friend
in this strange new place. Kid’s were
difficult to manage and tempers were flying round the clock to say the
least. Everyone hated Mom and never
wanted to speak to her again because they didn’t get anything they wanted
(another hour of tv or something). I
have always been careful about hours of tv watched, but this circumstance
definitely changed some family rules for about 2 months which was why they were
so bratty I suppose. I was defiantly
embarrassed to go out with such demanding children. I promised myself I would never have kids
like that . . . we don’t get everything we want I guess.
I supported Marty as he struggled to find his
feet in a country where “saving face” is more important than telling the truth
and meeting people socially is more important than doing good business. Our eyes stare straight and wide when people
talk to us. Trying desperately to
understand what they are saying to us, just to realize finally that they are
actually speaking in English. Ha! So funny.
We feel really dumb not knowing the language here, even though most
everyone here makes huge efforts to learn English. I feel so lucky to have English as my home
language. I see blessings like this everyday. Things I never thought about back at
home. I see Celie, especially, noticing
the mountain of blessing we have and taking it to heart. Such a beautiful,wonderful place we found.
