To Anh's uncle picked us up in his new Mercedes and drove us the 160 kilometers north, past the the city of Tuy Hoà, and west to Sơn Hoà, where her parents live. (Using money sent from America by relatives, the uncle created a small fortune for himself by buying real estate in Saigon. The rest of the family here is poor by American standards, but middle class for Vietnam.)
This was my second visit to To Anh's parents' home and pretty much knew what to expect. The only real inconvenience was the cold water showers. I stayed for 8 days. There was not a lot to do except to watch movies and read. The Tet holidays in the countryside mostly involve visiting relatives and eating. For me, that meant watching a lot of eating because I just couldn't get past the pig's ears and various other parts of pig anatomy. (I ate a lot of fried rice.)
The best part of my holiday was taking long walks down farm roads in the morning and down to the river in the afternoon. Again, the Vietnamese people are incredibly warm and friendly to me. The only hitch was when the police came by and wanted to know why I hadn't registered with them. (It's kind of a law.) All that meant was going to the station and filling out a form. Since we hadn't To Anh had to give them a little "lucky money." ($10)
On the next to last day I broke off one of my front tooth veneers eating watermelon seeds. ( A big Vietnamese pastime. Eating seeds, that is.) To Anh's younger brother drove me back to Nha Trang in the family's minivan (they run a transportation service). I had offered to pay, but they wouldn't accept.
Back in Nha Trang life is good. The weather is like late spring in Rhode Island. There are enough teachers at Crazy Kim School and the spring semester at the University hasn't started so I'm not teaching yet. Which allows me to spend a lot of time studying Vietnamese with my tutors. It is my passion to some day become fluent.
