Oh I was tired that morning. After all the walking from the day before, I decided to stay in bed until about eight o'clock. My uncle was planning to take me to meet his girlfriend and one of her friends at the Sapphire Cafe, a beautiful cafe about twenty minutes away from the center. After leaving my house with all my things, I saw my brothers climbing the banana tree behind their house, bringing down banana leaves and hordes of bananas, to which they told me not to tell their surrogate mother, Ms. Be. "Here Ben take two," said Loi, putting his finger of his mouth and whispering, as if to tell me to be quiet about it. I accepted and kept on of them in my small black bag on my back, the other I decided to eat. My brothers from the baking school had finished their morning shift were relaxing in the living room of their home, watching TV and eating some left over breads. The center was quiet, all the children finishing their chores and sitting around, playing with one another. The days have finally gotten sunny and bright, bringing black the beautiful glow to the land, but also making me have to bring a hat around everywhere. At last, Uncle Duyet showed up, and I hopped on his motorbike, heading off to have breakfast.
"What do you want to eat?" he asked, "whatever you want, I'll take you to eat." After failing to come up with anything, as I told him that anything was fine, he made the decision to take us to go eat pho, pronounced fuh, one of components of my blood. Pho is a national food, composing of a rich broth, noodles, different greens, toppings, and meats ranging from beef, chicken, to sausages. Its up there with my most favorite foods, as it can cure just about anything - that broth making a bowl of pho worth all trouble. After bowl of pho and bottle of tra xanh khong do or organic lemon flavored green tea, which I have began to grown an addiction to, I decided I was full and said to my uncle to move us on over the cafe.
Wow, Hue has so many cafes, to the point of which there can be more than eight cafes in the same alley, making me wonder once again how people can make their livings. The Sapphire Cafe was the most populated in the particular alley that we rolled up into, filled with people sitting out on the front porch sipping their drinks and enjoying the cool fountains and fans. I asked for an avocado smoothie, while my uncle ordered a glass of coffee. About five minutes later, chatting about the last day of adventure, our drinks came in, shortly followed by my Uncle's girlfriend and her friend, Dien, who I remember the name of as she added me on Facebook! What I may not have mentioned before is that Vietnam recently locked Facebook throughout the whole country, causing many of the current users to find different methods of entering the site. What a conversation we had.
They all wanted to practice their English, so I asked them to introduce themselves, suggesting a few topics and listening carefully to their pronunciation. Both my uncle's girlfriend, and Dien were university students, one in Foreign Languages, and I forget the other one. My uncle is in his third year at the Hue University of Economics. I was impressed, their sentences and grammar quite good. The only problem, and perhaps the hardest thing to teach in English, is speaking it, and the pronunciation of all the words. It is true that different dialects exist, but there still exists an issue with incorrect pronunciation among nearly all the English learning students in Vietnam that I have know. "Slow down Ben, you speak too fast" my uncle told me, as I was introducing myself. "Al....right... I... will... now" I said, laughing a bit. We all laughed and continued to enjoy our drinks, both Diem and my uncle's girlfriend ordering coffee with condensed milk, one of my favorites.
As the time went by, more and more people entered the cafe. At one point, about four or five people, riding on expensive motorcycles rolled by, as if to show off their rides, as everyone in the cafe starred out at them, gossiping amongst themselves. "What are they doing?" I asked. "Just playing around, they are rich, those motorcycles are expensive, especially with the trade tariffs attached to the price tag" my uncle replied, glancing at them, and then back at us. We later decided to have lunch at my uncle's girlfriends house, allowing for us to talk even more. I gladly accepted and we rode off as a group.
In the house lived seven people, different relatives and their children. I went upstairs and was shown the computer, so that I could catch up on my blog (being about three days since I wrote an entry at that point.). While I typed away, my uncle went off to buy ingredients for our lunch. An hour and a half later, I was called down to enjoy a beautiful spread of soup and stir fried chicken. I spoke in Vietnamese during lunch, talking about my family, my life, and my feelings about Vietnam. My uncle told jokes, working on his English as he spoke to us, and having fun. After filling myself up, I decided it was time to get back to the center and get to work on my lesson plans and other homework I had in mind. My uncle agreed and we set off, saying goodbye to Diem and my uncle's girlfriend.
Upon returning, my brothers greeted me, telling me how boring it was without them and sad they were without me. "On Tuesday, many of the children who went back to their home villages are returning" said one of the brothers. How exciting! I could not wait to see them back again (which is today!). After setting my things off, I made around at all the homes, greeting the children and playing a little bit of soccer, while chatting with some of the older children washing their clothes and hanging around. Today was a rather light day on adventure and fun, as I spent the majority of the day in my room, prepping and working. There was one excursion, where the Hong family invited me and many other family friends to a party. This party was for Ua's university acceptance, which they recently heard about. It was quite the spread, and quite the conversation that I had with all the guests. My uncle joined us for this as well. I decided to go to bed a little late, trying to get out more readings in my Vietnamese lesson books.
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