We’ve been living in Vietnam now for 23 weeks, and tomorrow we head off on our first family holiday. Over the next 6 days we’ll be far away from the city on a beach resort in Mui Ne, about 5 hours drive up on the coast.
We are looking forward to a change in scenery. My readiness for a break away was confirmed earlier today when, after lunch out with friends, I suddenly panicked that I couldn’t see Flo in the huddle of children walking down the street, “where’s Florence gone?” I asked to no one in particular, but in a slightly fretful tone, (which I now wish I’d internalised). “She’s on your shoulders, Tim,” replied our friend. Sure enough, I was clutching both Flo’s ankles at the time, and she had her hands resting on my head.
All the more embarrassing, these were the same friends who, when we first met them last month, asked Lou the name of her baby, to be met with stoney silence from Lou who’d decided to have a sudden memory loss, took a full two second pause, stared at me, and as I was starting to mouth the “M” of Martha, just managed to find the name herself, from a distant corner of her memory. Continue reading →
I reclaimed my running gear over the weekend, long since discarded at the back of the wardrobe, and joined an informal band of ex-pats on a jog round District 7, one of Saigon’s newest areas in terms of construction and modern looking amenities.
6kms, and one bacon and egg roll later (I did say ‘informal’ band) and other than some minor tweaks in the legs, and a slightly higher cholesterol level, the morning was uneventful enough, but offered a reminder of some of the starker impacts of the country’s ongoing trajectory of growth.
Although the land on which District 7 resides was originally purchased by a Taiwanese buyer some 20 years ago, it is only in recent times that development has advanced and, like many things here, it has moved forward apace. Continue reading →
Seamlessly, with the midway passing of the year, so one set of parents touched down back in Manchester yesterday afternoon, whilst another, mine, were being driven to Heathrow to board their Air France flights out here.
It has been great times having Janice and Gordon with us, and Florence has been full of beans since they arrived, showing them all her favourite places to eat, drink and play. To have a double helping of grandparents is already the cause for further giggles and hoots from Flo. She is on school holidays now, so all the more reason to be excited!
Dad will, I predict, be bristling with excitement as well (he will not mind me saying) not only about the trip ahead, but also with anticipation at the chance to test his new blackberry, and its operating prowess in Vietnam. Continue reading →
Fast approaching mid June, and 2011 is flashing by.
I was back from paternity leave last week, and in Bangkok for a few days. On the home front, we’re preparing for our summer visitors in the form of both sets of parents. I say ‘summer’, however it’s been consistently around 36 degrees out here since we arrived…
In many ways I’m sure it won’t feel like we have been away that long when we sit down for dinner tomorrow night with Lou’s Mum and Dad, freshly off the plane. Although the truth is that many things have happened since we boarded our own plane over 16 weeks ago now.
Lou and I attended a short parent’s meeting in the week to discuss Flo’s progress this term, and commented on just how normal and familiar the journey, the buildings and the faces of the people we know there, are to us. Our first scoping visit to the school back in early March is now distant in the memory, and the associated senses of newness and apprehension are forgotten.
Turns out Flo very possibly feels the same, as her teacher, ‘Miss Emma’, filled us in on just how content and absorbed Flo is in all that she does in the classroom.
We’ve noticed at home her increasing confidence, questions, jokes, energy and perhaps most entertainingly, her propensity to turn on her musical doll’s house and dance around the living room floor, offering up samples of new moves learnt with her friends at school.
Flo has a hot and cold relationship with Skype, and is either uninterested being in front of the camera or, conversely, and mainly through the medium of her unique take on dancing, she will perform, with intense determination and often semi naked, a series of wobbly pirouettes and lunges, and insist on taking centre stage on the webcam.
When she’s exhausted her repertoire of dance moves, she progresses on to giggly impressions of a snake or a frog, writhing or hopping respectively, around the kitchen. All of which serves to eclipse any other possible conversation we might want to have with people at the other end of the line.
Martha can only lie there in bewilderment as much as we do, on the odd occasion glancing at me as if to say “what’s up with my sister?”
Martha has had a good first 3 weeks. Where Lou has unfortunately put up with various ailments since the birth, and Flo and I have carried off the infamous “Saigon cough” between us for about a month now, Martha’s world has been a daily routine of waking up to be fed and then nuzzling back down in a state of drunken stupor.
Martha enjoying the Saigon cafe scene
She has been out and about on a few occasions, and whilst her feeding and sleeping habits were unaffected by taxi rides, beeping horns and escalators, at times she didn’t look totally thrilled to be wrapped up in an all-in-one sleep suit, under a blanket, given the humidity out here.
We’ve not been sure how best to clothe Martha but have been conscious that the Vietnamese way is for mothers and their babies to be confined to their houses for the entire first month, and the child’s head, hands and feet need to be covered at all times.
There are some other tough rules to be followed (mothers not allowed to wash their hair for the first month either, for example) and so Martha gets plenty of attention when we are out given the lack of other newborns cruising the sidewalks in their strollers.
Martha’s positive well being has been despite our worrying premonitions before she was born about what baby number 2 was going to be like.
Based on some brief research amongst friends, we formed the opinion that couples with two children seem, through the baby-toddler years at least, to have one angel, and one Beelzebub incarnate.
Am sure time will tell whether Flo and Martha conform to this or not, but so far it has been a real joy spending time with them both, and Flo is certainly very proud of being a big sister. She has picked up on things we say to Martha and we caught her the other day sat next to her sister, patting her tummy as she was crying, and saying “don’t worry Martha, Florence is here”.
Just what both girls will make of these early months and years together, out here, is difficult to predict, but we are relishing the time we now get together at home and the easy going nature of our weekends and socialising.
Preparing for our guests has, of course, involved a slightly more chaotic weekend to normal, and the inevitable rearranging of various aspects of our apartment.
In between Flo’s Saturday morning swimming lesson, a play date with one of our neighbours at a local children’s centre, feeding Martha, and me sloping off last night for some beers with a mate whose family have gone back to Europe for a few weeks, we’ve also put in some steady shopping hours.
As well as now having a suitably stocked fridge and bar, we are also the proud owners of a new mirror, an arm chair, tea, coffee and sugar ceramic jars, 2 bedside lamps, a hand-woven basket (“for things”), some new knives, and a butter dish. A more accurate description of this last item, Lou has just pointed out, is actually a small flan dish (this purchase was one of mine) and so am not sure whether its life expectancy is that promising.
As I write this Janice and Gordon are somewhere between Dubai and Bangkok, and landing here in Saigon at lunchtime tomorrow in time for us all to toast Janice’s birthday.
Another anniversary of sorts tomorrow goes back 12 years ago, when Lou and I were flying out to Greece on separate holidays, and were to meet for the first time that night, me flanked by Derek and Paul, and she by Sarah and Laura. Who’d have ever predicted what was to happen next.
Martha Joan Edna Bishop was 1 week old today, and has been on her first outing since arriving home from hospital last Thursday.
Ironically, this was to go into town to the doctor’s, not because Martha has any ailments – on the contrary, she has so far slept pretty much round the clock, awaking only for food – but because Lou had some follow up appointments, and was returning to meet with Dr Riche, the obstetrician who delivered Martha. Continue reading →
For the past 3 months there has been an overall sense of inevitably about the outcome of many of my daily one-to-one conversations with local Vietnamese here in Saigon.
Communicating with taxi drivers, supermarket check-out staff, waiters, security guards, and the like, more than often becomes a slow, truncated, and unsatisfactory exchange where both parties appear genial and responsive, but neither is really grasping what the other is talking about.
Despite embarking on a short course of Vietnamese, and initially buoyed by some of its relatively simple grammatical rules, the very unfamiliar tonal aspects of Vietnamese remain a point of departure for me – as they do, I have heard, for many others who have come here with European trained diction, and tried and failed to master the (somewhat disputed) number of tones which make up the language. Continue reading →
I was fortunate enough to be taken on a CARE project visit this week, 5 hours drive south of Saigon, into the heart of the Mekong Delta Region to the Province of Sóc Trăng.
CARE have been operating in Vietnam since the end of the Second World War (for the fact seekers amongst you, the very first “CARE packages” were sent from the USA to war torn Le Havre in France, on May 11 1946, which I make to be 65 years ago this week…)
After 14 years out of the country, following its Reunification in 1975, CARE returned to Vietnam and, for the past quarter of a century, has supported interventions designed to improve the lives of thousands of vulnerable and marginalised communities in many of Vietnam’s provinces, Sóc Trăng included. Continue reading →
Enjoyed some final time off work today as Vietnam’s Liberation Day public holiday continues…
We’ve been endeavouring to keep up with the UK bonanza of holidays of late, and joined in with the Royal Wedding celebrations last week. I made a bee-line from the office on Friday, with a colleague from Cairo, to join Lou and Flo and a mass of wedding supporters congregated in a local café to watch the event.
The café had colour portraits of William and Kate on display outside, and a big screen inside beaming BBC World Service to a packed crowd of union jacks, ladies hats and jugs of Pimms. A sight usually more fitting for the banks of Henley, but it was somehow quite reaffirming to be a part of the spirit of the day, particularly given the lack of media build up we’ve had out here about the whole affair.
We then watched online video footage of it over the weekend as well. Flo was transfixed by the whole thing, picking out the yellow Queen, the white fairy princess, and apparently some orange horses.
Today also marked the first day of Lou officially moving into “full term” territory (37 weeks). Originally, I was due to fly to Dhaka today for work, but this got cancelled, which in many ways means less nervous moments for both of us (getting back from Bangladesh in a hurry would have been a tad too high octane maybe) however on the other hand, and according to Lou’s doctor, our baby is very healthy, settled and content and not likely to arrive anytime soon. This, despite Lou constantly feeling exactly the opposite given how low the baby is languishing in its healthy, settled and contented little home at the moment.
With due dates and delivery very much on our minds this month, there may not be much time to recall what we’ve been up to since the last ‘journal’. Suffice to say April found us very much getting into the groove of a routine. It’s been over 9 weeks since we first arrived in Saigon, and our Thailand holiday and some of the more excruciating moments of that last week in London seem far removed in the memory.
The weather has turned up a notch, and humidity and heat are both now set too high for much of the day, and certainly too high to be outside for very long. Flo’s early rising continues, and quite often we’ll take her downstairs to the children’s play area before breakfast, only to find the slides already sizzling hot.
For some of the draw backs of living in a 9th floor apartment, the pool here, adjacent to the swings and slides, is a blessing. Lou has been swimming most days (“but it’s not as nice and refreshing as Tooting Lido”) and Flo has started lessons again and is gaining in confidence in the water. There is a small gym downstairs too, which I’ve used a couple of times as I reintroduce the body to running again.
I plodded round the block yesterday at about 8am, which was instantly more enjoyable than the running machine, as you jog past local tea shacks, fruits stalls and lots of ‘garages’ (which tend to, in fact, be people’s living rooms) where scooters and bikes are in a permanent state of having their tyres fixed, their wheels washed or an oily rag applied to some part of their engines. Round the block is definitely for me, even if I did arrive back home looking as if I’d plunged into the pool fully clothed on my way back upstairs.
Florence is thoroughly enjoying school. She had a fortnight off for Easter, but now has a clear run in before the summer break at the end of June. More confident and gregarious all the time, she has taken to ordering her own food and drinks when we go out, and berates the taxi drivers if they miss our turning!
We’ve started to get to know some really nice people here at the apartment as well as through school, and Flo is making friends with children of different ages and from different parts of the world. The ex-pat community is certainly a well travelled one and, as a family entirely from UK stock, we are more the exception to the rule when exploring with new people their various backgrounds, countries lived in, and languages spoken.
For my birthday last week I had the day off and Lou and I took up a local cookery course (a leaving gift from CARE UK colleagues) which was a great excuse to eat more lovely food. We followed that by heading out in the evening to an Argentinean steakhouse for dinner and drinks (this is maybe why I need to go running more). All in all a very civilised way to see in being 36.
Work is going well. I feel quite at home in our rather quirky building in downtown District 3. Have had a few visitors drop in, and run some workshops to support the team here. Am keeping busy developing ideas that came from the meetings in Hanoi, and have also started to do some networking in Saigon at local Chambers of Commerce events.
Next week I’m heading down to the Mekong to visit some of CARE’s rural projects for a couple of days, and then India, Sri Lanka, Laos and Pakistan are all potential countries to be visiting after my paternity leave finishes.
May 2011 is for sure to be a memorable month for us out here. Exciting changes ahead, and priceless days for Lou, Flo and I in the run up to life as a family of four.
saigonsays 