Finding some southern comfort

For lunch today I followed through with my resolve to have cháo tim, rice porridge with heart meat. It may sound unappealing, but it was great. I love rice; I love grits, and this was somewhere in between, plus greens, garlic, and heart. It felt like comfort food.

Lately there has been a notable absence of sweat. We walk outside and it feels wonderfully cool. Upon checking the weather reports, it turns out that we've been in the mid to high 80s. You know the weather here is 'special' when high 80s feels like heaven. I suspect the humidity must be lower lately, too, because today it got up into the 90s and still felt great.

This evening we joined our embassy coordinator in celebrating her son's sixth birthday. If you have ever visited the site cuteoverload.com, imagine spending three hours in that world. Bi was precocious, rambunctious, enthusiastic, and the perfect host. He was thrilled with all of his gifts and, as kids often do, found some unexpected ways to enjoy them. Apparently birthdays aren't a big thing in Vietnam (everyone's age changes at Tet, the new year), so this was the first time Bi had a birthday party and got presents. After cake Bi enthusiastically treated us to several songs with minimal urging from his mother. Then, as though he had been sitting in on our last two weeks of teacher training, he used his new box of crayons to test our knowledge of colors. First he went through each one, asking us what color it was. Then he put us in groups and started naming colors and we were supposed to see which group could point to it first. Next, he asked us to raise our hand if the color he named was a color we liked. Seriously, it could be a real lesson plan.

Though I don't leave until Sunday, tomorrow is our official last day. It's hard to believe. Step two is coming.