An immersion experience

Sooner or later I need to find title themes that play on something other than rain and sweat, but the aftereffects of getting caught in a downpour linger even after the sun has come out. Morning was Vietnamese lessons, and we learned useful things like how to call a taxi and tell it where to take you. When I first realized that we would have 30 hours of language class, that seemed like pocket change as far as language education goes. Then I realized that that is the equivalent of six weeks of language back at school, or about half a semester's worth. That still doesn't seem like that much, but it sounds like way more than 30 hours would suggest. Now, it still feels like too little, but we have covered a lot. It's just that at this pace it's hard to internalize all the vocab and phrases. But I have the material, so it'll be up to me.

For lunch we sought out bún chả, a Hanoi specialty. We've had it a few times already (see the first day's entry for a description and picture), and it is still just as delicious. While at lunch the day's downpour began. I had my trusty poncho, but that didn't keep the bottom two inches of my skirt from getting wet, looking like I had dip-dyed it a darker gray over lunch. My sandals felt like water shovels, scooping up the street river with every step back towards class. Wading down the silty flooded street, I didn't really mind, until I thought about the fact that here street = trash can. I realized I was giving my feet a nice healthy soak in trash soup. Can I just call it an immune system booster?

Afternoon class was an interesting but jargon-dense economics lecture delivered in an unusual accent that mixed Vietnamese and British English. More exciting than the lecture was the mango we had for snack. Yum! And even more eventful than that was the rat. Last week we had been dealing with a small but sassy host of flies that had taken an interest in our lectures. They are gone this week, but I think I prefer them to their replacement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move and thought it was just a shadow. But I looked down and realized that shadows aren't furry. There was a rat inches from my feet. My heart jumped and I pulled my feet up onto the chair. The rat scurried off and I didn't know whether to tell the rest of the class about our visitor. I didn't want to cause a commotion, but I knew people probably didn't want to be taken by surprise. A few minutes later someone else saw it too,  so we told everyone. Feet came up but there was no major alarm. Our lecturer merely stated that rat is tasty, chuckled, and continued lecturing.

Tonight I went out for dinner with Brittanye. We were supposed to get ban xeo, which she hadn't had yet, but the trusty neighborhood ban xeo lady had not set up shop tonight. Thwarted but undaunted, we sought an alternative. The alternative we found was a dim sum esque setup, similar to the rice et cetera places except that you got a bowl of rice and paid additionally for a small plate of everything you asked for. This was not the first time I had gone out without a Vietnamese speaker to babysit the group, but it was the first time I really had to communicatively fend for myself. The problem with knowing a handful of useful phrases is that they don't equip you to understand the response. Still, through context and notes and gestures we figured things out and I was proud of us. Ordering my own food made dinner even more flavorful. Food was good and conversation was even better.