Savory success

Let me get a few things out of the way. First, thank you all for the wonderful comments and emails I have been receiving. Second, I've started a photo blog at http://vietnamsm.tumblr.com/. My goal is to post one photo every day, generally in a more artistic rather than documentary vein. Now on to the narrative.

A few hours ago I would have had little to write about. Today we had a lot of briefings regarding health, safety, the local economy, and so on. Interesting and informative for us, but not thrilling blog material. The air conditioning unit was so raucous all of us thought the sounds were coming from (nonexistent) construction outside. Lunch was a combination of eel and noodles and other things that I found generally delicious, though I may have been one of the few who did.

After lunch there were more briefings and then we endured the eternal process of acquiring and setting up a cellphone. Having done this in three countries now, I find the process to be impossible without a fluent speaker of the local language. Thank goodness for our Embassy liaison.

So far, I had been feeling very dependent on my peers who already speak Vietnamese, and generally not feeling like I could do anything on my own. Here's where the last few hours tonight come in. While most of the day's activities take place in a clot of fifteen Americans, dinner often sees us subdividing into smaller groups defined by nap duration and hunger imminence. Tonight, I went out with three other people whose Vietnamese is about as nonexistent as mine. We asked the woman at the front desk how to ask 'how much' and set out. Having already traveled in two directions from the nearest corner, we chose to turn left. The first place we approached had something I've had in the US in Vietnamese restaurants and love (but whose Vietnamese name I don't know). We used our newly learned phrase and got an answer -- except we couldn't understand it. Luckily, the cook's friend (or so it seemed), who was sitting on a scooter on the edge of the sidewalk, was able to translate for us (or so we thought). After some confusion about the price, it seemed unreasonably high, so we decided to keep looking. But, after more wandering we decided to come back. It was by far the most inviting-looking food and welcoming-looking patch of sidewalk. The food didn't taste quite like what I've had before, but was warm and filling and scrumptious, and the crunchy texture was a nice change of pace after several noodle-based meals. Also, when we paid, it turned out that the price was way less than what had been originally translated to us, and on the absurdly cheap side of reasonable.

More important than our food adventure, though, was its effect. Venturing out, armed with our few phrases and poor pronunciation, I did not feel confident. So far, whenever I have tried to tell people the name of the city I'll be living in later on, I am met with blank stares. Clearly, my attempts at approximating its pronunciation are insufficient. Therefore, I had low expectations for our communicative accomplishments this evening. What I found, however, was that people are friendly and willing to collaboratively cobble together a language of mispronunciation, translation, miming, and writing things down. This gives me hope. I may never attain eloquence, but I can attain food, and that's a great start.

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In other news, I had been unable to find my battery charger for my camera, and was very concerned. Luckily, another girl here has the same camera, so today I borrowed hers. Once I leave Hanoi, however, I obviously would no longer be able to use it, and this had me worried. But, while rummaging around for my wallet, I found it! Hooray! In celebration, here's a picture I took today from inside a taxi.