House of Horrors

To be fair, Quyen's house is not horrible. But but but we will get to that. Quyen picked me up at three and took me to her and her parents' house. She is one of the people in the teacher's English club -- one of the good ones. She always calls me 'my teacher' and has such a soft and high-pitched voice that the first time she ever called me on the phone I thought there was a child on the other end of the line. Anyway, she arrived and it was drizzling, courtesy of Tropical Storm Pakhar, I assume. I wondered if we'd make it to her house and get stuck there for longer than planned if the rain intensified. Probably not the best mindset to have before visiting someone's home, but such it was. Quyen tried to talk to me as she drove, but it made me incredibly nervous because it made her drift and weave as she looked over her shoulder at me instead of looking at the road ahead.

We got to her house and got straight to fruit picking. She has a milkfruit tree that she's been telling me about for weeks, and she was eager for me to have some fruit from it. The garden was full of beautiful flowers, and I scampered around taking pictures while Quyen wielded her bamboo picking tools. She picked enough fruit to fill a horn of plenty (and of course all of this eventually came home with me) before it started raining hard enough to drive us inside. I met her sister, who was one of my FCE students way back when, and her nephew. Like Sunny, he couldn't stop staring at me. Unlike Sunny, this little boy showed his affection by punching me and throwing chunks of watermelon at me.

Picking milkfruit

These reminded me of prosciutto

We ate an assortment of fruit, including my first time tasting cacao, and rice porridge with chicken. There were three dogs near us during the meal. One small, long-haired dog sat at my feet giving me puppy dog eyes the whole time I ate. Partway through the meal, a box across the room started moving, and I realized there were cats in it. Three cats, to be exact. They emerged from the box in that slinky way cats have of moving, and took interest in our meal. I have never considered myself an anti-cat person, but Vietnam has done much to change my mind. I do not appreciate having my personal space invaded and being rubbed by animals of dubious cleanliness, and cats here seem to be attracted to my very opposite sentiment. Before I knew it, I had one cat perched on my armrest, eying me at eye level, and another cat sitting in the chair across the table from me, staring me down. The thing about this second cat was that it was blind. Maybe that would inspire sympathy and affection from someone else, but something about this blind, scrawny, tabby cat made my skin crawl. Having it come over and sit next to me took away my appetite and gave me more heebie jeebies than any of my other animal encounters here in Vietnam. I'll take a ten inch centipede or a spider bigger than my hand over that cat any day. I almost wish I had a picture for you, but unlike my default reaction to bugs, I had no desire to look at it, let alone preserve its image.

Cacao seeds, the seed coat tastes like floral perfume