Adventures into domesticity

Lets face it, I would make a terrible house wife. But this is the role I have fallen into in Tra Vinh.  Violet hasto go to work sometimes, and leaves me to pootle in her flat while she is gone. Then I feel bad, so I do things like tidy. Violet gets back from class at around 5 and I do not have supper on the table, but she puts  up with me anyway. I have become a kept woman.

In keeping with this domestic theme, yesterday it became clear from the lines of ants marching around the flat that something had to be done about the floor. So we broke out the scrubbing brush and dish cloth and got our cinderella on. Now the floor is pristine, the ants have been banished and life is shiney.

Other than the more domestic adventures I have been having real Experiences. For example the other day one of Violet's friends who is an ex-monk took us for lunch at the Pagoda where he used to live. It was kind of the most insane, most fantastic thing that has happened in Vietnam.

Talking of food, I have been massively upsetting my stomach by exposing it to all sorts of magical and mysterious food types, I must ask Violet to write down all the different things I have eaten, because I have trouble with the Vietnamese, but I've had crepes with shrimp in, soup with vaguely meaty things in, fish, rice, many many noodles, various things wrapped in rice paper and so on. However, the cherry on the odd foods cake came yesterday when Violet's students took us out for dinner. They ordered what looked like regular duck eggs, but turned out to be tiny perfectly formed ducks, and then watched as we tried to eat them, Violet is amazing and pretty much finished hers, I'm ashamed to say I failed spectacularly and did not eat any. But in my defence it had a beak.

Previous to the disasterous duck egg incident, we played games with Violet's students at the square pond with water in which I was told about with much gusto before I came. It's kind of hard to remember that the students are the same age as me, because they love to play duck duck goose and sing songs to eachother. It is kind of adorable.