Week 3: Mosquito Week & More

Ok, so updates from Week 3, also known as Mosquito Week in my mind. I don't know what did it, but something has brought out the mosquito population of Vietnam like there's a blood famine somewhere. I have 8 bites just on my left arm, all of which may or may not carry some horribly frightening disease that starts with one of the following words: jungle, Asian, or pig. I've been reading through the infectious disease portion of my Lonely Planet guide, and the only advice they give is to avoid mosquitoes and wear bug repellent with Deet in it. Yeah, thanks for the very helpful advice, LP, but let me give you a little tip: In Vietnam, the mosquitoes seem to think of Deet like spicy chile sauce in a bowl of pho - it just enhances to flavor.

Speaking of pigs and diseases, we can't eat pork in Vietnam now. Shouldn't be a problem right? I'm sure Vietnam keeps Kosher... Oh, wait, that's right, 70% of the dishes here contain some form of pork in them. And since my fluency in Vietnamese is still lacking, I'm sure I was told several times not to eat pork, but only listened when finally someone gave me an English pamphlet telling me not to eat pork. It's called, "Blue Ear Pig" disease and either the pig's ears or your ears turn blue and then you die. I think it's the pig's ears turn blue and then you die, but the pig is fine. Again, someone told me, but my translation of Vietnamese may be lacking.


Updates on Tinh, Meat Pie, and one of my new favorites, Baby Boy-Girl (Lin My):
Tinh is doing so incredibly well this week!!! Now when I sit her up and hold her upright by her waist, she can lift her head for fairly long periods of time. AND when we were playing with one of her favorite toys (colored wooden pegs that fit upright into holes in a wooden board), she is now able to place the peg into the hole on the board! This is HUGE! Up until now, we've been working on how to tear things apart, but this is the first time that we're putting something back together. She is SO proud of herself when she gets it right that literally her whole face just lights up with that enormous smile of hers! With the increased exercise, though, she seems to be going through a lot of water and enjoys weeing on me A LOT. Four times yesterday in 2 hours:) She is also getting much better at chewing her food, which is a great sign.

Oh my little Meat Pie... Sorry, Heather, but I still don't know her name. I have a hard time understanding the "Mother" at the center when she tells me, but I will find out today and update the post as soon as I know. So after working with the children at the Disabled playground of the Social Support Center, I went to visit my little Meat Pie and see how she was doing. Luckily, she was awake this time and not eating! This was amazing luck because she really only does 3 things: eats, sleeps, and... well, I'm getting there. So I pick her up and am cuddling her in my arms and trying to rock her off to sleep for a nap. I am making all sorts of ridiculous faces and sounds and all of a sudden, she looks up at me and smiles this GORGEOUS little toothless grin! My elation at this event gets interrupted by an extremely loud and rumbling bout of gas from Meat Pie's backside. She's still smiling at me and I just have to laugh at her cuteness. As I'm holding her, something just doesn't seem right, though... I look down and what do I find? Meat Pie has crapped on me. And like her abnormally loud and long farts, her bowel movements are pretty impressive. No wonder she was smiling. Cleaned her up (with the help of the Center "Mother" because again, there was A LOT OF IT. Apparently, she's "cheeky," and I love it:)


So I hope you remember Baby Boy-Girl from Week 1? Well, today I got to spend some quality time with her after we had a pool party for the children at the Malnourished Center. The pool party itself was AWESOME! The children were ECSTATIC by being in the water on such a hot day, and just kept splashing and jumping backwards to fall into the water. Tinh was also AMAZING as we dipped her a few times and then sat her on the edge of the pool with her feet in the cool water, which she actually KICKED WITH HER FEET!!! She doesn't usually get a lot of movement in her legs, and this was just INCREDIBLE!!! Ok, back to Baby Boy-Girl:) So Lin My is this wonderful 4 month old with a head of hair like Marv Albert. It's incredible. All the children at the Center got crew cuts this week because it's so hot, and she still has an incredible head of hair! Each, individual strand is ridiculous thick (like Superman thick) and grows directly perpendicular to her scalp. It's INCREDIBLE. Unfortunately, she looks like a baby boy and it's not helpful that she's always dressed like a little boy!!! Plaid diaper and a black tank top. Well, she just wouldn't go to sleep during nap-time today, which was when the staff and volunteers were sitting down to have lunch, so I picked her up and put her in my lap for a bit to rock her. She is SO canoodley and SO giggly, that I just stopped eating because I could not stop laughing with here!!! She holds onto your fingers with these little death grips that just reach past your fingers and wrap around your heart! And she is perfectly chubby and SO DAMN CUTE! So she started to drift off and then before I knew it, she was fast asleep in my lap. Literally laying in my lap as I sat with my legs crossed, napping away like I was a human crib. Super awesome. I just couldn't move because she was SO FREAKING CUTE! She looks like a little old man while she's sleeping, which may not sound cute, but it's pretty unbeatable!

I need to run to Social Support now, and then we're off tonight to our favorite hole-in-the-wall acoustic bar where these 2 Vietnamese sisters sing Vietnamese and American folk music, mixed with some AMAZING renditions of the Cranberries, accompanied by each other and a guitar... sometimes a tambourine. It's probably my favorite place in Da Nang. We're going out to celebrate the last night of one of our volunteers here. She will be the first of our volunteer class to leave this month, and then 3 of us will be going home shortly thereafter. I'm starting to feel very sad that our volunteer family is breaking up, but I'm also excited to come home to my amazing friends and family whom I miss SO MUCH!!!

Much love to you all!
mindy