Another day

Hi from Anne. Today I spent wandering around by myself, which is pretty much what I do while the kids are with the nanny. I found myself in a big empty mall with Lipton Tea girls standing around. Lipton Tea pretty much has the lock on the market here, and women stand around in bright yellow dresses and red shoes and smile. It's very strange. The big plus was that I found some gouda and brie cheese in the grocery store there, and bought it and a broom, as my day's purchases.

Our biggest problem lately is figuring out what to do about the nanny. There is a much greater sense of permissiveness with children here and our nanny, Thang, twenty years old, doesn't make Lily do anything if Lily says no, which she says all the time, so she runs around and poops in her underwear and eats cookies all day and has become a little bratty. Mark is having an intervention today with the woman who helped us to hire her, so hopefully the situation will improve. Our cleaning person, Ing, speaks absolutely no English, so we end up gesturing to each other and pointing and it's very awkward and weird. In some ways I don't think we know how to have hired help.

We spent the morning playing in our little alleyway with a baby and his mother. We don't really talk--we just stand there and smile and laugh.

I burnt the back of my leg pretty badly on a motorcycle exhaust pipe yesterday. On any given day, I probably hop on the back of 4-5 motorcycles when I'm not with the kids. I'm okay, and am just glad it wasn't one of the kids.

My greatest times of the day are when the sun goes down and it cools off a little. We declare that happy hour, and luckily I have been able to find plenty of wine here. Most of it costs about $2- $3 US a bottle. Not bad. My favorite brand of red wine is called Passion.

That's it from 123/20 Tran Hung Dao. Please write a paper letter someone. I'm curious to see how we would get it. I think I"ve seen a guy ripping around on a motorcycle with a postal uniform, but I'm not sure.