House Hunting II

We spent a good chunk of the morning looking at houses. Again, it's difficult and strange and a bit tough with two small children in a strange city. The language barrier is huge and we feel so helpless that we have to rely on others to help us set things up or to even understand and figure out how one goes about renting a house here. Some very kind people have been helping us so much. We saw one tiny place with an albino pit bull that kept acting like it wanted to eat our children; we saw another place way the hell out in the middle of nowhere (see photo of tall skinny gray house) which would apparently come with the owners still living there with us (no thanks); then we saw a brand new hotel for "gentllemen" that consisted of a small room with construction materials all over it and unexplained sawhorses--go figure (see next photo). So we are still officially homeless and trying not to panic. We have 2 1/2 more days in our hotel here, so the clock ticks...



What keeps us going: the kids, the food (every day it's a joy to eat here--Mark had Indonesian tofu and vegetables for lunch and I had beef satay noodles), and the fact that Can Tho seems to be a pretty cool town--actually it's a big city. Today, Saturday, everyone seems to be getting married all about town, and people, brides, grooms, guests, arrive in fancy clothes straddling little puttering scooters. I stood out on our balcony while the kids napped today and watched river traffic and weddings for at least an hour.


The jet lag lingers: Hudson and Lily were up at 2:30 am and then again at 4 am. Let's hope that settles itself out soon.

Tonight there is a banquet for us (kids included--kids are always included) with some university people and some visiting professors from Michigan. Should be fun.