Act I, Scene I

I wake up, not sure where I am. KA-CHUNCK. KA-CHUNCK... For the last four days the construction next door starts every morning at 8am. I fumble for my Ipod, but I have to take it to almost max volume to drown out the jackhammers and the drilling. I roll out of bed, stepping right into a crusty bowl of instant noodles form the night before. The ants are already here, tiny tributaries of single file streams from all corners of the room, to meet at this Mecca of broken ramen and chicken powder. Toothbrush sticking out of my mouth I search around for one of my favored shirts. Since the day the maid stuck some girls' panties in with my clean clothes, it's a fair assumption that some other tenant could have an article or two of mine. I'm greeted by my landlady on the way out: "You can have your sheet's cleaned one time a week only" she says (or at least I think so), "I have to charge you for two washings!". I brush past her, I'm late for daycare.

"Daycare" is what I call it. Really its supposed to be teaching primary learners. Every Sunday morning for one hour I am subjected to screaming, sandal throwing, table graffiti, and all-out lack of using English. If you've have 40 bowls of fruitloops for breakfast (I've had no breakfast this day) and you see some mustachioed, long-haired Westerner walk in to your class room... what else would you want to do? 13 "students" from the ages of 8 to 14 are probably as upset/uninterested with the lesson as I am. We should play a game! Great way to learn a bit of English and work off some of the sugar, I think. I explain a simple game to my teaching assitant, an 20 year old girl who is my translator, discipliner, co-bearer of the brunt of flying markers. After 10 minutes of simmering down the kids, they divide into two teams. The kids then discuss for a few minutes what their team names will be: Team Chicken and Team Spiderman. OK, I begin to write the names on the board for keeping score. "NONONONO!" scream the kids. They want to write their own team names. A volunteer from each group comes up and reaches on their tiptoes to scrawl out the names. Team Chiken and Team Spiderman3 (the kid copied it off of his pen holder) are finally ready to go... ready to play futbol, with a paper ball and me as the goalie. No English, just kicking, yelling, and laughing. "See you next week!" my teaching assitant conducts the children to say in "unison". Yikes...

I get out of their no minute later than 1 hour. From children yelling I'm out into deadly traffic, constantly on my guard. A motorbike zooms inches from me, carrying 3 adults and one baby, the driver on his cellphone. I clench the handlebars, squinting through smog and dirt, searching for someplace to eat a late breakfast. There's a pho place! Nope, I had pho yesterday. There's a place! No it's too empty, probably no good. Over there on the otherside of the street! No way with this traffic am I cutting over! How about that rice place from last week? No, food wasn't hot enough. I pass another pho spot (for the 10th time) and, grumbling to myself for lack of originality, I settle. I bat away flies as my food comes to me at a surprisingly slow pace. Other customers stare at me for a second too long for comfort over their steaming bowls. I keep my head down and slup, definitely not a sign of bad manners here. Meh, these noddles taste like every other noodle I've had here. Duh, Jake, it's all made of white rice, what do you expect? Spinach and squid ink fusilli? Whatever.

I spend the rest of my afternoon walking in circles in the Old Quarter. I feel the need to buy someting, jsut for the sake of bargaining with someone. I'm approached by women carrying the yoke tethered baskets of pineapples and bananas. No I don't want to buy, can't you see me scurrying away from you? Really though, some fresh pineapple would be nice, but I am on a mission to find the BEST price for pineapples and all of a sudden I'm in no mood to bargain. I duck into a cafe and try to write in my journal, but it seems to be the same crap that's been trickling out of me for the last week. I glance outside and the sun is coming out, a rarity for this city, yet somehow I find little motivation to go back outside. I send some text messages out to a few people I know in town to see what's up but no one is really responding. Another cafe-er comes up to me: "You from?". I sigh and give in. "California??! WOWOWOW!". If he weren't so obnoxious I might let it slide. "Harisona?" he looks disappointed. I do my best to be polite and do something like stir my coffee to avoid further contact. Nothing makes me feel more like a foreigner. I feel lonely.

I'm getting nowhere today with the book I'm reading, One Hundred Years of Solitude. After 2 hours, 2 coffees, and maybe just more than 2 pages of classic Colombian literature, I remember that I need to replace the showerhead that I broke the other day in my apartment. I ask the girl at the cafe where I can find a replacement; no mis-communications here, I have the actual piece with me. She understands and shows me on my map where I can find a shop that sells this item. In Hanoi, many of the street sections are identified by what they sell ie: silk suit street, computer part street, Chinese lantern street, etc. so it's easier to know where you are going ahead of time. I get to the street she told me, about a 20 minute bike ride out of my way. I see lighting fixtures, stoves, fans, other home appliances, but no showerheads. I pull out my sorry piece of broken metal and show it to a vendors. They wag their finger and shake their head, like I'm the kid who's just too fat and pathetic to ask for more candy. C'mon, this store is like a regular Bed, Bath, and Beyond... minus the "bath". I return home to take a shower with just a stream coming from the open hose. On the way I stop for a bowl of pho.



I wake up, not sure where I am. KA-CHUNCK. KA-CHUNCK... 8am. The jackhammering is constructing this perfect metal riff! I roll out of bed, not bothering to put on anything besides my briefs and rock out with beat of the brick-laying next door. What took me so long to get this guitar? I smile to myself, impressed with the painstaking bargaining deal I made for my newly purchased second-hand-no-brand-barely-stays-in-tune-sorta-ugly-beast of a guitar. My phone beeps to me. Cool! My friend Lien texted me to see if I want to meet her for lunch. I meet her at the bank where she works (mostly everyone my age in Hanoi is either an economist, accountant, financier, business consultant, etc.) and we catch a lady selling Mum Tom right out of her yoke baskets. She's a true "one-man-band", carrying plastic stools, plates, bowls, and utensils in one basket, and her ingredients (shrimp paste concentrate, limes, tofu, rice noodles, fresh chilies, fresh herbs) in the other. She manifests this tiny clay single use "stove" (looks like the cross section of a lotus plant), heats up the dipping sauce, and then fries the tofu. All of this while I get to watch a foot away from her, a foot off the ground from my stoop. This is magical, and it makes food is much more delectable than one would think. The experience is delicious, the company pleasant. I finish my plate of noodles and tofu only to be greeted with a freshly fried batch of seconds. I can't stop eating, the combinations are endless: taste a bit of the rice noodles with the tiny basil leaves, not too much shrimp dip, it'll drown out the crisp from the fried tofu, chase it with a sliver of raw chilly, enjoy the pain. A family unloads off their motorbike, unfolding one at a time to pry themselves away from each other, to catch the Mum Tom lady before she packs up for the next block. They peel away from one another, careful not to knock the bike over with the shifting wait. The father smiles and waves at me, momentarily interrupting his cellphone conversation. The children scream "ello! ello!" and flash me a thousand peace signs. Lien laughs, embarrassed that she's getting so much attention by the novelty of my presence. I can only return the biggest grin yet. Nothing makes me feel more like a foreigner. I love it.

It's super hot today but my bike has become an extension of my body. I am learning the ways of the road, sure to stay on the right, give a bell-jingle here and there to keep with the conversation of other motorists. Ah! By some weird luck I've found my showerheads! I flash a most charming smile and the price drops by half. The sales woman asks where I am from and that she has a brother in California. I tell her it's all about "the AZ" and she totally laughs.

I ready myself for my other English class, this time it's with intermediate speakers. Most of them are lively and excited to learn. We loosely follow the lesson plan which is fairly beginner and then go into open discussions about travel, cultures and customs, even green energy. They ask great questions. They even teach me a thing or two about propper English grammer. An hour and a half flys by, I've extend my stay an extra 30 minutes. Before I leave they present me with a gift. Apparently it's Teacher's Day in Vietnam. How lovely, it's a sweater! They clap as I try it on. Perfect fit. I feel like I'm showing signs of tears. Somehow the smallest and simplest things here flower into something so memorable and beautiful. "See you next week!" they call to me as I bike away. I can't wait, new topics already bubbling in my head. On my way, wherever that may be, I stop for pho.