Ho Chi Mama: Adventures of a VietMOM: Home Sweet Home

Tall and Skinny Home

We're in! At last we have moved out of our hotel room and into our house. Home sweet home - sort of. Brianna insists that we not call this "home." Whenever we are out, and someone asks if we are going home, she's quick to say, "It's not home. It's just our temporary residence." She is our loyal Vermonter - unswayed by the sunshine, sea and scenery. The rest of us, however, are happy to finally have a semi-permanent place to call home. Naturally the move took place Vietnam-style.

Our original move-in date changed from Saturday to Sunday to Monday to Tuesday. When all of our "official" paperwork came through on Monday, we expected to rock n' roll on Tuesday. I headed off to school with the three kids and left John in charge of transporting our life from the hotel to our new home (love that). I was excited to think that after school we would just bike to our new home, unpack and settle in.

John met us after school and warned me. "The house isn't exactly finished, but they're working on it." We biked home to find a saw screaming upstairs as one guy worked to fashion a door for the bedroom Brianna and Nolan would share. Wood and metal shavings were everywhere. Dust, dirt and noise filled my world, and my dream of a peaceful refuge in the rice paddy after too many weeks in a hotel was shattered. I couldn't escape fast enough.

Hi-Tech WIFI Installation

We attempted to head out to dinner to escape the racket in our house. That's when the WIFI company arrived. They seemed to be asking us questions about where to install the modem (once again interpreting gestures here). We tried to indicate that it didn't really matter to us, because it's WIFI after all. Then there was some discussion about the television. We wanted to relay the message that we were not interested in cable television, but our sentences were reduced to, "No TV." Then, fearing that we would return from dinner and find the television completely gone, we decided to call the poor Vietnamese woman, Rose, who got herself into this mess by doing us a favor and helping us find a place to live.

We explained to Rose that we didn't care where the modem went and that we didn't want cable TV. She couldn't understand the latter request. It costs "so little" she explained. We had to explain over and over again that it wasn't the cost of cable that we were concerned about, but the fact that we didn't want our kids watching it. Rose conveyed our message to Mr. Bang, the owner of the house, and we skipped off to dinner (after taking a few photos of the hi-tech Internet installation process: Spool of wire on a scooter + bamboo ladder = Internet connection in the rice paddy).

We returned from dinner to find five guys sitting on the floor of our living room, smoking cigarettes and attempting to get our cable working. Can you say lost in translation? Argh. The kids freaked about the smoke in the house. I freaked about the cable in the house. Then we went upstairs in an attempt to go to bed.

We spent a little time rearranging beds and mattresses to keep everyone happy. Brianna and Nolan had a new, custom-made door with no glass in the window panes - making their air conditioned room worthless. We set up a fan next to each of their beds and hoped for the best. Last weekend, while in Danang, we had attempted to buy sheets and comforters for all of the beds without having any idea what size the beds would end up being (and without actually being able to read the packaging to determine what was inside). Aside from the fact that the comforter we bought for Nolan turned out to be a baby quilt, we didn't do too badly. Nobody has a top sheet, but everyone at least has a fitted bottom sheet to sleep on. It's too hot for sheets and blankets anyway, so we'll all survive until we get back to Danang again.

Exhausted from all of the excitement, we all slept just fine in the new digs. It was the next morning that we discovered that we'd forgotten to investigate one important detail while house hunting - hot water. We've got it...downstairs in the bathroom next to the kitchen. The bathroom that is in our bedroom (the one with a real tub instead of just a hose attached to the wall) has only cold water. Hmmmm. I am hot, but I will never be hot enough to take a cold bath. So, it looks like the master bath will be the master foot bath and toilet room. Although since there is no door on this chamber, I'm a bit reluctant to use it for anything more than brushing my teeth. Call me a prude, but there are lines that should just not be crossed.

We headed out the door to get some breakfast before school to discover that the work crew had been waiting outside for us to vacate the premises. As soon as we unlatched the door, they descended. I left John in charge of the pantomiming routine and hoped I'd return to a placid, completed house at the end of the school day. At 4:30 we returned to see progress. Brianna and Nolan had a completed door on their bedroom. John and I hustled off on our bikes to a furniture store where we'd heard there would be a new shipment of sofas arriving. Part of our housing arrangement was negotiating a split of the cost of the sofa so that we could control the comfort level. Most families in Vietnam have solid wood benches in their living rooms that are about as comfortable as a church pew. We thought it would be worth a little extra money to have a couch with cushions. What an ordeal.

Initially we had found a hot pink sectional couch in Danang - something straight out of Barbie's palace. It was ugly but oh so comfortable (and naturally it only came in hot pink). We asked to take a picture to show Mr. Bang since he would be paying for half of this pink beast. The store said, "No photos." We tried to explain (with many gestures) why we needed a picture, but they stood firm. So, we left that one behind.

Next, in Hoi An, we found a great Pee Wee Herman style, spring green, vinyl living room set that would have worked just fine. Mr. Bang checked it out and said, "Eeeew." So, we found ourselves at yet another furniture store in search of a sofa. We found something comfortable enough and only mildly ugly. We called in Rose to do the negotiating and explaining for us. Once we got all of the pricing details from the two furniture store owners, we called Mr Bang, who arrived on his motorbike with his sister in tow five minutes later. It was like the lead up to a bad joke: How many people does it take to buy a couch in Vietnam? Apparently at least seven.

After what seemed like heated discussions and negotiations to those of us who understood absolutely nothing about what was going on, we came to an agreement and arranged for the couch to be delivered the next morning. At 9:30 p.m., when all of our kids had already gone to bed, there was a knock on our door and a voice calling out, "Hello. Couch." Sure enough, I opened the door, and there was the couch, two chairs, a coffee table and two ottomans all stacked up on the back end of a scooter sitting in the rice paddy. Apparently this called for a village celebration to fete our sofa. The furniture people unloaded the couch into the house. Mr Bang, his wife and his daughter accompanied the delivery scooter. The neighbors next door joined in on the fun and brought their son over to test out the couch. By this time there was adequate commotion to tempt our kids out of their beds and down the stairs into the living room to join the couch welcoming party. I was definitely excited to have a couch for the living room but not nearly as excited as everyone else at this impromptu party. I think we'll just chalk it up to a surprise house warming for our temporary residence. We were the ones surprised, and we also bought the gift. Hmmm. Coucheral enlightenment?