I Live In A Compound

Started from the bottom now I'm here. But Actually. I wasn't expecting anything spectacular from my homestay and yet our first hours have been spectacular in every way. My host dad is a short man who introduced himself to my roommate, Laura, and I while wearing a motorbike helmet and a golf shirt.We followed after him in a taxi and shortly arrived at an alley full of homes. We got out of the taxi with our bags and our host dad put Laura's giant suitcase on the back of his motorbike and we followed him down the alley. We stopped in front of a huge gate that blocking the view of the house. The gates opened to reveal a massive house/mansion/structure and a backyard of considerable size as well. The backyard is full of tall bamboo and palm trees, a pond, four fish tanks, a rooster, 3 guard dogs, 4 small dogs, several motorbikes, a few regular bikes, at least two guest homes, an outdoor table made out of slabs of rock, and the river directly behind everything. Dang. I still haven't been to all of the rooms inside the house so it's unclear how big it really is. There is a kangaroo fur from Australia on the wall and a thermostat pinned to a deer leg from Holland in the living room. There is also an Australian water filter. He says there is too much zinc and iron in the Mekong Delta water so he filters everything. This means that it is safe for us to drink as well, we hope. It's hard to know which food warnings to take seriously because we have been breaking half of the rules since we got here. Oops. There is also a hammock, which seems to be staple item here in Vietnam. Some cafes only have hammocks, no chairs. Eventually we learned that there are also 4 hamsters, more fish and at least 10 people living here. Every time we asked, our host dad mentioned more and more family members who share his home. He introduced us to his daughter, nephew and mother. His daughter is very quiet and shy. She watches Disney channel in English with Vietnamese subtitles. We found out that the Vietnamese count your birth as your first birthday. Therefore our host dad insisted his daughter was 14 while she indignantly insisted that she was 15. His nephew is kind of jumpy and addicted to video games. His mother is incredible. At the age of 85, she is less than five feet tall. She greeted us saying "Bonjour." As a young adult she studied in France and still remembers a bit of the language so we have had some communication in French. No English. She loves my hair and doesn't understand how it is how it is. She isn't the first person to express the same sentiments and touch my twists with wonder. Her hair is thinning and she is shriveled and very skinny. It seems as though she's lost a weight and now has an excess of skin. However, she is fully functional and doesn't seem to be sick or anything. She does everything with a kind smile, cooking, eating, cleaning, and playing with her favorite dog, Jerry the chihuahua. She walks without help and is extremely flexible. To be real, all of the elderly women we have met have been very active, fit, flexible, healthy and mobile. It must be the fact that they keep moving and working throughout life. They all eat with at least one foot off of the floor to stay flexible. This is true for the older women and everyone in the rural village, however I don't see the flexibility of the younger generation who live in the city. There was a man inside the house who helped us with our luggage and set up our room. There was also a woman who followed us from our hotel to the house and helped to cook. They weren't introduced and still haven't said one word to us. We assumed that they were the help for the longest time until we asked for clarification. They are actually more family members. They may not have been introduced to us because they are related on our host mom's side of the family. Either way it was weird. Our host mom is not here yet. She is coming home tomorrow from a business meeting in Hanoi. I'm excited for her to come because she is taking Laura and I to her niece's wedding on Sunday!!! We're so excited and can't believe we got placed with such an awesome family. We wanted to take the long drive to the each this weekend but a wedding is a much better option. Laura and I share a room on the second floor. We have a spiral staircase outside our door that leads straight to the entrance gates. Convenient. There is also a wrap around deck with a view of the river and the backyard. In the evening we could see the guard dogs that get let out at 10 pm. We will not be breaking curfew. They were barking something fierce during the night and I do not want to be the subject of their aggression. Our host dad is learning English. He does very well but needs help with pronunciation. He is very clearly the head of the house. Right when we got outside he got our schedule together and told us we had one hour to shower while he went to the market to get dinner supplies. Once he got back we helped cook. We made beef with carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, vermicelli noodles, and coconut water sauce. Delicious. We also had shrimp chips with salt, pepper and lime. So good. He had us taste boiled turtle eggs. That was sad. Aren't most turtles endangered? Apparently it is customary to have beer with dinner. He worked his way up from orange juice to wine to beer when asking us what we were allowed to drink. Every time we raised our glass he raised his and said either cheers or yo (bottoms up). His nephew, who ate quickly and returned to his PSP (Personal PlayStation) only had half a glass of Heineken because he says a full glass will knock him unconscious. Lol. After dinner we left everything on the table because a cleaning lady will come early in the morning to take care of it. Our host dad has family in France, Canada, San Jose, and Ohio but he has never been out West. He teaches geography at Can Tho University and was proud to know that Washington-Laura's home-was in the Northwest, Rhode Island is in the East and Obama is from Kenya. He remembered a whole lot from the letters we sent to our homestay families. He used these facts as starting points for conversation. He was especially interested in our pets. He says his mom lost 6 of her 9 siblings in the war and huge amount of Vietnamese people moved to America after the war. That is why his family is so spread out. Our evening was great and it felt so nice to finally feel settled again. I am looking forward to getting a massage tomorrow, meeting my host mom and hopefully going shopping for a wedding outfit.