Vietnam Day 44 (7/21/09)

Our beloved contractor (sketchy though he may be) was missing again today (still working at the house), so I helped out with painting like I did yesterday. For a while I had nothing to do but paint the tiny crevices on the window with a second coat of white, which let me tell you is no thrilling task. After that however the blue paint came out, which is even more fun than the yellow. I don't know what it was - perhaps it was satisfying some sort of OCD urges or maybe the color just reminded me of Duke, but either way crouching on the floor meticulously painting that trim was really fun. It could however have been hazardous to my health as my face got very close to the noxious fumes and the paint splatters on my skin have put me at increased risk for lead poisoning (just kidding).

During our cafe break, I was dead tired from my new sleep schedule (which happens to be similar to the absurd hours I pull at Duke) so I didn't really have the energy to play with the kids that come to the cafe every day to see us. To avoid them (as terrible as that sounds), I pretended to be asleep in my chair (a slightly unconvincing act given the two empty glasses of cafe sua nong sitting in front of me). Sadly, these girls have little respect for the weary. They came up behind me while my eyes were closed and started stuffing flowers in my hair with little regard for my "slumber." It was cute as always though - the kids kept taking Kendra's camera to play with and continually ran across the street to the People's Committee building to find even more flowers for us.

Because of all the rain today, we combined our science class with the P.E. class and with the two classes combined, the class felt empty (I guess a lot of the kids just don't come in when it rains). We spent almost the whole time playing indoor games like hopscotch and telephone during the P.E. class, and ended with a short science demonstration. I showed them how different liquid densities cause water, cooking oil, and condensed milk to sit on top of one another without mixing, keeping my explanation in the simplest terms possible.