Home away from home

Before going to Vietnam, I took a careful look at the itinerary to see what I would be in store for.  The second to last day listed that we would be spending the night at a local farm house on the Mekong Delta.  At the time I did not think much of this, as it was toward the end of the trip, and it was only for one night.  However, a few days before we left for this excursion, I started to get second thoughts.  I had never been to a homestay, let alone in Vietnam.  With somewhat low and uncertain expectations, we departed on a 3 and a half hour bus ride to the Mekong Delta. Next, we piled onto a boat and traveled a short distance through murky, brown water to an island which would be our new home for the next 24 hours.

Before settling into our new living situations, we enjoyed a delightful lunch made up of fresh spring roles, rice, chicken, beef, an entire deep fried fish and fresh fruit for dessert.  Since I am known as a picky eater, I was pleasantly surprised that I liked all of the food and was looking forward to see where we would be spending the night.  Having already stayed in very nice hotels and resorts, I was shocked when I saw our room. 4 beds,  mosquito nets, 2 fans, 1 toilet, and 1 sink.  Seeing this, I thought back to some of the homes we saw in a floating village in Halong bay.  Those people live in conditions far worse then these everyday of their lives and here I am, freaking out about spending 1 night in this home stay. This quickly made me appreciate simple things I often take for granted such as showers and air conditioning.  With this mindset going forward, I was excited and open to the activities to follow.

The people at the home stay taught us how to make traditional Vietnamese pancakes.  With a challenging language barrier, the Vietnamese people taught us by example and showed us which vegetables to cut and how to use chopsticks to flip a pancake.  Even though I love a good apple cinnamon pancake, I have to say Vietnamese pancakes are quite tasty.  After enjoying our pancakes and dinner, it was time for a  performance by the people of the home stay.  It was interesting to see that most of their songs were about love  s, friends, and family, which are common topics heard in songs from the United States.  After a wonderful performance, some of our classmates got up to sing to continue the show.  Even though the Vietnamese performers could not understand the lyrics they still appeared to be enjoying the music.  Despite the many differences between Vietnamese culture and culture in the United States, I was happy to see that both us and the people from the homestay, could enjoy the music and have a good time.  Even though I had second thoughts about going to a homestay, I am extremely thankful it was part of our trip as I learned more about myself and Vietnam then I would have ever imagined.

Our fish for lunch!

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