Yesterday I drove down the unremittingly bleak and boring straight ribbon of bitumen to Tam Ky. I checked the distance, only 40kms but on a scooter more like 80. Just about flat out I sit on 60-70 and the rice burning engine is working hard. The purpose of my visit was to see the new Toi-let as they call them and a new bathroom, but before I left Tram messaged me and said Mother asked if you could help them out. For a second I thought I would be back in building mode but no, they wanted money. I have mentioned before how poor the family is and I have seen their circumstances and they are poor, so I said yes I would give them 2 million. Not much by our standards, about $125, but a lot by theirs. This toilet bathroom is going to cost 6 million she said, a cheap toilet by our standards.The mother said she would pay me back so it's a loan.
So I went and checked into Hotel Le Dung, had lunch there and slept then wended my way back through Tam Ky to Tam Phu where Tram lives
. First person I was Trams little sister and she brought the doll out to show me the new clothes she made for it, she was so happy. I took a picture of her, one of the happiest pictures I have taken.
The bricklayer was hard at work and it brought back memories of doing the same thing with a big difference. They don't use spirit levels to get the brick courses level, just do it by eye and the bricks were up and down and all over the place, but it doen't matter the walls will be renderedand you won't see any bricks. The string lines which we would take great care with getting them horizontal were on all angles and the corners were built vertical by eye. Me and Y the youngest sibling were the brickies labourers fetching and staacking bricks which have four hollow cores and grooves on the outside to help the render stick later. At the end of his day he attached half a brick to a piece of string and held it up to the wall and sighted along the wall. All was well as he didn't knock any bricks back into line. His assistant brickie was even rougher than he was, sticking bricks into the course up and down and all over the place. Not to worry, it's be all white in the end as the concretors say.
Tram came home with a pigs head in a bag and I say while she and granny and mum prepared the feast. My job was to fend off the chooks who waanted forst go at the pigs ears which were protruding from a bowl of clean water. While Tram was chopping up the head their pig stuck it's upper body out of the sty and sniffed the air hungrily, I thought he was going to make his escape and devour his brothers head but he restrained himself.
So we ate dinner on the front verandah and the brickie and his mate joined in and two other neighbours also arrived, later a third. There was distilled rice wine aplenty in shot glasses. It's more a spirit than a wine and there was much toasting and Mot, Hai, Ba YO! at which you have to drain your glass and tip it up to prove you have drunk it all. There was a huge spread of food as you will see and I ate the pigs ears and whatever else was in the vegetable mix. It was a wide combination of foods and I can't give names to them except local delicacy. Trams sister Tra was there and later her boyfriend Loat turned up as well as another friend, life is so different in a small commune, it is one big family.
I liked the way no one overstayed their welcome, the brickie and his mate left quickly after they ate and drank and made room for the latecomers.
I rode back to the hotel following Tram on her new secondhand scooter which I helped buy for her birthday. Cost her 2 milliion, so cheap and its a nice little bike. On the way we got caught in a torrential downpour so a quick stop and on with the rain capes and to the hotel and my soft bed with pillows way too thick.
Visit to Trams family
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Tam Ky, Quảng Nam, Vietnam
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