You have heard about Hasnoor already, well, Barbara introduced him to a new teacher from her school, Josh, and now they are best friends who love to party together. Josh, who says he had a hard time getting a date in the USA is living the bachelor life and loving it. They like to party they told Barbara that have to wild of a time together, they say, "It's Barbara's fault.," because she introduced them. Though these guys are 20 years younger than Barbara, she spends a lot of time with them. One of the best parts of being among a small group of English speakers in a foreign country is that you create a bond and differences in country of origin, age, etc, don't matter. Instant friends!
Today, Barbara was starving as usual and we went down to the new Sky Pool cafe for lunch. As we were turning the corner, Hasnoor was seated at a large table filled with food. A local guy was hosting and Josh was serving one of his cocktail creations. Barbara has been taste testing these cocktails that Khoa is going to let the guys sell at Tony Cafe, and she keeps telling them, "Add 2 tablespoons of sugar." You see, the Vietnamese love sugar. Just like the my previous example of the guacamole, you would be shocked to know to what they add sugar.
Barbara was also working on something to sell at Tony Cafe, cookies. However, the project did not succeed for 2 reasons:
1. Most Vietnamese food consists of boiled noodles so homes do not have ovens and the only one available to Barbara is Pat's light bulb over. Cookies don't cook well with only a lightbulb. 2.Vietnamese do not eat cookies. Yesterday was the bi-monthly children's birthday party at the school, complete with cake, cotton candy and a magician. At the end of the party, with 60 kids in attendance, plates of oreo cookies remained untouched. Can you imagine? Here is another interesting cultural note. There was a limited amount of cotton candy yet the cones were placed on the table for anyone to grab. Several kids took more than one and most were left with none. Not a word was said to the greedy kids. Ha, try that anywhere else and you'll have a guilt trip put on you.
Khoa is quite the entrepreneer. He is now thinking of starting his own English school and hiring Arin and Barbara to run it. Awhile ago, Arin starting teaching English to Khoa's two children, Khoa introduced Arin to more children and now Arin has 12 students in our little apartment school
Advice: If you are hesitant to go to a new country where you don't know anyone, consider applying at a school to teach English or find a volunteer opportunity.
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