So what keeps Graeme busy all day?? Oh, and what's for dinner?

 

Our view does not get old...sunset over Saigon...

So, trying to get back on track and keep friends and families up to speed on Graeme's life in Vietnam.  But to start things off, we finally got a housekeeper!  We weren't exactly stressed about it or rushing to find one but I did interview about 5 people and we lost out on offers to 2 others...throw in a couple of "no-shows" and well, I guess we really did put some effort into it!  We've hired Ms. Huy (please don't ask me how it is pronounced).  She comes 5 days per week to keep the place clean and she cooks us authentic Vietnamese meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Homeade Pho for everyone!

So far we've had the best Pho we've ever tasted, pork chops/veggies/rice, spaghetti bolognese (OK so maybe that isn't Vietnamese)...Her meals are better then what we've been getting in the restaurants and the portions are feeding us 2 or 3 times with leftovers..Crazy because as she buys the ingredients for the meals from the market - she gets a way better price then if you are say, 6ft tall with blonde hair - the meals net down to between $3-$6usd and we are getting multiple meals out of them.  May need to move this to a 5 day/wk plan!

Pork Chops..mmmm!

Some of you "Westerners" may be scratching your heads thinking - why do they need a housekeeper?  Isn't Brian not working?  Well, a few things - Graeme hasn't started Daycare yet so, yes, I am working.  Also - it's way different here then in the states as to having to keep up the cleanliness of your house.  The heat and humidity ruin everything if left untouched for even a short amount of time.  Imagine this scenario - the major cleaning you would do in your house every 1-3 weeks needs to be done every day here (floors swept and mopped, bathrooms cleaned from top to bottom, kitchen cleaned from top to bottom) and the major-major cleaning you do every month or two needs to be done weekly.  Add that you are hang drying your laundry with only so much space to actually hang it - making laundry a daily occurrence - and voila!  You need a housekeeper..It doesn't hurt that it is incredibly affordable and pretty much just part of the culture here.  Plus we like having our undies ironed ;)

Chix legs and spinach

I have been getting better with the rice-cooker and honing my wok skills, trying to keep us out of the restaurants the other nights....

Wok Don't Run

Fresh homeade spring rolls

Ok... so back to Graeme's activities....well we are surrounded by beautiful parks in our district..unfortunately none of them have any playground equipment.  I've been told they used to but the weather just ate them up and the maintenance was too great to keep them around.  So around here you "Pay to Play"..There are playgrounds indoors in the Mall and some other random buildings.  Also there are alot of spots to paint ceramics, play Lego's, play music, etc...

Graeme prefers the playground in the Mall right by our house.  We go there a bunch. It's about $2 to get in and the kids go nuts.  Sometimes it's just us and a few other kids, sometimes it's a complete madhouse with dozens of kids running rapid!

 Also - we have a kick a** pool at our building...Graeme has become quite the swimmer!  He can make it almost all the way across that sucker all by himself!  Click Here to see a video we got of him crushing it.

 There is also a "Sandy Bottom Pool" near our house.  We've been there to meet up with other families and their kids to let the little buggers rip.  Kinda neat, the kiddie pool has a sandy bottom and there is a larger pool attached with tile.  You can order food and drinks and post up under a rooftop in case when it rains.

We finally got to hang out with Carter again.  Graeme and Carter spent a bunch of time together playing when we were living in the hotel.  Carter is 4 and started school a few weeks ago so it's been tough to nail down play dates lately with him...

Graduating class of 2029

We were able to wedge Graeme into the pre-school/daycare we were looking into...they had an incredibly long wait-list (parents paying to be on the list when their kids were 6 months old and the daycare doesn't start until they are 2!).  It's called Kids Club and they have 2 locations in our district.  It's a husband/wife team from Portland.  She used to teach at SSIS and he was the head of the PTA.  They have 2 kids who go to SSIS - a very close connection with the school which I am positive had a bearing on the fact that we got a spot in the school.

"I think I need to dye my hair"

He's going 3 days/week in the mornings.  Not the most rigourous schedule but here it is different then in the states.  They are taking 2yr olds out of their parents hands for the first time.  They really, slowly get the kids into the daycare routine and spend 2 years preparing them for kindergarten.  Unlike in the US - the Kids Club was blown away when I told them Graeme was in full-time daycare at 10 months old (and we thought we were late to that game!)

Graeme's favorite subject at school.

The people are super friendly and there is a 3:1 ratio of kids to teacher.  The daycare is in a huge villa with 5 floors and each floor has a different purpose. The kids move up and down the floors depending on the activity and it really helps keep their interest level up. 

We went twice this week as a "transition" days...I stayed with him so as to get him (re)used to the routine.  The second day I ducked out after about an hour and came back at the end.  He cried for a minute at some point looking for me but Ms. Cori said he got over it quickly.  Our first
"real" day is next Wednesday..then we leave for California the next day for 10 days so looks like our routine will take awhile to set in...

Cafe culture is huge here - they are everywhere and everyone seems to be sitting at one.  Coffee (iced, hot, black, condensed milk, Vietnamese, Americano), Tea, Fresh Juice and Smoothies are the call of the day at these spots.  Graeme fits right in thanks to his addiction introduction to smoothies from his Poppy in California...




We also like to hit up the outside along the river...it's really beautifully landscaped and neat to see the different boats going by.  Some look ancient while others are pushing barges of dirt and cement to help push Saigon into the future.

Boys + Sticks = Heaven

Our house...Center building, floor 8!

These are avocado's.  Yes.  Avocado's.

We are still settling in a bit...but obviously not having to deal with as much stuff as in the beginning.  Some things are still terribly hard to figure out and/or accomplish here.  Some things that would normally take a few minutes online or an hour of running errands can take literally hours and hours to accomplish.  But it's been great to be able to get Graeme into some playgrounds, pools, play-dates and daycare.  Letting him do "kid-stuff" has really been a pleasure.  We dragged him all over the place while we frustrated in the heat trying to find a place to live, settle in, Erin start a new job, etc...he was an incredibly patient and well mannered 2 year old for several weeks so it's nice to finally let him be a 2 year old again.  You can actually see a change in his demeanor.

We have a 3 day weekend coming up then a trip back to California for Brittany and Jason's wedding!  We are looking forward to their big day!  Graeme is excited to "carry the rings" for them..cannot wait!

If you'd like to Skype us best times are your Friday/Saturday evenings (our Saturday/Sunday mornings).  Seems to work best as far as time change goes and we have the time to relax and chat.

Hoà Bình,

The Hawken's in HCMC
#thetaoofgraeme

Why is Greame even in Vietnam anyway???

Your school had a similar value system, right?  My High School had a smoking lounge....

Ever since the day I met Graeme's mom, Erin has talked of living internationally, traveling and seeing what else is out there.  She managed to pull off a stint just out of college and lived/worked for a year in Scotland.  But, as they say, "You can take the girl out of Lodi but you can't take the Lodi out of the girl"!  She stood no chance there as the average temperature in Scotland is "frigid"; compared to where she grew up and the average temperature is "nuclear".  So, home she came and  (lucky for me!) stuck around Nor-Cal for awhile....

Flash forward to about one year ago...doing a personal inventory on life, Erin approached me with the "what are we doing and where are we going and why?" questions...We took a look at where we were at, what we wanted to accomplish and discussed options.  We decided it best if she look into finding a job abroad in education.  She had known a few people who had done it and knew there were a few agencies out there that helped facilitate it.  We were pretty clueless how the whole thing worked but, nevertheless, the process began...

We were hoping to have the hoops jumped through and be vetted by International School Services before Thanksgiving.  It's quite an intense process, I even had to bust out my Creative Writing skills and prepare an essay (but then again, I always good at bullsh**ing writing).  After all was said and done, Erin's profile was complete around Christmas time.

Was this how you were greeted at your school?

There was a conference scheduled in San Francisco for early February (referred to by those in International Education as a "Cattle Call").  We didn't have a clue as to how the process really worked.  This would prove to be an advantage for Erin...

Basically, if you've been to college pre-computer era and have had to sign up for classes by running to a large room and waiting in line to see if you can get it, that is what these conferences are like.  They open the doors and you rush to a school you know has an opening and that you'd like to work for.  Not an easy task considering the amount of people looking for the same jobs as you at the same schools. 

Erin figured this out beforehand and while still working full time at South San Francisco High School, decided she couldn't spend 3 or 4 workdays at the conference.  She took action, got on the email, the phone and Skype to arrange interviews prior to the conference as well as schedule interviews during the conference but with set times and places versus waiting in line.  She was able to nail down 9 interviews with schools all over the world.  Places like Oman, Mumbai, Dominican Republic, South Korea......  Erin was not waiting in line, she was making it happen. 

She had a met with 9 schools and recieved offers from 7.  An 8th wanted to bring her on but she lost out to another counselor who had previous international experience.  That was OK because the hiring manager became a great mentor in the whole process and gave us great scope, guidance and clarity on how the entire thing works.  This is a very small, global community and having a person like that on your side is priceless.  It is very much a "who do you know" world out there and Erin is getting the know the right people.

The process was proving a bit stressful.  We didn't realize that when you go to this conference be prepared to have your bags packed.  When you get the nod you are heading to "insert name of country here" 6 months later.  I don't think we thought that part through enough at the time so there was some anxiety tied up in our decision making.  We had developed some criteria though as to what we were looking for as a family:  warm, able to live on 1 salary, not regress financially, be able to travel easily from where we were living, connection with the schools set of values as well as fellow educators, as well as a few others.  

Saigon wasn't really on the radar yet.  Erin had met with the Interim Head of School in her hotel room - the appointment was cancelled several times because she was flying from Boston where a huge snow storm had hit, but Erin tracked her down!  The Head of School was very interested in Erin but wanted her to connect with the Principal (who was traveling on summer vacation) via Skype a few days later.  Meanwhile offers started coming in from other schools and they wanted answers.  We had whittled it down to South Korea.  For some reason there was tons of anxiety and flip-flopping on our end making the decision.  We decided to sleep on it and if the answer was "no" then we'd wait until the next winter's conference to look into it again.  At least we'd be educated on how it all works and be able to go into it with a much clearer position.

Well the sun came up and the answer was "no".  A bit relieved I reminded Erin to cancel her Skype with the Principal at Saigon South International School as a courtesy.  I was leaving to take Graeme to daycare and the call was scheduled for that morning.  She said she was going to go through with the call anyway.  We went back and forth a bit - I was thinking we were on standby for the next round of conferences why waste this guys time?  Erin was thinking something different.

Not what my High School parking lot looked like.  No IROQ's here!!!

When I got back from dropping off Graeme and I saw Erin's face I knew we were moving to Vietnam!  She had such a great connection with the Principal, the schools values, the sense of purpose here and the challenge at hand.  We signed the contract that evening at the Head of School's hotelroom in SF.

Boom!

Since we've been here I've learned some interesting things about SSIS and what it means to be a part of it.  

For starters there were 22 positions open at the school for this year.  They received over 1,300 applications.  Erin was their only choice for her position.

We've met several people working here who have worked in as many as 7 or 8 different countries in as many as 20 years.  Many have been striving to get to this school based on it's reputation of the service it provides to it's students and support to its staff - Erin got the nod on her first international foray.

Everyone we've met associated with the school so far is top knotch, best-in-class, caliber.  That's why Erin is here too.

We are here on a 2 year contract.  After that if they like you and you like them you can sign on for longer.  We haven't come across anyone who hasn't stayed longer yet...seems once they land here it sticks.  Great combination of the Country, City, People and the School...

If we stay long enough Erin will help Graeme get into college!

SSIS is extremely family oriented when it comes to their staff.  Graeme and myself have been included in every step of the orientation the past few weeks and have been welcomed quite warmly.  I have access to my own SSIS email address to stay up on all the ancillary activities, travel perks, etc  We have access to the campus to use the pool, gym, playground and library.  It's a bit more like being adopted into a family versus starting a job with a new company (from the spouse perspective).

 If you haven't already reached out to Erin to congratulate her on her new position (or even if you already have do it again!) and what it took to get us here, please do.  She deserves it.  That is an understatement.  This is not an easy position to obtain and the experience it is affording our family is priceless.  Because of Erin's drive, passion, intelligence, make-it-happen-at-any-cost-ness, and ability to believe in a Dream, we are able to provide something for Graeme and our family that we used to only daydream about.  Graeme is learning new languages, new cultures, new foods, new people, new everything.  As well, next school year Graeme will start his education at a place and in a program that we would never be able to afford to provide him on our own in the U.S. (I am not sure a program he will be entering even exists there??)

So this post is for Erin (my Sugar Momma!) and to congratulate and thank her for who she is as well as let her know how much I love her and appreciate all that she does for Graeme and myself.

View from Erin's Office

Hòa Bình,

The Hawken Family in HCMC

#thetaoofgraeme

Declaring War against ants, learning how to shop for food

View from our living room does not suck.

 So - pushing the 2 1/2 week mark here in Vietnam and so far so good!  We have had to "deal" less and got to "settle in" more, but honestly don't think the "dealing" will end for awhile.  At least it's little things now...like really little.  Like - ant-sized.  There are ants here (lots of other bugs too but that will come later).  I am at war with them.  They have no rhyme or reason - don't necessarily come in when it's raining, or necessarily go after food.  I don't know what their deal is.  They are really really small ants and kind of reddish/see-through.  We keep an annoying amount of attention on keeping food binned up, crumbs picked up (an interesting concept with a 2 yr old eating) and water wiped up.  We've found a few of their entry points and bombed them with toxins but they just go away and find another way in...We go back to Cali in a few weeks for Brittany and Jason's wedding (which will be a blast!) and I plan on coming back here with an arsenal of ant-traps.  They have no chance.

 So Graeme still garners TONS of attention.  We shut down restaurants, our pool area, busy intersections waiting for a light to change, even have had scooters pull off the road to check him out! 

 He rolls with it most of the time but some days it's a toll and by the 5th person that wants to grab him out of my hands or pull him up and squeeze and kiss him he gets over it.  The other day they were filming a movie in our pool area (called "Idle" and coming out in January, keep an eye at the Megaplex for it!).  He shut the production down when we rolled up to go swimming - all eyes were on Graeme!  They were cool with us using the pool.  Then they asked Graeme if he wanted to be in the movie.  He said "No Thank You"!  Kids gonna have an ego the size of Texas...

  It kinda works in our favor if we are out to dinner.  Especially the last few weeks we were with large groups from the school.  The staff will usually grab him and whirl him away - free babysitting!  He usually comes back knowing a few more Vietnamese words and fists full of watermelons.  Somehow they don't speak English and he doesn't speak Vietnamese yet he ends up with his favorite fruit in his hands!

Graeme has picked up "Hello" "Thank You" "Goodbye" in pretty good Vietnamese.  He knows when to say them and to who.  Whenever Erin and I say them we get funny looks b/c we are butchering the language. 

You cannot imagine the reaction from people when he's cruising along

and they are staring at his hair and eyes in disbelief and he throws a
"Xin Chao" at them (hello) in just about perfect dialect.  They hit the floor...

 

One of my favorites so far is this family stuffed on the scooter - they pulled up to Graeme and I on our bike and just gawked at us for a few blocks.  I am glad I had my fish-eye lens with me...by the way - who is actually driving that thing???

 

Might not help that we roll around like this...the bike seat alone is enough to get stares, then they see Graeme and it's all over....

 We've had some questions from back home about why we are/were struggling a little bit with food.  Well, eating out is no problem.. You can eat very well here for very little money every meal of the day.  But our lifestyle in Cali was to eat 3 meals a day out of our refrigerator (with the occasional meal out).  So we wanted to start stocking the fridge and cooking as soon as we could.  Without realizing it, we had become quite the organic eaters at home.  When Graeme came along we made all his food - 99% organic.  Once he began eating the same meals as us we integrated more organic foods into our diet because of him.  We were probable 30% organic before him then probably 60 or 70 percent after.  Not militant about it but when it made sense, tasted better, etc. that's the way we went.  Fast forward to our first home cooked meal here...well, lets just say they don't have the same regulations on food here as in the US in regards to pesticides, fertilization, etc.  Let's also just say the tap water isn't quite what our bellies are used to.  Add to this the fact that Trader Joe's and Whole Foods haven't tapped this market yet...well that all leads to washing your veggies and fruits in a bin with water from a dispenser mixed with a solution called "Vegy" (you can use Clorox as well but just couldn't get myself to do that).  This takes TIME.  Also, stuff just doesn't last as long in the fridge due to the humidity/heat, so you cannot really stuff a weeks worth of groceries in there and expect it to all be good.  We asked around and found a great company called Organik (www.organikvn.com)  They have a little shop here in town, but even better they deliver from their farm in Dalat.  Straight to our door.  For $1usd.  Yes.  $1usd.  ONE US DOLLAR!  You order it online and pick the day and time for delivery.  You don't even give them a CC.  Just pay the guy when he shows up.  They are like clockwork too.  I order things at 4 or 5pm for 7am - 9am delivery the next day and pow - at 7:15am the bell rings.  You can do this everyday if you want.  Our first attempt we ordered what we needed for a nice stir fry dinner plus a few other things.  It was $7usd total.  So, yeah, these guys are bookmarked on our web browser and now we are feeling much better about what we are putting into our bodies.  Still have to wash it all but that's okay.  Once we get a housekeeper (still looking!) that will be their job.

Been busting out the wok skills that I honed in college - still some rust in my game but it is getting better.  Also still wrestling with the rice-cooker we bought.  Never used one before and add to that the instructions are in Vietnamese and well...we are shooting about 50% with getting the rice to come out how we want it so far.  Graeme hasn't had Mac N Cheese in like 2 weeks so we must be doing something right...

We've been exploring our neighborhood more and it's beautiful.  There are several stunning parks as well as a bunch of Cafe's (which we are hungrily learning that most don't sell food - just juices, smoothies, coffee's, teas).  Locals will sit at these places for hours talking with each other and sipping on drinks.  Funny because anywhere you go when you sit down you get iced green tea.  Then you order a drink.  And they keep refilling your green tea throughout.  Hydrate or die I guess!

I'm starting to fade a bit here so here are a bunch of shots from our neighborhood.  Graeme and I try to hit a different spot for lunch each day and finish with ice cream in the park before his nap time.  Then he likes to show off to Erin how he knows where everything in on the weekend!

Don't forget - Skype is FREE!  Also we found a great App called "whatsapp"  you can throw it on your phone (it's free for 1 year then they want you to pay 99 cents).  It lets us text back and forth for FREE.  We've been using it with people in USA and Canada and works great and is easier then emailing, fb'ing, etc...

Hope all is well...

Hoà bình,

The Hawken's in HCMC

#thetaoofgraeme