Yup, Ha Noi, two words. You see, each word in Vietnamese can only have one syllable, so they make two syllable words into two words. The word for auto is o-to. And it goes like that.Here are Dinh, Fr. Bill, and Son (our driver for the day) walking around Turtle Lake. There is a great story about why it is called that. You can see how the rain keeps the grass so beatifully green.
Part of what we had to do was to mail 116 letters to France. These were written by the children in Vietnam who are being sponsored by very nice people abroad. The children write their letters in Vietnamese, and Dinh and Vinh get the ominous job of translating all of them, all 116 of them. Then, when the return letter arrive from France, Dinh and Vinh have to translate from the French to Vietnamese. This is a never ending cycle, but one that helps the children immensely. The sponsors pay for the children's school fees (it costs to go to school here) and their supplies. Here, Son is stamping Par Avion on each letter.
It took us 45 minutes to mail the letters because each had to be individually weighed and stamped. While we were in the main post office across from the lake, it stormed. It was like a monsoon; it looked pretty, but it was very very wet.
Before we left Ha Noi, we were visited by two friends of Dinh. On the left is Hiep, an engineering major in college, and in the middle is Ha, a teacher of French.
Son finds friends wherever he goes. While waiting, he took up a conversation with a fun lady who was coming out of the cathedral bookstore. I didn't get her name, but she was smiling all the time..
And finally, we got a visit from Nam and his mother. It was great to see them again (Hi, Nam!). It is always good to see good friends. We will not see each other for a while, so it was a sad parting.
