Three weeks and counting

Actually it was three to go...fillings that is, as well as weeks. All done now.

So, Friday 25th May. Calidore is 17th months today. And we now have exactly three weeks left in Vietnam. This time in three weeks, we'll be having out last morning in work at ISHCMC - the kids go home early, midday I think. We go home at about 2.30 and we'll have to leave (as in LEAVE!) our house at about 6pm to get our flight...A last minute play at Riverside and a mango/pasionfruit smoothie for the road? Perhaps, if the cat has been taken care of by then.

Tonight we have a baby-sitter and will be heading up to a very plush restaurant on the top floor of the Sheraton Hotel, overlooking Saigon. One of those things we've been meaning to do, but never quite got round to...

Furniture has started to disappear from the house - not of its own volition, I might add - and the all-too-familiar sight of half-packed boxes encroaches...

Teeth

I lost a filling just over a week ago and went to a somewhat upmarket dental clinic, given that my insurance through work now covers such luxuries. The photos-in-the-mouth tricks I can do without, but the instant x-ray gimmickry is fairly impressive. Even if it does reveal that 11 of your existing fillings need drilling out and replacing with a scarily high-tech sounding high-impact composite. I have two left to go, this afternoon.

Oh joy.

In the absence of other inspiration...

We all love animals. Why do we call some "pets" and others "dinner?" ~k.d. lang

because we don't care...or because we don't think?

What to do with the cat...

Two years or so ago, I was intrigued by a mewing sound outside the house which I couldn't quite place. It seemed to be coming from our 'garden' but I couldn't find the culprit. Needless to say, he eventually turned up, 400 grams or so of frightened and hungry Siamese kitten.

At the time, the closest our daughter could come to saying 'miaow' was 'bao', which quiclky became the cat's name. For some reason that became doubled - bao bao - and, as she developed her linguistic prowess, Monsieur Bao Bao. This is what we call him to this day.

Now we are leaving Vietnam. An integral part of the family, he will be coming with us. But we're off to France first for 2 months, which means he needs looking after. The ex-pat community here flies the coup for the long vacation, so we have to resort to catteries. Having checked out one such place here - a two-foot cubed metal barred cage - we're investigating provision in Bangkok, which is where we're heading to after France.

Mmm...feeling just a tad guilty and sorry for M. Bao Bao...

Loreto Vietnam

The colour sample came back and was fine. I have Monday 28th May as delivery date. The book will be on sale at ISHCMC Grade5 Exhibition, with 20% of profits being donated to the Loreto foundation in Vietnam. Loreto runs several programmes in Vietnam:

The program's two shelters for street children in Ho Chi Minh City, Sunrise House for girls and Sunlight House for boys, takes in children from the streets or unhappy family situations and provides them with a safe home.

The program helps to put these children into neighbouring schools to learn to read and write or into vocational training centres, where they receive training for future employment.

In the shelters the children experience a sense of security and receive counselling about health issues such as drugs and sexual transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS.

Many of the children also suffer from the legacy of chemical warfare, medical problems during pregnancy, hereditary traits and unhygienic living conditions.

There are about 70,000 children who are blind in Vietnam and of the 5.2 million disabled people, many who have lost arms or legs or both to the unexploded landmines left after the war, about 22,000 disabled children live in Ho Chi Minh City.

LVAP is involved in the Nguyen Dinh Chieu School where more than 200 blind children are taught English to help them increase their job prospects.

The program also provides financial support for a music program and to train teachers.

LVAP also supports the Sunrise Special School in Ho Chi Minh City to help train teachers in theory-based disability studies, participatory approaches for children's learning and community based rehabilitation.

Visit my website to order your copy of 'Benny and Binny' and make a contribution to the valuable work of this charity.

Samples

I am due to get the colour sample of 'Benny and Binny' today - a historical moment. My first published children's book will be in print and available in ten days' time if I sign off on the sample today...

Maybe one day I'll be able to do this full time. Meanwhile, thoughts are turning to teaching Drama and Geography next year in secondary school. I must brush up on my Shakepeare, forsooth!

Plutarch on Pythagoras

"Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?" ~Plutarch

The more I think about it, the more abhorrent it becomes. I also stumbled across this little gem from The Old Testament, no less:

“Whoever slaughters an ox is like one who kills a human being; whoever sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; whoever presents a grain offering, like one who offers swine’s blood; whoever makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. They have chosen their own ways and in their abominations they take delight.”
Isaiah 66:3

Thinning down the guitar collection...

As part of the moving process, I'm reducing my guitar collection by two - a SAND acoustic and a SANGWHA electric. It will give me more of a chance to regularly play the other two, at least. Sniff.

Adverts

Not sure about these Googlified adverts, but I thought I'd at least try them out. It's not too invasive...

My son has four teeth pushing through together and my daughter has tonsils the size of golf balls. Isn't being a parent just wonderful?

The countdown

Actually, I am operating two countdowns. One of these is professionally helpful. The kids are running their PYP Exhibition in two weeks time, so there is a 10 school-day countdown on the board. It's good, as this helps me focus as well. After the Exhibition, there will be two weeks of, well, not thumb-twiddling exactly, but, shall we say, less focus...

Leaving is always hard to do well, I find. And we have booked our flights for the evening of our last day at work, so it really is as though we are running off at the earliest possible moment. Actually it's more that we're keen to get to France, to the house we bought last summer, and start working on it. Keen to see family too. Keen to leave Vietnam? No, not especially. We've had good times here - many more than bad, at any rate. It's also the only home our kids have ever known.

After 6 years, we have 4 weekends left then. That's 33 days. Including today.

Quotation time again...

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other....

~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Vegetarianism at its most simple...

800 million people are hungry and there’s no need.

We could easily produce enough food to feed everyone, if only we stopped feeding all the crops to the animals.

100kg of plant protein produces only 9kg of beef protein or 31kg of milk protein.

Doesn’t it make sense to just eat the plants?

Book Signing

I'm having a book signing at ISHCMC, which is kind of easy to arrange as it's the school where I work... Actually the kids are having an Action Day in support of a local charity (Wildlife at Risk) and I thought I'd piggy back the event and donate a percentage of profits to the same cause. Two birds with one stone, as it were. I get exposure and readership and WAR gets much needed funds.

There is potential to do the same with 'Benny and Binny' (which comes out in two weeks, incidentally) and an Exhibition the Grade 5 students are organising on the theme of Children's Rights and Responsibilities.

alpha to omega

Tuesday 15th August I have broken free! I feel like a character from ‘The Great Escape’; I can hear the theme tune in my head, see the steely grimace on McQueen’s face. I feel like breaking into a run, clicking my heels together, Andy Capp style. The sheer exhilaration of it! Was I so fed up with England that I feel this elated to be free of it? Apparently so. As the taxi pulled up to my new apartment Rachel shouted down to ask, in Greek, how much it was. The taxi driver promptly reduced his fare by almost half, dumped my bags brusquely on the street and took my money most ungraciously before slamming his door after him and speeding off, tyres squealing as he went. Welcome to Greece.

Five minutes later, re-united with Rachel and Richard, I was sat on a balcony in 32 degrees of Mediterranean sunshine, drinking gin and tonic with a slice of lemon, memories of a cold and damp northern England already faded. Yes! I think I’m going to like it here.

Later, in the privacy of my own room, I am assailed by the enormity of what I have done. I have always believed that a few short hours, minutes or seconds even, given the right circumstances, can change your life. Here I am, my life changed! I look out of the French windows, wondering vaguely why they are called that, and see mountains in the near distance. The cloudless sky is a brilliant blue. The heat is oppressive, but feels good nonetheless. I feel inspired. I feel alive.

What limits the ‘is’?

Fear

Take heart

Take a deep breath

Boldly step forward

Into your life.

Only you can do this

Only you can create regrets

For decisions not made

Chances not taken.

Only you can be true enough

To yourself

To allow yourself

To live.

I have this slightly uncomfortable feeling that I have come here to run away. Bollocks to it. What's wrong with running away? "He who fights and runs away…”

I throw my backpack onto the double bed. It’s the one I bargained for outside a pub in north London only two days ago from the guy who used to live here. Seventy-five quid for a double bed, matching desk and weird-looking hat stand. Not bad, I think, now that I see them. I need to sit down and breathe deeply and resist the temptation to giggle like a child. I have stepped out of my predictable life in England. I have stepped out of an impending marriage, of kids too-soon-to-be-able-to-offer-them-anything, of mortgages and debts, of the future I was following, my pre-ordained Hell. Now my future is no longer the claustrophobic place I didn't want to visit; it's wide open, full of uncertainty and possibilities I can't yet see. I like this feeling. Slightly understated, that.

I can't face unpacking just yet, so I shall wander downstairs to where I hear ice cubes clinking invitingly…

Doldrums

Not writer's block, as such, but just that annoying stage when one project hasn't quite finished, but is out of my hands and I can't do anything about it now. Waiting for licensing approval from communist authorities...