Thai LOVES his orange crocs and the shades. Wore the shoes all day--might be the first time, judging from the cuts on his feet and the number of times he fell as he walked around today!
This is Duyen, a very sweet 11 year old. She loves the babies, and loves Thai. She was so sweet, Cynthia really fell in love with her. She wrote Cynthia a note in English that said "Duyen love Cynthia", then asked if she could come to Thai's Giving and Receiving Ceremony. Amazingly enough, the Director said okay. So Cynthia bought her a red dress (her favorite color) to wear tomorrow. It's going to be one tear jerker day though. Will be very hard to say goodbye.
We stopped along the street to watch people harvest rice. You can't see it, but to the left the rice goes in (which looks like wheat), and then it's stripped and this lady catches it in a basket (the one squatting) which is piled high as could be like a pyramid before switching baskets. Fascinating!
Rice used to be the biggest export product from Vietnam, but according to our driver, who seems to be the world's biggest expert on all things Vietnam, it is coffee. This area is not known for its rice production because of the amount of salt and brackish water. The coffee, btw, is amazing!! They fix it with sweetened condensed milk. We also are quite in love with the dragon fruithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_fruit--a cactus like plant which is a work of art to look at, as is the fruit, and is quite unusual inside--milk white with lots of little poppy seed-looking things. Apparently, Vietnam JUST started exporting dragon fruit to the US. Look for it at Whole Foods. It tastes a little like a kiwi.
