Thoughts on contentment

Hanoi is hot. And getting hotter. The dog days are here! It tops 37 degrees most days, the little rain that falls barely touches the steaming streets. I am rethinking my choice to live life without air conditioning.. I miss sleep.

Summer school has begun. My lesson.. is patience and how love works. I'm a foundation builder, a bringer of knowledge, a sign holder, door opener.. Working with small children requires an extremely open heart. (And ample sleep is actually the most important resource a teacher can possess.)

My kids have got me thinking about happiness.

I wonder at adults, and how people get trapped within in cycles of negativity, unhappiness and anger. It's a short life and as we get older, we seem to absorb and collect our negative beliefs. Why is change and disappointment so difficult to take in stride? And why does past negativity so affect future thoughts and actions?

The difference between little kids and adults is they live in the moment. Negative or positive is simply judged as it is, felt, then let go. Life is happiness until it is sadness, and it is only sad for as long as the cause remains. So.. life is mostly happiness.

My kindergarten lesson this month is letting go of past and viewing my current thoughts, anger, worry, sadness etc with no judgement, asking... how do I feel in this moment? In this exact moment, how do I actually feel? Now... right now.

..perfectly fine.

Maybe there is nothing that can be negative if you throw away your preconceptions, prior judgments, expectations of others, labels and past.. it's a very Eckhardt Tolle thing to say I know. But being fully present in the moment without thoughts from the past, or worry about the potential future, is the only real life we have.

Many hats...many jobs!

Today, I was a Business Development Manager...once again. It's funny because in Australia.. it wasn't really my job either...

My work is so varied. Last month, marketing. I wrote a website, brochures, mail outs... and yes, as someone pointed out.. I've become a spammer.
www.kidsfun.vn

My business development hat today.. involved meeting the director of one of the largest and fastest growing real estate firms in Hanoi.. Ciputra. Mega bucks, multi multi mega bucks. One of the 'nicer' apartments costs around 180 thousand billion dong!!

Ciputra is a bizarre gated community between the airport and the city. Eight ghoulish black horses stand atop the imposing gates, its huge walls protect large wallets from the outside world. Imagine Vienna mixed with Singapore...with fountains with horses and naked children in strange postures.

Walking into a cathedral-sized foyer and was nearly bowled over by the receptionist who ran out to shake my hand. The owner of all the opulence that surrounded me was man who oozed money, from the top of his shiny head to the soles of his well-heeled feet. He dripped with the calm, secure knowledge (belief) that he was completely in control of his world. The experience was surreal, I pondering the lives of the rich for a good while after my meeting..

...Sunday was our Open Day...

Back to normal like, and up at 1am drinking wine, cooking psychedelic playdough and painting macaroni in my underwear (it's ridiculously hot here.) The day was busy..traditional artisans, music, games and lots of happy, fat babies meeting their teachers.

Now I'm co-writing a the summer school program at the kindergarten.

A very new hat.

Nursery rhymes is our theme for the next 7 weeks of summer school...it was mildly tempting to make it Dr Seuss ...

.. haha, 7 weeks of stripey cats in hats, and frogs in socks might be a little intense for small, developing brains!!

:)

I've just had internet connected again, so I'm free for more skypee chats!

Less stress, more cake!

Ok, so being a vegan is a ridiculous amount of fun!

Never mind about people's shocked looks when you tell them you've cut eggs, dairy and cheese from your diet...

I didn't think I would cook or eat so much aaamazing food. (Which maybe it's not so good, the speed at which my waistline is expanding is a little frightening.)

Actually being so conscious of the food I cook and eat is very nice. I find myself looking at each ingredient, studying menus and the backs of packets, adding nuts and seeds, extra colourful veges and experimenting a lot!

And making friends, I recently hosted a few vegan dinner parties with not a single stirfry or carrot stick in sight :) lovely people with the desire to live a more environmental, kinder and pure gastronomic lifestyle.

Ok, so I like cake. My first chocolate cake bombed! The second wasn't much better and the third, well, more like chocolate putty. Finally, when I thought of giving up ever eating a moist, rich chocolate cake, my angel couch surfer, Lisa, introduced me to...wait for it...

..chocolate zucchini vegan cake!

I will graciously post a recipe here, because the love must be spread.

Mix in a big bowl all the dry ingredients

2C plain fl
2C brown sugar
3/4C unsweetened cocoa
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Then add the wet ones and mix it all around

2 x smooshed banana
3/4C vege oil
3/4C apple sauce

THEN... add 3 cups of magical grated zucchini and mix it in!

Bake on 'very hot' for 1 hour or just test it every now and then... cover in icing or real chocolate (if you're not vegan-ly inclined), add nuts and stuff...

Cook it! Cook it! It's incredible, and I dare you to find a single zucchini piece, they magically disapear!

test

'THE' Traffic

I realised I haven't posted about traffic here! Hmm, strange, when you arrive it's the first thing you notice and the ONLY thing you talk about. And it's nuts.

After almost a year, the 'flow' still baffles me. It's like a metal ballet, like walking on water... it's surreal how a system based loosely on the simple adage 'don't HIT anything' can possibly work, and yet it does...mostly.

Take a look at this youtube link to see what I mean.... then... a few tips!

www.youtube.com/crazy_hanoi_intersection

Haha, ok mum don't freak out. It's organized chaos, seemingly insane...and yes, it is a little. But there is method to the madness, it takes a while to get 'driving eyes'...the rule when driving is - take care of what is in front of you and the other guy will do the same. Strangely, it works.

As a pedestrian, remember drivers judge where you are 'going to be', not where you are when they see you. With this in mind, although it goes against every instinct, DO NOT STOP when you see a bike or car coming straight for you.

1. Walk at a slow, consistent pace
2. Don't make any erratic movements - yes, even if there is a pile of something disgusting in your path.
3. Try not to make eye contact - difficult at first, but it gets easier
4. Don't wear earphones, being able to hear the traffic is a good thing sometimes
5. Remember, they have brakes. And they do/should/usually use them.

^. And finally, just take a deep breath and step out. You'll be surprised.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I've decided to go vegan...

It's Week One... so...we'll see how it pans out. But for the short term at least, I am going to be a very conscious eater.

There are many reasons (and we all know why)...I want to be more self sufficient and not rely on wee animals, it's the 21st century - we're educated and it's easy to stay healthy, the environmental impact, it's lower in fat and better for my heart and cholesterol...

...and one look at the PETA website is enough to turn anyone's gastronomic habits in a better direction! Ack, let's face it who wants to eat tortured animals.

There's a whole world of amazing, simple and delicious food out there that doesn't involve any animal participation. I've cooked nachos, vege burgers, spinach quiche, pesto pasta, mushroom steaks and actually... I think I may actually eating BETTER than I was before!

As I type a delicious chocolate cake is bubbling away in my oven! And it's totally guilt-free...well, almost... I didn't say fat-free did I!

UPDATE: The chocolate cake was terrible...and so was the second attempt...hmm..at least my drumming group enjoyed them! It's back to the chocolate cake drawing board.

Jobs in Hanoi

Wanna know the worst job in Hanoi?

Yep, you guessed it...

... EGG DELIVERY MAN!

I tried to find a photo to aptly describe the ridiculousness of this job on Hanoian streets. Because the traffic here is something else... let alone the quality of the roads.

Anyway, about a month after I arrived, I saw the most amazing thing. A motorbike covered in thousands of eggs stacked high in crates. The delivery man was literally surrounded back, top and sides, by eggs.

The look of sheer terror on his face was unforgettable.

(And I thought teaching 30 five year old's required concentration.)

On Houses

And if it wasn't already clear from my last post. I adore my new space!

I have finally taken some photos and popped them up with comments and the like...mainly for you mumma!
www.flickr.com/photos/tabithatravels

I feel a little house crazy, so I think Khalil Gibran describes it best when he says...

"Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls. For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.


Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless.

Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop? Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.

Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.

But these things are not yet to be.

In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields. And tell me, people of 'the world', what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind? Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.

Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed. Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night."

Khalil Gibran

Ambient Hanoi

yo, yo, here we go
the Hanoi choir calls

Chicken, horn, baby, horn...
Chicken, hammering, car rumble...
Neighbours fighting, dog whine...
Oooh surprise... two seconds of silence!
Horn, chicken, dog bark...
baby, car..

On a good Friday karaoke, militant Vietnamese... "mot, hai, ba" floats to my ears.
On a bad Friday the cries of the dead in a literal seance, the screaming and wails assail my senses drinking quietly in third floor flat

After the rains, fat frogs chirp happily in my drain pipes
mad geckos screech fight, flight (or fall) on the walls
Water drip, drips and spatter in noisy luscious lines, running rivulets down my ceiling

In the soft afternoon, harsh voices swirl amidst the pigeons flatter flutter and the general wail of you 'sandwiches, hot cakes, fresh breads..and cake sellers, fruit ladies, bread men and flower ladies tune their vocal instruments to an ear splitting key..

I love the lazy ones with an amplifier attached to bicycle with the pre-recorded static distorting across the power lines into my window..
to my un-Vietnamese mind the sticky rice lady selling ang soi dah sounds like "Asshole Day, Asshole Day" over and over.

my ears have factored in the honking and disseminated it into nothing..constant honking for me is just fine.

Dog, baby, horn, car...

And so goes the ambient base-beat of Hanoi...and I live in a particularly quiet part of town.