BEDBUGS: The War Was Lost

It's true, 79/8 Nguyen Huu Cau, Sai Gon, Viet Nam, has been infested with bedbugs. After discovering lines of bites on my arms last week, the problem was confirmed this past Sunday. The landlord came and sprayed Raid all over the room and the mattress. Unfortunately, this only coated the bug-infested mattress with chemicals and led to one mid-sized cockroach twitching in the middle of our empty room. I also had to throw away my pillow and Spongebob Squarepants pillowcase, which was a sad day. Matthias, my teddy bear, has also been to the laundry woman. Bad news. DiDi and I then requested a new mattress and the landlord just came and sprayed everything again. After a third call placed to him, he said he'd buy us a new mattress on Thursday. We have yet to see a new mattress and DiDi has moved into JP's room and I've been sleeping on a small Vietnamese mattress on the living room floor. Every morning I set the mattress against the hallway wall and rearrange the living room. It's working out for now but the landlord had better bring our new mattress soon. It looks like we've lost the bedbug war.








In terms of good news, I was able to substitute almost every morning and afternoon this week. Teaching still proves to be challenging and rewarding. I also have a brand new class that started on Friday night. This is a class of adults, all of whom are at least my age (and one or two women are my mother's age). The first class dragged by because they didn't want to talk much. They started to warm up at the end but I prefer to teach children for sure.

I also joined a gym right near our apartment. It's only $30 per month and has really nice machines--everything from treadmills to bikes to weights. Lockers, a locker room, and clean showers are also provided. It's like belonging to a gym in the U.S. which is really nice. I was feeling lazy and out of shape but have been going every day and really sprinting for half an hour straight. I'm trying the immersion plan haha.

This week has also been full of parties. There was a housewarming party for some of our friends on Saturday night as well as a going away party and a birthday party on Thursday night. Unfortunately, our friend Tom went back to New Zealand and our neighbors and friends Sarah and Seweryn went back to Germany all on Friday. The only good thing to come of this is that our other friend Inny has moved into Sarah and Seweryn's old apartment, which is two floors above ours. We helped her move in this morning after I finished teaching.

As usual, here are some of my favorite photos from this week:





















That's all for this week! Miss you all...