Day 5: A Visit to Bác Năm and Grandma

Day 5...it was a loong day. We rode out to Bac Nam's house, which is about an hour or so away. She lives more out in the country, which is nice and quiet. We (me, Mom, Ma Nam, Ma Muoi and Anh Dat) rode in a taxi van over there. The ride there was nice, kind of. It was nice in the sense that Anh Dat was trying extremely hard to talk with me. I brought my dictionary along in hopes that that might help us communicate, it did, kind of. Seeing him try so hard was making even me feel exhausted. Also, I'm the type of person who can't read in the car or else I'll get car sick, so talking and looking through the dictionary was making me feel nauseous. I had to eventually say "Em nam day chuc xieu(sp?) tai vi em bi oi." --> Translation: I'm going to lay here for a little because I feel nauseous. When we got there Bac Nam quickly and hospitably brought us into the house. She showed us where the picture of my late grandma sat on a shelf with pictures of others who had passed away. My grandma passed away in September of 2006, in Vietnam. It was kind of hard to actually face her death being on the other side of the world, it didn't seem real. But when my mom and I saw her picture there, we couldn't help but cry. After our eyes had dried, our family sat down to eat lunch. Bac Nam looks a lot like grandma, her face and just being there made memories of my grandma (Ba) rush through my head. She told us that Grandma used to ask about us, and that made me regret not calling her more often. After lunch, we went to visit her grave...there were more tears needless to day. There was a prayer, incense, and crying. Saying bye to Bac Nam was hard, especially when she started crying too. The drive back home was long and quiet.