Just got on-line again. Electricity been on and off for several days. The electricity was turned off the evening before the storm hit and was out for two days. It was turned on again yesterday during the day and turned off at 10:00pm. Usually the gov’t turns it off around 10:00pm and then on again at 7:00am.
Yesterday, it was an experience bicycling along the streets after the hurricane ended. I rode the mountain bike and had to ride through water 6″ above the pedals — my feet were completely underwater. I had to go into the lowest gear and plow through the water.
The water was so large and deep that it felt like I was bicycling through the “Hue Municipal Swimming Pool.” Even the downtown main street hasn’t what we would consider basic drainage.
Six thousand years of living here and either the Vietnamese still haven’t mastered the knowledge that water flows downhill and they need to install drainage pipes under the roads or the corruption is so great that it sucks away the funds for municipal improvements.
Lest you think I’m exaggerating, absolutely no survey was done before they decided to concrete the road that runs along the front of the house. They just dumped truckloads of clay soil which each home owner spread between the concrete road and the front of their property. When it rains now the road serves as a mini-river and 6″ of water pools at several locations along the just-built road.
Hi Chris, Mai and Megan and dog named Chow—-
Sorry I haven’t commented. I have been waiting for reply from you. I have been checking and checking your blog, log, and what all. I hope things get back to normal. We watch the weather channel and we see lots about the 48 states, but hardly nothing about rest of world.
Over here the buzz is all about Foley and the folly of the Republicans: they are in the can, the Republicans are in the shit can it seems: the Christian right now see the Rebublicans for what they are—shit cans. But I do not feel bad for them. And I fear they will steal yet another election to keep control of both houses so as to avoid getting Bush and his henchmen investigated for crimes against humanity.
I fail to understand how the party of Lincoln has gone from the liberators to the enslavers of reason. They were supposedly the good guys during our civil war ( it really was not civil!!!) but somehow became the party of richies.
I myself did not care or understand politics till I took poli sci at the local institution of higher learning in ‘96? My old man in Des Moines, Iowa was a democrat and so I saw the Democratic Party as the one being the good guy. I still have trouble understanding how it all works. I follow politics very closely and see that the problem lies not with the politicians but with the ones who vote and do not vote: the electorate. It is so hard and so sad to see Americans not care about what is going on in the world. They will say how they lie and they are all the same. Why vote they will say to me. It;s hopeless. What is so hopeless is how helpless Americans are. I suppose our democracy will go away and then they will have something to moan about? Is is the way to go the VN way? What about our way of life: capitalism? Is it the best way for people of poor means and ignorance? Well;;; so much for now. Take care of yourselves and be happy things are not any worse in the land of Communism. Joseppe and Ruth luts of love to you!!!